Mira Rojanasakul
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rjnskl.bsky.social
Mira Rojanasakul
@rjnskl.bsky.social
8.2K followers 710 following 110 posts
Data and visual journalist, New York Times climate team
https://www.nytimes.com/by/mira-rojanasakul
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rjnskl.bsky.social
new hat 🙃
A black hat, embroidered with the a rainbow-colored radar image of a hurricane. Embroidered white text below reads, in all caps "DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE YOUR LIFE IS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL?"
October 7, 2025 at 2:20 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Yet another metric: Royalties paid to Chinese firms have surged 5x since 2015 — from an interesting @stlouisfed.bsky.social analysis that published the same day as our story:
www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-econo...
A line chart shows royalty payments by other countries to use Chinese intellectual property increasing from about $400 million in 2005 to $7.9 billion in 2022.
August 15, 2025 at 4:46 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
And please enjoy this random dumpling patent (***not included in our clean energy patent charts)

worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/searc...
August 15, 2025 at 3:23 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Data on the top 10% of the most highly cited papers, published in global, peer-reviewed journals, also signals China's growing dominance in clean energy.

(Among other fields! techtracker.aspi.org.au)
A series of line charts that show the share of highly-cited clean energy research from China, the United States, European Union or other countries. Across batteries, supercapacitors and hydrogen, China has quickly shot up to take over the majority’s share of highly-cited research. China has also improved in solar and biofuels research, but the aggregate of other countries still make up the majority.
August 15, 2025 at 3:18 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
We looked at patents that were filed in multiple markets and excluded duplicate filings for the same invention, filtered for us by European Patent Office analysts.

(Closest I've ever gotten to the actual 📈 emoji)
A line chart that spans the years 2000 to 2022, with lines in different colors showing the trends in annual high quality patent filings from China, Japan, Europe, Korea, and the United States.
August 15, 2025 at 3:09 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Over the past two decades, China has leapt ahead of other countries in innovations in the energy mix of the future: solar, wind, batteries, and newer frontiers like smart grids.

Latest in the Power Moves series with Max Bearak:
🎁 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
A line chart that spans the years 2003 to 2023, with lines in different colors showing the trends in the share of total highly-cited clean energy research taken up by China, the United States, the European Union, and the total from other countries or regions. The United States dominated two decades ago, making up roughly a third of the total highly cited research. But China quickly rose from roughly 5% to nearly 50% of the highly cited clean energy research, while the United States and European Union declined.
August 15, 2025 at 2:40 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Overall leadership vacancies across at local and regional NWS forecast offices:

(Also 🎁 link!) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
A chart that shows leadership vacancies within National Weather Service regional and local offices have more than doubled in 2025 compared to previous years. Since 2017, these vacancies have ranged from 14 to 32.
July 11, 2025 at 5:29 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
It turns out acid mine runoff is doing a lot of the difficult work to liberate rare earth minerals from rock. Distilling these elements from water pollution (which has to be cleaned up anyways) is much easier than mining it from solids. A win-win!
Side by side photos show a top-down view of a hand holding a beaker filled with powdered minerals. On the left, the powder is the color of cinnamon and shows "light" rare earths. On the right, the powder is a golden white and shows "heavy" rare earths.
June 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Or you can do it with high-tech, automated facilities (that, in this case, pull something very valuable out of the pollution)...
June 27, 2025 at 2:05 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Thankfully, some basic chemistry can help! Adding limestone, a base, brings the pH of the water back to neutral and allows the metals to settle out. You can do it with ponds...
June 27, 2025 at 1:57 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
For decades, the region's waters have suffered from the polluted runoff seeping from thousands of abandoned coal mines here, which can be as corrosive as stomach acid and filled with heavy metals.
A map of West Virginia that uses lime green symbols to denote all the abandoned mines in the state. The most dense cluster is in the north-central part of the state, spanning across the Monongahela River, Tygart Valley River and Cheat River watersheds. The map also shows its forested landcover and hilly terrain.
June 27, 2025 at 1:51 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
NEW data finds nearly a third of coal-powered units delayed or canceled retirement plans in recent years.

A 2023 study found that 99% of operating U.S. coal plants were more expensive to run than the cost of building renewable replacements.

🎁: www.nytimes.com/interactive/... w/ Austyn Gaffney
A map of active coal units within each state and their retirement status. Red signifies a retirement that was delayed or withdrawn, with multiple in Wyoming, Utah, Indiana, Georgia and South Carolina. Blue indicates a planned retirement that was accelerated, with many in Colorado, Michigan, Tennessee and North Carolina. Green denotes planned retirements that have not changed date, and gray indicates units that are operating without a planned retirement.
February 6, 2025 at 3:26 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
State Farm seeking a major rate hike in California:

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
February 3, 2025 at 11:45 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
If nations started reducing emissions 20 years ago, they could've made gradual cuts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees...

Today, it's essentially impossible:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
January 10, 2025 at 4:46 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
2024 was Earth's hottest year on record.

"The previous hottest year was 2023. And the next one will be upon us before long: By continuing to burn huge amounts of coal, oil and gas, humankind has all but guaranteed it."

@zhonggg.bsky.social @bradplumer.bsky.social:
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
January 10, 2025 at 4:51 AM
rjnskl.bsky.social
But per person, China's historical contribution is still lower than that of the United States, European Union, Japan and Canada.
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Two side by side bar charts. Bars on the left show countries and their total historical greenhouse gas emissions, ranked from high to low. The United States, China and European Union lead. Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Britain, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Qatar fill out the list. On the right side are bars that represent each country’s per capita emissions. Here, Canada, Russia and Britain are higher and China’s emissions per person is much lower.
November 19, 2024 at 5:26 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Over the past three decades, China has built more than 1,000 coal-fired power plants as its economy has grown more than 40-fold. It's become by far the largest annual emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
A chart of annual greenhouse gas emissions for the United States, European Union and China from 1850 to 2024. Around the year 2000, China’s emissions start to skyrocket and overtake the U.S. and EU by a large margin. While the U.S. and EU lines have increased, their emissions actually started to decline around the year 2000.
November 19, 2024 at 5:09 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
China has overtaken Europe in historical greenhouse gas emissions, which could scramble the debate on who pays for global warming

New story w/ @bradplumer.bsky.social:
🎁 www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
November 19, 2024 at 2:36 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
New from me: Everyone wants to be at COP
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
November 13, 2024 at 11:29 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
tbt to the 2020 electoral cartogram cake that took so long to fill in I was forced to eat around the dataviz

x.com/rjnskl/statu...
A sheet cake with a map of 2020 presidential electoral college results filled in with icing. Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia are still missing results. A corner on the bottom-right has been eaten.
November 5, 2024 at 10:25 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Almost the entire U.S. experiencing drought conditions
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/04/c...
Map of the United States with large swaths of color, ranging from yellow for "abnormally dry" conditions to dark red for "exceptional drought", covering nearly the entire area. The worst drought conditions are in the Midwest, part of Texas and Montana, and in Ohio and West Virginia.
November 5, 2024 at 4:56 AM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Selling Florida — a fun snap from the Robert Caro exhibit at the New York Historical Society.
An old print advertisement titled "Collier County, Florida — Invest in growing Florida: 5 acres, $695". It shows a map of southern Florida and a picture of local timber and natural vegetation.
October 16, 2024 at 2:02 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
(outtakes)
July 24, 2024 at 3:32 AM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Land surface temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona — America's fastest-growing large city 🙃

www.nytimes.com/interactive/... w/ @zhonggg.bsky.social
A map of Phoenix, Arizona highlighted with colors for land surfaces hotter than 120˚F. Nearly the entire map is filled in except for a few spots on hill tops and near farms or parks. Darker shades suggest that the downtown area experienced temperatures above 140˚F, and some less populated desert areas experienced temperatures above 150˚F.
July 17, 2024 at 8:56 PM
rjnskl.bsky.social
Why the disparities?

Recent research points to a striking pattern: Higher premiums are being charged in states where regulators apply less scrutiny to requests for rate increases
July 9, 2024 at 9:43 PM