1/21
Here are the notes.
Geographers are principally concerned with understanding
why things are where they are.
The idea behind a formal region is to bound an area within
which there are similar entities. There are differences
between regions, but we should expect some uniformity
within them.
Geographers are sensitive to myriad interrelations
between places in mundane settings.
Powerful ideas, like the American dream and home
ownership, are embodied in and reproduced by the
landscape. Landscapes also structure quite profoundly,
our experience of place.
<<stopped at Slide 7>>
1/24
the friction of distance: the cost or toll incurred by
transportation across a distance (time, money, energy)
The map is a model and an abstraction of the real, spatial
world.
Scale is the relationship between distances on the map
and distances on the earth.
1 inch equals a mile. (Verbal scale)
1;63,360
(Scale ratio)
A large map scale shows a lot of detail, whereas a small
map scale shows little detail.
Latitude is a measure of how far north or south a point is
from the equator.
Longitude is a measure of how far east or west a point is
from the Prime Meridian.
Any plane that intersects the earth and contains the poles
will mark out two meridians on the earth’s surface.
<<stopped at slide 23>>
1/26
The Course ID is 6tmaxt
- Globe & its coordinate system
- Maps
- GISc and GIS
At the top of the paper write your name.
Answer this question: List as many characteristics of
lines of latitude and lines of longitude that you can.
The measure of how far a point is east or west from
the Prime Meridian. Longitude
1. positive values are east
2. negative values are west
Parallel means line of latitude.
Meridian means line of longitude.
0 degrees east (or west) is defined as a meridian
that passes through Greenwich, England at the
Royal Observatory.
The pattern of parallels and meridians on a map is
called the graticule.
The standard line (or point) is where the developable
surface comes into contact with the earth, and it is
distortionless.
All maps are distortions.
Without time zones, every place on earth would
have the same local time.
● We need time zones to maintain our basic bodily
rhythms of sleeping when it’s dark and being
active when it’s light.
Nominally, there should be 24 time zones, because
there are 24 hours in a day.
360 degrees / 24 time zones = 15 degrees / time
zone
Time zones are determined both by geographic
location (particularly longitude) and by political
arrangement.
<<ended at slide 34>>
1/28
Geographic information systems
Geographic information science
Regions
Environment
Tectonic forces
Georeferenced data are data that are tied to the
earth’s surface (using some coordinate system).
A GIS is a kind of decision-support system. Benefits
of GIS include managing complexity and saving time
and money as well as making better-informed
decisions.
Cities are organized around town halls. States are
organized around state capitols. They are also
functional regions.
<<finished at slide 47>>
1/31
physical environment:
● landforms
● climate
The heat from within the earth comes from three
different sources:
1. residual heat from the formation of the planet
2. radioactive decay
3. friction from the movement of material within the
earth
The core of the earth is hotter than the surface of the
sun.
As material warms, it expands and hence becomes
less dense.
Chemical weathering changes the molecular
composition of the material.
Carbonation happens when carbonic acid, a weak
acid formed when the carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere comes into contact with water, changes
a rock or a mineral.
load is the amount of material that a stream is
carrying at any one time. Load increases as the
stream velocity increases.
<<Ended on slide 61>>
2/2
How the land and the water are configured as well
as geographic location, particularly latitude and
elevation, structure climate.
Insolation means incoming solar radiation.
All locations on earth receive half a year of daylight
and half a year of night for every solar year, but the
way in which that time is distributed depends on
latitude.
Globally, low air pressure predominates at or near
the equator.
● Air pressure is the weight of the column of air
above one’s head.
● Because warm air is less dense than cool air
and insolation is strongest at or near the
equator, the equator is characterized by low air
pressure.
Air spreads out from the equator at high altitudes,
cools, and descends in the sub-tropics, near 30
degrees latitude.
Winds moving toward the equator are deflected to
the West, while winds moving away from the equator
are deflected to the east because of the Coriolis
Effect.
As air rises, it cools. As it cools, its ability to hold
moisture declines.
When warm, moist air rises, it precipitates.
<<Ended at slide 70>>
2/7
Climate
Water
Food
Agriculture covers about ⅕ of the earth’s land
surface and constitutes a dramatic alteration of
landcover.
acid rain
dramatic reductions in species and biodiversity
The incoming radiation from the sun is shortwave,
and it is good at passing through the atmosphere
without being absorbed.
The earth re-radiates much of the insolation that it
absorbs as long wave radiation, which greenhouse
gasses absorb.
China, the USA, India, Russia, and Japan are the
largest emitters of greenhouse gasses.
<<Ended at slide 88>>
2/9
Water
Food
Globalization and Development
What does per capita mean? It means per head or
per person.
National per capita water use takes the net water
use in the country and divides it by the number of
people.
● This gives us a measure of the intensity of water
use.
● Enables comparisons in water use between
different places.
Virtual water is water that is consumed to support
our lifestyles but which we don’t come into contact
with in any direct way.
North Africa and Southwest Asia have the lowest
total renewable water resources.
Food surpluses necessitated semi-permanent and
then permanent settlements.
● As agriculture became more productive, more
and more people could do things besides being
involved directly in the production of food.
The Tigray region in Northern Ethiopia today has a
food catastrophe because of civil war.
When we talk about development, we get to talk
about expectations.
<<ended at slide 98>>
2/11
development continued…
globalization
politics & geopolitics
Classifications of development are based on:
● composition of the economy
● living standards
GDP is a measure of the overall productivity of the
economy. We use GDP per capita to control for the
population of a country, because as population
increases, the size of the economy will also
increase.
GDP itself is defined as consumption + investment +
government spending.
GNI (Gross national income) = GDP + exports imports
PPP adjusts for the uneven spending power of a
dollar in different countries.
With options like Fairtrade products, purchasing
becomes an overtly moral decision.
<<Ended at slide 108>>
2/14
politics & geopolitics
cities
population
press freedoms
An NGO is a non-governmental organization.
What’s particularly important with capitalism is that
the means of production are privately owned.
What are the BRICS?
● Brazil
● Russia
● India
● China
● South Africa
The world is not just urbanized, but urban
populations are growing. They are growing the
fastest in Africa and South Asia.
Ended at Slide 116
2/16
no class on 2/18 or 2/21
cities
population
gender
What do people living in slums want?
● education
● jobs
● sanitation and access to clean water
● papers for their land so that they have security
Where there are deserts or it is dry, there are lower
population densities at the global scale.
One of the reasons we’re concerned about
population is because of environmental impact.
Urbanization accompanies industrialization in stage
2B.
In pre-industrial societies, children provided
important labor and grew to take care of the elderly.
72/3% = 24 years for the population to double
Total fertility rate is the number of children a woman
is expected to have in her childbearing years.
So a pyramidal shaped population pyramid indicates
a population increase.
<<Ended at slide 127>>
population pyramids
gender
sociocultural issues
Connect stage 2A with the pyramid shape of the
population pyramid. The pyramid shape indicates a
rapidly growing population.
Italy and Japan are in stage 3B of the demographic
transition, where birth rate has fallen below death
rate
Countries in stage 3B have inverted pyramid shapes
for the age-sex diagram.
In countries in stages 3A or 3B, things like geriatric
care and social services for the elderly are
particularly important. Countries in stage 2A like
Afghanistan face another series of daunting
challenges.
● Afghanistan is challenged to provide basic
infrastructure (including housing) and social
services to a rapidly growing population. And
what happens if the growth of the economy does
not keep pace with the growth of the population?
Many women are responsible for the “economically
productive” activities of the family in addition to the
ones that aren’ compensated, like child-rearing,
cooking, and cleaning.
All culture is learned.
When annual snowfall exceeds annual loss
(predominantly melting), ice accumulates.
Continental glaciers, formed during ice ages,
covered much of the interior of the United States.
A continental glacier can be a couple of miles thick.
Streams always carry what is called load, or
suspended sediments, particles, and stones.
When streams empty into slower moving bodies of
water, the amount of load they can carry greatly
decreases, and the suspended load is dropped in
place.
<<finished slide 6>>
2/28
climate & vulnerability to climate change
Environmental problems in North America
● water pollution and scarcity
● permafrost melting
● air pollution
● habitat loss
The Great Basin falls within the rain shadow of the
Sierra Nevada mountains.
Continental climates are more extreme, because
they are away from the moderating influences of the
sea.
Climograph: Charleston, SC
Climograph: Minneapolis, MN
Suburban areas are less dense and more spread
out, causing a need for more intensive transportation
services.
Permafrost is soil that is frozen throughout the entire
year.
<<finished at slide 13>>
3/2
Environmental problems in North America continued
● air pollution
● water
● habitat loss
●
Peopling of North America
Acid rain is particularly caused by nitrogen oxides
emitted from automobiles (which form nitric acid)
and sulfur dioxide emitted from coal-burning power
plants (which form sulfuric acid).
<<finished at slide 21>>
3/4
oil extraction
logging and mining
early development of North America
Globalization and Development in North America
oil sand or tar sands are large deposits of sand with
petroleum between the granules
advanced recovery techniques
The spotted owl, an endangered species, set the
stage for logging conflicts in the northwest in the
1980s.
Clear cutting simply cuts down everything within a
defined area in a forest.
The earth was experiencing a colder climate when
Eurasians migrated to North America, and there was
a land bridge crossing the Bering Strait.
Native Americans suffered from terrible virgin soil
epidemics after Europeans arrived.
Subsistence farming means that the producers
consume what they make.
There was a tight interlinkage between Indian
removals, the availability of land for plantations and
plantation agriculture, and the expansion of slavery.
<<finished at slide 32>>
3/7
The Indian Removals were tied to the expansion of
agriculture in the South, particularly cotton
production. Cotton was an essential input to the
burgeoning textile mills in the northeast and fueled
the industrialization of the United States.
Regarding the income gap, technology has replaced
a lot of “middle skill jobs.” Many jobs have left the
United States with the increasing globalization and
interconnectedness of the world, particularly China.
Economically, there is greater regional differentiation
within the United States. A small number of regions
attract the lion’s share of investment, like a few
privileged metropolitan areas.
Fewer and fewer workers are members of labor
unions, reducing their negotiating power.
Inertia in economic development that privileges the
wealthy, such as their children attending schools in
the wealthiest school districts and going to the best
and most expensive universities.
Services comprise the tertiary sector.
The solutions to the digital divide are different
between rural and urban areas.
Early textile manufacturers in the northeast couldn’t
compete with textile manufacturers in Great Britain,
who had years in advance to develop their
technologies and methods.
In order to “force” people in the United States to buy
American, the government can impose tariffs on
imported products, which artificially raises the price
of products.
In 2020 NAFTA was replaced by the USMCA which
provided for a few protections/stipulations:
● monitor and enforce certain standards for
working conditions in Mexico
● more environmental protections
● limits to prices for pharmaceuticals
<<ended on slide 39>>
3/9
Globalization & Development
● gender
● food
● transportation
Globalization always implies interconnectedness
and interdependence between places.
<<ended on slide 48>>
3/11
transportation
Power & Politics
<<ended on slide 60 after video>>