Making Gov't Data Usable - Olivia Martin, USAFacts.org

Jun 26, 2020

“These are historical metrics for perspective—whether they mark positive, negative, or neutral changes for land, energy, and air (or any other part of American life) in the US is up to you.”

USAFacts.org State of the Earth report 2020

From government funding allocations to cities and states, or even to schools and communities, to how healthcare is administered and paid for, to how clean our air and water is, to how accountable police, gun owners, courts or immigration officials really are – and especially today in the midst of a pandemic – our lives literally depend upon the accuracy of this data.

But try to make sense of it! Enter former CEO Steve Ballmer’s new USAFacts.org website to the rescue. Listen to my enlightening interview with Olivia Martin, a data analyst at USAFacts.org, to learn about their collection and analysis processes.

You’ll hear:

• How USAFacts.org collects this information and keeps it up to date.
• Why making sense of all this data from local, state and federal sources across the entire U.S. government required a lot of reconciling it against scientific data, reformatting and data analysis just to fill in the gaps.
• How USAFacts developed its State of the Earth report on “the nation’s air, land conservation and energy production” while an anti-science, anti-environment administration is in office.
• How you can use this data – including to inform your vote.
• Plus, insightful career advice from an old soul in a young lady…. and more.

“Don’t let barriers stand in your way” and other good insights to help women stay in STEM fields.

Olivia Martin on Green Connections Radio podcast

Read my Forbes blog on USAFacts.org too.

You’ll also want to listen to:

• Corinne Post, Co-Author of ground-breaking study on the vital role women play on boards of medical companies that keeps people safe (or not).
• Heather Long, Economics Reporter, the Washington Post, on how women suffer in this economic crisis.
• Rachel Gutter, President of the International Well Building Institute, on questions to ask before you go back into your workplace.
• Michelle Wyman, Executive Director of National Council of Science and the Environment on how to talk to policymakers about science to keep science in policy decisions.

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