The United Nations works hard creating vast tables of data showing everything from traffic fatalities to at-risk mollusk species. The trouble is, that data is vastly boring. It may have an effect on UN policy, but it certainly won't have an effect on the average person.

But now it just might. The geeks at WorldMapper.org have created a system that graphs this UN data into maps. Suddenly he data become ridiculously simple to understand. The map above, with the over-inflated United States and Japan, you might have guessed, shows CO2 emissions per country. One of the most fascinating things I discovered is how closely that mirrors the map of wealth per country. The map below, on the other hand, shows population (we don't know why Antarctica shows up at all, but there you have it.)

The project is run by Danny Dorling and Anna Barford of the University of Sheffield, UK and they already have over three hundred maps. Aside from being an extremely fast way to brief yourself on the state of the world, it's also simply fascinating. The statistics on teenage mothers blew me away, and the series on centers of world wealth from 2000 years ago to 2015 on tells a story that couldn't be told in 100,000 words.

It's becoming clear that understanding data is much more important than simply having data, so we're happy to applaud worldmapper's efforts. Now that we can see the problems clearly, there's nothing in the way of all the affected countries actually doing something about it, right?

OK, I'm officially sick of it. Let's stop talking about changing our world by changing your light bulbs. There are a few reasons why people tell you that switching from incandescents to CFLs should be done, and they're all crap reasons. I'm tired of it.

First, they'll tell you that 22% of America's energy is eaten up by light bulbs. And that, absolutely, is true. But the majority of that 22% has nothing to do with household lighting. It's streetlights, supermarkets and other businesses that gulp down the majority of lighting energy.

But mostly, that's not what bothers me about these "campaigns." More than anything, I'm sick of pretending like we can solve the energy crisis by asking people to make decisions that are counter to their interest.

We will never significantly reduce our energy use in this country by asking nicely. If you tell someone "Save the planet, change your light bulb" you'll be lucky to get a 20% action rate. But if you say "save $200 per year, change your light bulbs" you're suddenly on the right side of every argument.

That's why I believe in EcoGeek's mission. Because I can see throughout history technology leading positive change. Whether it's the freedom of expression heralded first by the printing press and then by the internet, or the bicycle bringing freedom and mobility to oppressed women, or digital downloading completely revolutionizing and negating copyright law.

It's not about asking people to choose, it's giving them a better choice. If you build a light bulb that's cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, has better light quality, and works exactly the same, people won't be choosing a better technology, they'll be choosing the only technology left.

That's what EcoGeek is here for, to talk about those technologies as they arise, whether it's a new light bulb that actually will make a difference (because it's for large-scale business application) or a new car that you'll only need to fill up a couple of times per year. We don't talk about why you should adopt a new technology, we talk about why you'll want to.