Comfortably Dumb

I was not really too familiar with the Mercator controversy but it goes something like this: 

If you were to look at the normal map of the world that we use you would be under the impression that Greenland was as big as Africa and dwarfs South America. In reality Africa is 14 times larger. You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare,

The Mercator layout was introduced by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors with navigation. Almost five centuries later, it somehow remains the global standard. 

But it has immense failings. Regions near the equator appear significantly smaller than they are, whereas high-latitude areas look much larger. This tends to minimize low latitude areas, which tend to be poorer. This is being called "Cartographic Colonialism."

Some argue that the map has subtly shaped international power dynamics by minimising the physical presence of the global south and visually inflating northern hemisphere nations while shrinking equatorial regions. This is said to have reinforced systemic biases in international trade, development priorities and educational frameworks.

There is a new cartography push for a map called Equal Earth where continents are laid out in true size and proportionality.

The United Nations has voted to adopt a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favor of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. A true orthographic view of the continent is even more startling.

In a session at its headquarters in New York, the UN general assembly officially retired the 16th-century Mercator projection in favor of one based on the more accurate 2018 Equal Earth design.

At the session, 164 countries voted in favor of the resolution. Only the US voted no, with its representative saying the resolution was “superfluous”. There were six abstentions.

Once again we are looking in from the outside and bucking world opinion. Note the tone from our representative:

Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said the resolution was presented as "an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions" but was, in her view, part of a "much larger and more radical ideological project." 

"Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice," Ferencevych said Friday during the 114th Plenary meeting.

Rather than be seen for what it is, a common sense move into the 21st century, it is instead a "radical ideological project." How embarrassing it is to be an American sometimes.