Visualizing the Geography of Student Debt
Center for Data Innovation | READ STORY

The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, an economic research organization, has created Mapping Student Debt, a website which maps data about the $1.1 trillion in student debt owed by 42 million Americans. The map uses data from the U.S. Department of Education linked with tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service to compare household student loan balances and delinquency rates to medium income by zip code.

Speak Your Piece: Small-Town Suicides -Facing facts
Daily Yonder | READ STORY

The suicide rate is higher in rural areas, but some weekly newspaper editors won't run stories about self-inflicted deaths, reflecting community reluctance to talk about the issue. An editor in Tennessee took a different approach - covering basic information about such deaths and helping his county find a way confront the problem.

Global Fish Harvests Far Higher Than Official Figures, Study Says
Scientific American | READ STORY

Tens of millions more tons of fish have been taken from the seas than are recorded in official statistics, suggests a huge and controversial project aiming to estimate the "true catch" of the world's fishing industry. The work is detailed in a paper in Nature Communications by fisheries researchers Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and it builds on a decade-long project that has drawn in hundreds of researchers from around the world.

Report Warns that Plastics Will Soon Outweigh Fish in World's Oceans
Ellen Macarthur Foundation | READ STORY

The weight of plastic waste clogging the world's oceans threatens to exceed all fish by 2050 if the world's seemingly insatiable appetite for the material continues at the current explosive rate, warned a new report. In fact, according to the study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation along with the World Economic Forum, "plastics production has surged over the past 50 years, from 15 million tonnes in 1964 to 311 million tonnes in 2014, and is expected to double again over the next 20 years."

Refugee Crises, Climate Change Are Top Risks in Next 10 Years, Experts Say
Pew Research Center | READ STORY

Large-scale refugee flows and lack of progress in slowing global warming are the top risks that the world faces in the coming decade, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum of executives and experts from the fields of business, academia, civil society, government and international organizations.

Ocean Warming is Making Floods Worse, Study Finds
Climate Central | READ STORY

With tides and storm surges inching upward and inward, worsening floods are harbingers of even soggier times ahead. As recent winter storms hurtle across the Atlantic Ocean, bringing flood risks to Europe, new research is pointing to an outsized role that ocean warming has been playing in raising sea levels - a problem normally associated with melting land ice.

Climate Change Calculator
FT Data| READ STORY

Countries have been publishing their plans for cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for the UN meeting in Paris. The COP21 Climate Change Calculator was co-created by the Financial Times and Climate-KIC, creators of the Global Calculator. You can read more about the work behind the tool in a technical note from the scientists who carried out the research.