Week 6
Europe
-Europe is a small but incredibly diverse region.
-Europe is traditionally classified as a continent although technically speaking it is the western
most extension of the continent of Eurasia. The reason it is separated has more to do with
history than geography; until the 16th century Europeans thought that a northward extension of
the Black Sea actually separated Europe from Asia.
-Europe’s physical geography is extremely diverse, ranging from arctic tundra to the warm
subtropical islands of the Mediterranean Sea.
-Europe is typically divided into four primary landscape regions.
-The European Lowland: Sometimes called the Northern European Plain, this relatively lowlying area has few areas more than 500 feed above sea level. It is not entirely flat as it has areas
of rolling hills and plateaus. This region is crossed by many navigable rivers, which with the aid
of canals and locks allow even land locked countries access to the sea.
-The lowlands southwest of the Rhine river (Belgium and France) are much more fertile
because unlike the lowlands to the northeast (Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Poland)
they were not covered by glaciers during the last ice age. When the glaciers retreated
they left behind very rocky soils.
-The Alpine Mountain System: This complex system of mountains stretches across much of the
region and is broken up into several distinct ranges.
-The Pyrenees run 300 miles from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and form the
boundary between Spain and France. They are a rugged range with peaks reaching over
11,000 feet. The small 181 square mile microstate of Andorra is located in this range, the
prosperous country is well off due to the over 10 million tourists that flock there every
year to experience the mountains.
-The central core of Europe’s mountain system is the Alps, which range for over 500
miles from France to Austria. This is where Europe’s highest peaks are located, with the
higher peaks found mostly in the western Alps.
-The Apennine Mountains run down the spine if the Italian peninsula. This range is
connected to the Alps by lower hills in southern France and is generally lower in altitude
than the Alps and contain only one glacier.
-The Carpathian Mountains are the eastern most extension of Europe’s Alpine system.
This range extends in an arch from eastern Austria to the boarder of Romania and Serbia.
The highest peaks in this range in Slovakia and Poland are less than 9,000 feet high.
Especially in Romania the Carpathians are known for being some of the best preserved
wilderness in Europe and they provide a habitat for Europe’s largest populations of
brown bears, wolves, chamois (mountain goats) and lynx. They also contain on third of
all of European plant species.
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Europe
-The Central Uplands: Consist of lower mountains than the Alpine system and are located
between the Alps and the Lowlands. This is the region where much of Europe’s mineral wealth
lies and where the raw material for Europe’s industrial areas comes from. The coal deposits in
this region helped to fuel the industrial revolution.
-The Western Highlands: These highlands define the western edge of the region. They extend
from Portugal in the south up through the British Isles to the mountainous spine of Scandinavia.
Although not very high the highlands that run though Scotland create a spectacular landscape. In
Norway these highlands form an incredibly intricate coastline of fjords. These are u-shapes
valleys carved by glaciers that have flooded as the sea level rose after the ice age. May
settlements in the fjords of Norway can only be accessed by boat.
-Many are surprised by the fact that Europe is such a northern region. Much of Europe actually
lies north of the 49th parallel, which is what separates the U.S. from Canada. Even the hot
Mediterranean region is north of the U.S. Mexican boarder.
-Despite its northern location much of Europe, especially Western Europe, has a relatively mild
climate. This has to do with the warming affects of the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the ocean
Europe has a climate on average 5 to 10F warmer than other regions at comparable latitudes. In
the marine west-coast climate zone typified by England and Ireland even the winter months the
average temperatures do not get below freezing. Although there are often sleet storms or
blizzards in the winter. During the summer these coastal areas remain foggy and cool. Without
the warm Gulf Stream which flows up this way Ireland would not be the Emerald Isle, it would
likely have a climate more like northern Canada.
-Further from the ocean in the continental climate zones there are cold freezing winters because
these zones don’t benefit from the warming affect of the ocean.
-In the south there is the warm Mediterranean climate that has a distinct dry season in the
summers. Droughts can be a problem in this region and irritation and terracing is necessary for
agriculture in much of this region.
-Europe has felt the affects of global warming more so than many other regions of the world.
-Due to global warming droughts have become more frequent in the already dry
Mediterranean region.
-Warmer temperatures and are causing problems for traditional grape growing regions in
Italy and southern France, some experts predict that in the future we may buy Chianti that
from Swiss vineyards and viniculture could even make its way into England and
Scandinavia.
-The world-class ski resorts in the Alps are receiving less snow which could be a big hit
to Europe’s tourism industry.
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Europe
-Rising sea levels could cause major problems for the Low Countries (Belgium,
Netherlands, and Luxembourg) where large populations live in land that is actually below
sea level. In the Netherlands 20% of the land is below sea level and 50% is less than 1
meter above sea level.
-If we look at a population map of Europe we can see that the major population centers are
concentrated in the historical industrial areas of Western Europe (England, the Netherlands,
Northern France, Northern Italy and Western Germany).
-Europe has a relatively high population of 531 million people; compare that to the 340 million
people that live in the considerably larger region of North America.
-Despite this large population Europe currently have a very slow natural growth rate. Some
countries even have negative growth rates. According to the article I had you read for today
deaths are expected to outnumber births in 10 of the EU’s 27 member nations.
-This has to do with the fact that much of Europe’s population now lives in urban areas and in
general urban populations tend to have lower fertility rates over time.
-Many Western European nations where birth rates are especially low (notable Germany, France,
and Austria) the government is giving its citizens monetary rewards for having children in an
effort to get their birth rates up.
-Despite these negative birth rates the population of most European countries is remaining stable
due to immigration. This immigration is coming from many places such as Eastern Europe,
Russia, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.
-As we read in the article for today immigration is one of the most troubling issues in Europe
today. Many European nations are actually looking to the U.S. to see how we handle
immigration because we have fewer problems then they do.
-The problem is that tough immigration laws often make it so immigrants can’t take higher
paying jobs. So the immigrants coming to Europe are all taking menial labor jobs. This
situation is creating a permanent underclass of immigrant workers. There is no upward mobility,
which contrasts substantially with immigration in the U.S.
-This has caused a lot of problems in Europe recently including a rise of right wing racist
political groups who speak out particularly against the many Muslim immigrants that are
currently in Europe. Especially in Germany (where there are a large number of Turkish
immigrants) and France (where there are a lot of North African immigrants) many are worried
that immigrants are forming isolated communities rather than assimilating within the nations.
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-What is certain is that Europe needs to figure out some way to deal with this immigration
problem soon because this region is surrounded by the very rapidly growing regions of Africa
and the Middle East. As the article I had your read points out Europeans need to find a way to
channel immigration to its own advantage.
-There is a disturbing trend of right wing political parties in many Western European nations that
are reacting very strongly to especially Muslim immigrants. In Germany there are some groups
that are trying to prevent Turks, some of whom have been in Germany for over 50 years, from
building mosques for themselves. In Switzerland a new law was recently passed that outlawed
the construction of minarets. In France a new law was passed that outlawed the wearing of
headscarves in school. We will now watch a video about this particular issue in France.
-Europe is one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world. If we just take a look at this
language map we can see that many language families are spoken in Europe. If I had a map of
all the languages spoken it would probably be too hard to read. In general most Europeans can
speak at least two or three languages.
-The politics of Europe are very complex and the boundaries of European nations have been
redrawn many times in the past 100 years. We won’t go into all of that today though; we’ll leave
that for a history class.
-Your book brings up an interesting political situation that focuses on a constant political issue in
Europe. Even after the end of the cold war Russia still has a lot of tension with much of Western
Europe. Russia if very opposed to its former Soviet provinces of siding or allying with Western
Europe. So it has fought hard to keep the Baltic nations for example from joining NATO, which
is a strategic military alliance between the U.S. and most of Western Europe.
-This issue plays into an interesting situation involving Russia supplying much of Europe with
natural gas. More than a quarter of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russian and this causes
worries because Russia can and does shut off the supply if it doesn’t like what is going on in the
west.
-Currently the pipelines that get the gas to Europe run through the former Soviet province of
Ukraine. Russia has been unhappy with Ukraine because they have been trying to become more
allied with the west. As a result Russia sometimes shuts down the pipeline running through the
Ukraine hurting both this country and other European nations especially Germany.
-To avoid tensions with Ukraine Russia has been working on a pipeline that goes through
Finland and under the Baltic Sea to supply Germany with Gas.
-However at the same time many Europeans are supporting a new pipeline based in Azerbaijan
that will rung through Georgia, and Turkey into Bulgaria and hence the rest of Europe. Russia is
very upset about this development. We will actually be reading an article about this pipeline in a
few weeks when we look at the region of Russia and Central Asia.
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Week 6
Europe
-The European Union:
-Coming of the earlier European Economic Community and the European Community the
European Union formed in 1991 to help economically unite Europe especially by creating a
common currency and ending or lowering trade barriers between member nations.
-The EU currently has 27 members. This is an older map; all of the nations in green except
Turkey are currently in the EU. In addition Macedonia, Croatia, Iceland and Turkey all are
currently applying to be members of the EU.
-One of the benefits of the EU and having the common currency of the Euro, which went into
effect in 2002, is that countries now don’t have to worry about conversion rates. This makes
trade much easier. In the past converting currency from a place with a strong currency like
Germany to a place with a weak currency like Italy was very difficult.
-The use of the Euro has really helped some nations economies, especially economically stronger
nations like Germany. However it has not helped every nation and that is why some EU
members still don’t use the Euro, most notably the United Kingdom has been very reluctant to
turn to the Euro.
-During the global economic downturn of 2008 and 2009 some nations with weaker economies
suffered greatly as they could not bring their economies to meat the new currency. Most
notability Greece and Spain were hit very hard by this recession.
-Greece pushed their way into the EU by hiding the amount of debt that it had. In fact Greece
had very irresponsible spending policies for years and probably shouldn’t have been let into the
EU. Now that it’s debt is exposed many in Europe fear they have to bail out the Nation or risk
them dragging down the entire EU. This shows one of the potential dangers of the EU and the
Euro; economic problems in one nation can have a drastic effect on the rest of the EU.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/greeks-streets-violent-protests-economicproblems/story?id=10567233
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