Climate change is a real problem. The evidence supports it. However, certain politicians in the United States continue to deny its existence or severity. As conspiratorial as it may sound, the reason for this is money. Corporations, non-profit organizations, and other interest groups are legally allowed to donate money to politicians in a practice known as lobbying.
TheCooldownProject aims to demystify the practice of lobbying in the U.S. Congress through the lens of climate change. By gathering donation and voting data from all one hundred Senators, TheCooldownProject combines user-experience design, politics, and data visualization. It allows constituents to explore how much money their Congresspeople receive from renewable and non-renewable energy companies, how their Congresspeople compare to the rest, and allows constituents to discover trends based on party lines and state populations. At its core, TheCooldownProject aims to make lobbying information more accessible to the average voter, and reveals how corporate money is influencing the politics of the United States.
