Global Observatory

What it is

Global Observatory is a fact-based observatory of the world in three parts: World Pulse, a daily pulse of confirmed major events — disasters, outbreaks and crises — on a world map; Existential Threats, a standing tracker of the risks to humanity, by category; and the Historical Archive, major events from the dawn of civilization to the recent past on one timeline. It is an aggregation of published figures, not a forecast.

Where the figures come from

Every figure is drawn from an official or authoritative source — government agencies, UN bodies, scientific institutions, established reference works — and each record links every source it relies on, with the date it was retrieved. Whether a record is published at all is decided by a fixed rule, not by whoever wrote it: if its headline figures cannot be traced to such a source, it is held back or shown under Under review, and is never presented as confirmed. A record that cites an authoritative page that could not be re-opened is marked partial on its detail page, with the source still linked.

Event figures are a snapshot as of the date they were retrieved; each event's detail page links the live source, which keeps the running total.

Who makes it

The dataset is researched and kept current by an automated curator — Claude, running on a daily schedule — that may extend the list of trusted institutions only with a written reason, and that never gets the final say on whether a figure is verified: the rule above does. The site, the rule and the data are open source, and the full history of every record is public.