Total Energy Research Budgets of the Agency's Member Governments (New York Times)

This graph from the New York Times shows the total energy research budgets of member countries of the International Energy Agency (in 2004 dollars). This graph immediately attracted me because of the layered effect of multiple types of data, ranging from nuclear fusion to fossil fuels. The graph, however, fails to label the axis (year for x-axis and dollars amounts for y-axis), and the layered effect of the data can actually do more harm than good because the viewer cannot really compare between amounts of the same type of technology for different years because the "bars" are not on an even plain. For example, if I wanted to see the trend of the amount of money spent on nuclear fission over the years, I cannot make an accurate conclusion because the bars all begin at different points. Overall, this graph is visually pleasing, but not very informative.