Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Chapter 3: Human Processes & World Regions
GEOL 1100 - MODULE 1 Part 3
Two Revolutions That Have Changed the Earth:
1. The current spatial patterns of our relationship with the Earth may be seen as products of:
1. The Agricultural Revolution:
1. About 10,000 years ago
2. Began in Middle East
2. The Industrial Revolution:
1. 18th century
2. Europe
2. Hunting & Gathering:
1. Done for more than 100,000 years until about 10,000 years ago
2. Joined install bands of extended family members
3. Were nomads with no villages, homes, or other fixed dwelling
4. Moved to take advantage of changing opportunities on the landscape
5. These foragers scouted large areas to located foods such as seeds, tubers, foliage, fish, and
game animals
6. Moving small groups place to place had a relatively limited impact on the natural environment
7. May have been the original affluent society
8. Scholars believe they lived in apparent harmony with the natural world in both economies and
spiritual beliefs
9. Would work short periods to collect the foods they needed, followed by long stretches of
leisure time
10. Although life expectancy was low, they suffered little from the debilitating social and
psychological problems found in industrialized societies
11. Did modify their landscapes as an ecologically dominant species
1. Used fire to flush out or create new pastures for the game animals they hunted
2. Also, over hunted and in some cases eliminated animals species
1. Pleistocene overkill hypothesis states hunters and gatherers hunted many species
into extinction, including the mastodon
3. Farming: Welcome to the Anthropocene:
1. Human power to modify landscapes took a giant step with domestication
2. Domestication brought about the Agricultural Revolution
1. AKA: Neolithic Revolution or Food-Producing Revolution
3. Began about 13,000 years ago in the Zagros Mountains (now Iran)
4. Coincided with a great retreat of the glacial ice sheets and the onset of the Holocene Epoch
1. This is the age we live in now
2. Meaning “entirely new” in Greek
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5. Renamed the Anthropocene Epoch or simply “the Anthropocene”
1. Meaning “the age of humans”
6. Our impact on the atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere have been so monumental that
they rank alongside the great natural forces that defined past ages
1. Especially in the last 250 years
7. Began with agriculture first in the Middle East and later in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the
Americas
8. Although it its uncertain why people began to produce rather than continue to hunt and gather,
two theories are most often put forward
1. Climate changed
2. Their own growing populations in areas originally rich in wild foods, forced people to find
new food sources
9. Due to this change, landscape uses, cultures, social organizations, and other characteristics of
society changed dramatically
1. Abandoning nomadic life and extensive land use of hunting and gathering
2. Came to favour inexpensive land use of agriculture and animal husbandry
3. With less need to move around, they began living in fixed dwelling
1. Soon developed into villages, small settlements with fewer than 5,00 inhabitants
4. Through dry farming population densities could be 10-20 times higher than before
5. By about 4000 BCE, people began irrigation of crops, allowing them to grow crops year
round, independent of seasonal rainfall or river flooding
1. Irrigation farming yields 5-6 times more food per unit than dry farming
2. Allowed even more people to make a living off the land
10. Due to the expanding food surpluses, the Earth’s carrying capacity was raised
11. With these conditions culture became more complex and society became more stratified
1. People were free from the actual work of producing food, and undertook a wide range of
activities un related to sustenance needs—for the first time in history
12. Irrigation and the dependable food supplies set the stage for the development of civilization
13. By 3500BCE, 50,000 people lived in the southern Mesopotamian city of Uruk, now Iraq
14. In addition to the Tigris-Euphrates Valleys that comprise Mesopotomia, cultural hearths
emerged between 8000-2500 BCE in:
1. Wei-Huang Vally of China
2. Southeast Asia
3. the Indus River Valley
4. the Ganges River Valley
5. Mesopotomia
6. The Nile Valley of Egypt
7. West Africa
8. Mesoamerica
9. The Andes
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15. Religion and language have important roles in culture, geographers often recognize separate
religious hearth and language hearths
16. Human impacts on the natural environment had a larger and more lasting impact
1. Domesticated plants and animals proliferated at the expense of the wild species
2. Farmers who resented animals’ raids were probably among the most ardent hunters
17. Agricultures permanent and site-specific nature magnified the human imprint on the land
1. The pace and distribution of that impact increased with growing numbers of people
4. The Industrial Revolution:
1. Increased earth’s human capacity transform natural landscapes
2. Began in Europe around 1750CE
3. Innovations in technology
4. Several factors came together to spark these breakthroughs:
1. Western Europe had economic capital necessary for experimentation, innovation, & risk
2. Significant improvements in agricultural productivity, such as new tools and the three-field
system of crop rotation, led to increased crop yields
1. Human populations grew correspondingly
3. Population growth freed more people from agricultural jobs to do other positions
1. Industrialization allowed societies with mainly agricultural (agrarian) economies to
become societies manufacturing goods and providing services
2. Industrialization continues to promote urbanization today
5. Industrialization, Colonization, and Environmental Change:
1. Began when people started to deplete their local supplies of resources needed for industrial
production, as Europeans started to look for these materials abroad
2. Age of Discovery or Age of Exploration began in the 15th century
3. Colonization was directly linked to the industrial revolution
4. Had a far greater impact on the natural environment than ever before that was more extensive
and permanent
1. Our world today is their legacy
5. Some impacts of agriculture and industrialization during the anthropocene
1. About 40% of the Earth’s land-based photosynthetic output is dedicated to human uses,
especially in agriculture and forestry
2. Since 1750, the total forested areas on Earth has declined by more than 20%
3. Since 1750, total cropland has grown by nearly 500%
1. With more expansion in the period from 1950 to today than in the century from
1750-1850
2. Made possible by the use of fertilizers produced from fossil carbon
4. Since 1750, people have released quantities of fossil carbon that the planet took hundreds
of millions of years to store away
5. Consequences of industrialization have put us on course to eliminate 20-50% of all species
on Earth by 2100
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1. Causing the sixth mass extinction and the only one attributable to human activity
The Geography of Economic Development:
6. There are many ways to describe the disparity between wealthy and poor countries, we will use:
1. More developed countries (MDCs)
2. Less developed countries (LDCs)
1. Also, Newly industrializing countries (NICs)
1. AKA: “asian tigers”
7. Measuring Development:
1. Annual per capita gross domestic product (per capita GDP)
1. One of the most commonly used measures of economic well-being
2. Closely related measures:
1. Gross national product (GNP)
2. Gross national income (GNI)
3. Purchasing power parity (PPP) provide a better overall way of comparing the real v value
of output between different countries economies
4. Gross domestic product purchasing power parity (GDP [PPP]) indicated the amount of
goods and services one could but in the US with a given amount of money
1. Useful for measuring the relative strengths of national economies
2. Not necessarily representative of the “average citizen” of a country
5. In this book, an MDC is a country with an annual per capita GDP (PPP) of $17,000 or more
1. All others are considered LDCs
6. The average per capital GDP (PPP) in MDCs is about five times greater than in LDCs
1. Suggests that economic productivity and income alone characterize development
2. The Human Development Index (HDI):
1. Takes quality of life features into account
2. Computed using three criteria:
1. Life expectancy
2. Years of schooling
3. GDP (PPP)
3. All three are indexed on a scale of 0-1
4. According to this index:
1. Norway is the “world’s best place to live” with index of 0.944
2. Niger is the world’s lowest rated country with an index of 0.337
5. Common traits of MDCs:
1. Examples: US, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and European
nations:
2. Most people live in cities rather than rural areas
3. Disposable income is generally high
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4. There is a large middle class
5. Population growth is low due to low birth rates and low death rates
6. Life expectancy is long
7. The literacy rate is high
6. Common traits of LDCs:
1. Examples: Africa, Latin America, and Asia
2. Poverty and food insecurity are commonplace
3. Substenence agriculture is important
1. Only repellently has industry become a significant component of these economies
1. Exception: Africa
4. Most people live in rural areas
1. 48% of LDC’s population is urban
5. There is an enormous economic gulf between the poor and a small but wealthy elite
who own most of the private landholdings in the countryside
6. Middle class was small until very recently, but is rapidly growing
7. High birthrates and falling death rates, population growth is high relative to MDCs
8. Life expectancy is shorter
9. The literacy rate is lower
7. LDCs are not destined to by in poverty forever
1. Things can change with effective development policies and practices
8. 4/5 of the world’s people live in LDCs
8. How did some countries become rich while other remained poor?:
1. Advantageous and Disadvantageous Location:
1. Location can influence a country’s economic fortunes
2. Regions situated to great mainlands with which to trade, are favourable for economic
development
1. Example: Great Britain and Japan
3. Landlocked areas have locations unfavourable for trade and economic development
1. Example: Bolivia and numerous nations in Africa
4. Geographic location is never the sole decisive factor in development
1. Example: Madagascar and Sri Lanka are island nations situated close to mainlands, but
for a variety of reasons (mainly political), neither has experienced prosperity
2. Example 2: Switzerland, a landlocked country, is very prosperous
2. Resource Wealth or Poverty:
1. Having or lacking a diversity or abundance of natural resources plays a significant role in
development
1. Example: oil in the Persian Gulf
2. Superabundance of an especially valuable resource or a diversity of natural resources has
helped some countries become more developed than others
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1. Examples: Soviet Union and the US
3. Resource wealth does not guarantee development
4. Fragile states have squandered their abundant natural resources and, again, illustrate the
“resource curse”
1. Example: Democratic Republic of Congo
5. Components of natural capital:
1. Natural resources:
1. Inexhaustible resources (solar and wind energy)
2. Nonrenewable resources (oil and gas))
2. Natural services.
3. Culture, Political, and Historical Factors:
1. In some cases, human industriousness has helped compensate for resource limitations
and helped promote development
1. Ex: Japan has a relatively small territory with few natural resources, but, became
industrial powerhouse because the Japanese people untied to rebuild from wartime
devastation, placing priorities on education, technical training, and seaborne trade
2. A culture of good governance is important in promoting prosperity, even in the most
unlikely geographical settings
1. Ex: Singapore (small island with few natural resources) prepared through trade
3. Cultural or political problems like corruption and ethnic factionalism can hinder
development in a resource rich nation
1. Ex: Congo
4. LDCs argue the rich-poor divide is due to dependency theory
9. Globalization and Development:
1. Globalization: the spread of free trade, free markets, investments, and ideas across borders,
and the political and cultural adjustments that accompany this diffusion
2. It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real times with
more people on more different kinds of work from more different corners of the planet and on a
more equal footing than at any time in the history of the world
3. Using computers, email, fibre-optic networks, teleconferencing, and dynamic new software
4. Many globalization input comes from:
1. Multinational companies
2. Transnational companies
5. Supporters of globalization argue:
1. Will bring increased prosperity to the entire world
2. Innovations in one country will be transferred instantly to another
3. Productivity will increase
4. Standards of living will improve
5. With eliminations of barriers to free trade, free enterprise will prosper and pump additional
capital into national economies, raising incomes for all
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6. Opponents of globalization argue:
1. The process will actually increase the gap between rich and poor countries and within
2. A selected few countries will prosper from increased foreign investment, bypassing other
countries all together
3. Will increase interdependence of the world economies and will make all more vulnerable to
economic and political instability
4. The multinational companies will recognize huge profits at the expense of poor wage
labourers
5. Environments will be harmed
7. Five recent trend and effects of the globalization process:
1. The breathtaking reduction of poverty and growth of the middle class
2. The growth and inequality between some of the socioeconomic groups
3. Potential for conflict
4. Geopolitical changes
5. Changes in technology, knowledge, and people power
10. Environmental impacts of underdevelopment:
1. fds
2. fds
3. fds
The Geography of Population:
11.
Glossary of terminology:
1. Hunting and gathering or foraging: a mode of livelihood, based on collecting wild plants and
hunting wild animals, generally practiced by pre-agricultural peoples
2. Original affluent society: a description of hunter-gatherers, who are thought by some scholars to
have enjoyed harmony with the natural world and suffered few social and psychological problems
3. Ecologically dominant species: a species that competes more successfully than others for
nutrition and other essentials of life
4. Pleistocene overkill hypothesis: a hypothesis stating that hunters and gatherers of the
Pleistocene Era hunted many species to extinction
5. Agricultural revolution: AKA: neolithic, New Stone Age or Food-Producing Revolution; the
domestication of plants and animals that began around 13,000 years ago
6. Anthropocene epoch: an alternative term for the present geological epoch, usually termed the
Holocene
7. Extensive land use: a livelihood, such as hunting and gathering, that uses large land areas
8. Inexpensive land use: a livelihood, such as farming, that requires use of small land areas
9. Dry farming: planting and harvesting according to the seasonal rainfall
10. Irrigation: the artificial placement of water to produce crops, generally in arid locations
11. Carrying capacity: the size of a population of any organism that an ecosystem can support
12. Culture hearths: an area where innovations develop, with subsequent diffusion to other areas
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13. Industrial revolution: a period beginning in the mid-18th-century Britain that saw rapid advances
in technology and the use of inanimate power; was widely associated with European colonialism
and population growth
14. Three-field system of crop rotation: growing cereals on an agricultural plot of land, then shifting
to nitrogen-fixing legume, and then letting the land lay fallow before returning to producing cereal
crops
15. Industrialization: the process where a society shifts from a primarily agricultural economy to one
based on manufacturing goods and providing services
16. Age of Discovery or Age of Exploration: the three to four centuries of European exploration,
colonialization, and global resource exploitation and trading led largely by European mercantile
powers, beginning with Columbus at the end of the 15th century and continuing into the 19th
century
17. Colonization: the European pattern of establishing dependencies abroad to enhance economic
development in the home country
18. More developed countries (MDCs): the world’s wealthier countries
19. Less developed countries (LDCs): the world’s poorer countries
20. Newly industrializing countries (NICs): the most prosperous of the world’s less developed
countries
21. Gross domestic product (GDP): the value of goods and services produced in a country in a
given year; does not include net income earned outside the country; the value is normal given in
current prices for the stated year
22. Per capita GDP: a measure of economic well-being found by dividing a country’s gross domestic
product by its population
23. Gross national product (GNP): the value of goods and services produced internally in a given
country during a stated year plus the value resulting from the transactions abroad; the value is
normally expressed in current prices of the stated year; such data must be used with caution in
regard to developing countries because of the broad variance in patterns of data collections and
the fact that many people consume a large share of what they produce
24. Gross national income (GNI): a measure of a country’s wealth, counting gross domestic
production plus income from abroad such as rent, profits, and labor
25. Purchasing power parity (PPP): a method of comparing the real value of output between
different countries’ economies; considers factors such as differences in relative prices of goods
and services
26. Gross domestic product purchasing power parity (GDP [PPP]): a measurement accounting
for varying costs of living between countries, with gross domestic product converted to
international dollars using purchasing power parity rates; an international dollar has the same
purchasing power over GDP as the US dollar has in the US
27. Development: a process of improvement in the material conditions of people, often linked to the
diffusion of knowledge and technology
28. Human development index (HDI): a United Nations-devised ranked index of countries’
development that evaluates quality of life issues in addition to economic performance
29. Fragile states: low-income countries characterized by poor governance and/or weak state
capacity, leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks
30. Natural resource: a product of the natural environment that can be used to benefit people;
resources are human appraisals
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31. Natural capital: the natural resources and natural services that keep us and other species alive
and support human economies
32. Natural services: the processes provided by healthy ecosystems, including the natural processes
of air and water purification and the renewal of topsoil
33. Good governance: directing political energies at strengthening the economy rather than trying to
cement power and keep down the opposition
34. Dependency theory: a theory arguing that the world’s more developed countries continue to
prosper by dominating their former colonies, the now independent, less developed countries
35. Settler colonization: the historical pattern by which Europeans sought to create new Europes, or
neo-Europes, abroad
36. Neo-Europe: areas colonized by Europeans in lands similar climatically and geographically to
Europe, creating “new Europes” with cultural similarities and ties to Europe
37. Mercantile Colonialism: the historical pattern by which Europeans extracted primary products
from colonies abroad, particularly in the tropics
38. Value-added products: finished products, worth much more than the raw materials they’re made
from
39. Neo-colonialism: the perpetuation of a colonial economic pattern in which developing countries
export raw materials to, and to buy finished goods from, developed countries; this relationship is
more profitable for the developed countries
40. Primary commodities: raw materials such as fruits and ores whose extractions or harvest needs
little processing before use; examples: oil, rubber, bananas, and sugar
41. Poverty traps: factors that impede the development of poorer countries; bad governance,
conflict, natural resources, and landlocked areas
42. Development traps: this theory argues that LDCs can move into middle-income status rather
easily when commodity prices are rising, but find it much more difficult to advance to MDC statues
if commodity prices fall
43. Globalization: the spread of free trade, free market, investments, and ideas across borders, and
the political and cultural adjustments that accompany this diffusion
44. Multinational companies or transnational companies: companies that operate, at least in part,
outside their home countries
45. Digital divide: the divide between the handful of countries that are the technology innovators and
users and the majority of nations that have little ability to create, purchase, or use new
technologies; the divide also exists within countries and societies
46. Information technology (IT): the internet, wireless phones, fibre-optics, and other technologies
characteristic of MDCs; generally seen as beneficial for a country’s economic prospects; IT is also
spreading in LDCs
47. Knowledge economy: an economy based on innovation and services
48. Cash crops or commercial crops: crops generally produced for export
49. Marginalization: a process by which poor subsistence farmers are pushed onto fragile, inferior, or
marginal lands that cannot support crops for long and that are degraded by cultivation
50. Land grabbing: wealthy countries buying land and water resources in poorer countries to protect
their own food security and to turn profits
51. Sustainable yield or natural replacement rate: the highest rate at which a renewable resource
can be used without decreasing its potential for renewal
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52. Renewable resource: a resource, such as timber, that is grown or renewed so that a continual
supply is available; a finite resource is one that, once consumed, cannot be easily used again;
petroleum products are a good example of a finite resource due to the time to go through the
process of creation
53. Ecological bankruptcy: the exhaustion of environmental capital, leading to potential political and
social crises
54. Nontimber forest products (NTFPs): goods, other than trees, made from products found in
forests, to prevent deforestation
55. Virtual water: the total volume of water needed to produce and process a commodity or service,
measured where the product was actually produced; it is “virtual” because it is an externality not
factored into and not apparent in the production process
56. Water footprint: an indicator of freshwater use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of
a consumer or producer; a component of the greater “ecological footprint” and “human footprint”
57. Deforestation: the removal of tree cover
58. Population explosion: the surge in Earth’s human population that has occurred since the
beginning of the industrial revolution
59. Fuel-wood crisis: consequences of deforestation in the LDCs brought by subsistence needs
such as cooking foods; becomes increasingly difficult to acquire fuelwood, which are usually
collected by women
60. Demography: the study of population
61. Population geography: the study of the spatial distribution of human population
62. Birth rate: the annual number of live births per 1000 people in a population
63. Death rate: the annual number of deaths per 1000 people in a population
64. Population change rate: the birth rate minus the death rate in a population, typically measure in
numbers per thousand
65. Life expectancy: the number of years a person may expect to live in a given environment
(typically a country) and differentiated between women, who usually live longer, and men
66. Doubling time: the number of years required for the human population of a given area to double
67. Demographic transition: the transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth
rates and low death rates that has accompanied economic development in MDCs and may be a
model for population change in other countries
68. First or preindustrial stage of demographic transition: the stage characterized by high birth
rate and high death rates, with little change in total population
69. Second or transitional stage of demographic transition: the stage characterized by continued
high birth rates but falling death rates, resulting in surging population growth
70. Third or industrial stage of demographic transition: the stage in which birth rate begin to
decline and correspond with falling death rates, resulting in a levelling off and subsequent decline
of population
71. Fourth or post-industrial stage of demographic transition: the stage characterized by low birth
rates and low death rates, with little change in total population
72. Zero population growth (ZPG): the condition of equal birth rates and death rates in a population
73. Population implosion: a dramatic loss of population caused by low fertility rates or death rates
that are much higher than birth rates
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74. Population replacement level: the number of new births required to keep population steady;
generally calculated as 2.1 children per woman in MDCs
75. Age structure diagram or population pyramid: the graphic representation of a country’s
population by gender and five-year age increments
76. Youth bulge: a demographic situation in which a large percentage of a country’s population is
young, making competition for jobs, education, and land intense
77. Migration: a temporary, periodic, or permanent move to a new location
78. Emigrant: a person moving away from a place
79. Immigrant: a person moving into a place
80. Push factors: emigration caused by so-called push factors, as when under or lack of land
“pushes” peasants out of rural areas into cities; people responding to push factors are often
referred to as nonselective migrants; both push and pull forces are behind the rural-to-urban
migration that is characteristic of most countries
81. Pull factors: emigration caused by so-called pull factors, as when an educated villager responds
to a job opportunity in the city; people responding to pull factors are called selective migrants;
both push and pull forces are behind the rural-to-urban migration that is characteristic of most
countries
82. Rural-to-urban migration or urbanization: the population growth of cities, mostly atom the
movements of people from rural regions to built-up areas in the LDCs and from increasing
industrialization in the MDCs
83. Refugees: victims of severe push factor such as persecution, political repression, and war
84. Asylum: people given permission to immigrate on the grounds that they would be harmed or
persecuted in their country of origin
85. Internally displaced persons (IDPs): people dislodged or impoverished by strife in their own
countries, but who have little prospect of emigrating from that country
86. Brain drain: the exodus of educated or skilled persons from a poor to a rich country or from a
poor to a rich region within a country
87. Illegal alien: a migrant moving to another country illegally
88. Guest worker: migrants (mainly young males) from LDCs, who are employed, sometimes
illegally, in MDCs
89. One-child policy: official policy of the Chinese government, limiting families to one child
90. Megacities: cities with more than 10 million inhabitants
91. Old-age support ratios: the number of working-age adults for each older person
92. Malthusian scenario: the model forecasting that human population growth will outpace growth in
food and other resources, resulting in population die-off
93. Technocentrists or cornucopians: supporters of forecasts that resources will keep pace with of
exceed the needs of growing human populations
94. Neo-Malthusians: supporters of forecasts that resources will not by able to keep pace with the
needs of growing human populations
95. Birth rate solution: intentionally lowering birth rates per 1000 people in a population
96. Death rate solution: a catastrophic increase in death rates, seen as “natures solution” to
overpopulation
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97. People overpopulation: the concept that many persons, each using a small quantity of material
resources to sustain life, add up to too many people for the environment to support
98. Consumption overpopulation: the concept that few persons, each using a large quantity of
natural resources from ecosystems across the world, ass up to too many people for the
environment to support
99. Ecological footprint: the amount of biologically productive land needed to sustain a person’s
consumption and absorb waters
100.Food chains: the sequence through which energy, in the form of food, passes through an
ecosystem
101.Biomass: the collective dried weight of organisms in an ecosystem
102.Second law or thermodynamics: a natural law stating that high-quality, concentrated energy is
increasingly degraded as it passes through the food chain
103.Sustainable development or ecodevelopment: concepts and efforts to improve the quality of
human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems
104.External costs or externalities: consequences of goods and services that are not priced into the
initial cost of those goods and services
105.Trade barriers: restrictions on international trade, especially those created by MDCs to protect
their industries from competition from cheaper goods produced in LDCs
106.Debt-for-nature swaps: arrangements in which a certain portion of international debt is forgiven
in return for the borrower’s pledge to invest that amount in nature conservation
107.Third revolution: the concept that sustainable development will bring about a market shift in
human ways of interacting with the natural environment, so dramatic that it will be compared with
the origins of agriculture and industry
Timeline:
Hunting and Gathering
100,000 - 10,000 years ago
Agricultural Revolution
13,000 years ago
Industrial Revolution
1750CE
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