Geography Revision – Geographical Skills and

Challenges for the Planet

Geographical Skills

• Labelling – naming a feature

• Annotation – adding an explanation to a label/feature
• Mercator projection – shape of the countries as seen from space – sizes not accurate –
trim off Antarctica – equator is 2/3 down the map and Europe is centred
• Peters projection – shows countries according to their real size – shapes look unfamiliar

Map information
Altitude Contours and spot-heights – avoid terms like
‘mountainous’ unless certain
Relief Contours and distances – use terms like flat,
steeply, sloping, undulating
Aspect Contours and compass points – ‘South-west
facing slope’ – scale might obscure details of
local variations
Surface Drainage Rivers, lakes, drainage ditches – not all rivers
are marked
Land Use Don’t read too much into place names – map
symbols
Settlement Size Only area not population – unknown height of
buildings
Settlement Use distances
Distribution
Settlement Function Use map symbols

• Most OS maps = 1:50 000

• Contours at 10m intervals
• Nucleated – clustered
• Liner – lines
• Dispersed – no pattern, spread out

S lope
A spect
G round Conditions
A ltitude

Challenges for the Planet

The causes, effects and responses to climate change

How and why climate has changed since the last ice age

• Changes in the Earth’s orbital geometry

o Earth orbits on a variable orbit
o Wobbles on axis
 o Angle of tilt also varies
o Variations known as Milankovitch Mechanism – could be cause of ice ages

• Changes in Solar Output

o Energy transmitted varies by small amounts
o Changes aren’t large – have great effect on the earth’s temperatures
• Catastrophic Events
o Volcanic activity & meteors result in large amounts of material being ejected into
the atmosphere
o Evidence linking events to changes in the Earth’s temperature
• Laki Eruption – 1783
o 27km of vents poured out lava for 8 months – largest lava flow for 1000 years
o Small particles were combined with water vapour – fog – couldn’t see sun for weeks
o Effects –
 Vegetation killed off – led to death of animals (starvation) – 1/3 of the
population died in a famine as they relied on meat
 Impact felt in Europe – particles in the atmosphere blocked incoming solar
radiation and reduced global temperatures
o Caused civil unrest – thought to have caused the French Revolution (1789)

The causes of current climate change on a local and global scale

• Gases trap radiation and make the atmosphere warmer – too high of a level – temperature
becomes too warm
• Greenhouse gases
o Water Vapour
o Methane
o Carbon dioxide
o Nitrous oxide
o CFCs
• Oceans and biosphere act as carbon sinks – absorb the carbon dioxide
• Main focus of attention is the rising levels of carbon dioxide and methane due to human
contribution
• Methane
o 24x more potent that carbon dioxide
o Levels have risen as the number of livestock has increased
o Rising incomes has increased the demand for meat
o 15% - 20% of methane emissions comes from sheep
• Increase in wealth has led to an increase in demand for
o Energy
o Food
o Consumer goods
o Transport
All greenhouse gases

17%
21%

4% 14%

10%

13%
10%

11%

Industrial Fuels - Transport

Agriculture Fuels - Retrival
Residential Land use and biomass burning
Waste disposal Power Stations
 • High income countries reached high levels of consumption
o Raise levels to dangerous levels
• Tata Motors – cheap affordable car – sell in vast numbers – contribute to carbon dioxide
levels

The negative effects that climate change is having on people

• Climate change will affect the weather and climatic conditions

• Possible hazardous weather events
• Food production
o Crop yield
o Almost every country depends on foreign imports
o Has 40 days supply
o Food prices will rise
o Wheat belts – responsible for growing large proportion of the world’s wheat – few
countries
• Disease
o Changing climate would mean changing patterns of disease
o Malaria
 Temperatures rise in southern Italy
 Dealing with return
 Disease eradicated 1970
o Tick-borne encephalitis
 18 cases before 1993
 100 since – around Venice
 Attacks the nervous system
• Sea levels
o Water melting from ice sheets
o Expansion of sea water as it gets warmer
o Threatens low-lying islands and coral reefs
o Deltas and flood plains could be contaminated by sea water
o Pessimistic forecast – rise more than a metre
o Optimistic – rise about 20cm – poses risk to low-lying islands
o Johannesburg Earth Summit
 2002
 Pledged $1bn to enable poor and vulnerable countries to predict and plan
 $180m has been delivered
• Bangladesh
o One of the most vulnerable countries in the world
o Hazard hotspot – tropical cyclones – flooding
o Many of the population line on floodplains
o Threatened by climate change
o 20% live in extreme poverty
o Super-cyclone Sidr – killed 3000 – affected 7 million
 Shelters built along coast
 Early warning
 Offers clear warning about future
 Agriculture ruined by salt water
 Sewage system disrupted
o Needs $3.5bn over 5 years to strengthen and maintain its defences
o Disappointed by lack of help from HICs
o Leading part in Bali conference – not received any funds
The response to climate change, from a local to a global scale

• Many people keen to reduce ‘carbon footprint’

• Individual action
o Live Sustainably and change habits
o Reduce impact on the Earth’s resources
o Number of ways to achieve this:-

Sustainably or simply? Benefits Costs and Problems

Use local farmers’ markets Supports local farmers and Buying locally produced
reduces costs of transport and tomatoes in spring is more
carbon footprint damaging than importing them
from Spain – heating the
greenhouses
Reduce unnecessary luxuries Reduces waste of resources in Unemployment
manufacture and transport
Get on your bike Average car journey is 8.7 Elderly can’t use bikes – cut
miles. 33 million cars on UK the freight load and it could
roads – enormous scope to affect the economy
reduce CO2 emission
Recycling and conservation Huge savings – resources Isn’t obvious how some people
saved. would benefit – impact on
global warming is small

• National Campaigns
o Governments have 3 sets of responsibilities
 Economic growth
• Use of more resources
• Impossible for governments to suggest that they should become
poorer to save the environment
 Social Equity
• Make sure societies are fair
• Governments that are made of people who don’t believe in social
equity pay attention to it or they risk unpopularity
 Protection of environment
• Other pressure can often outweigh this responsibility
• USA refused to sign Kyoto
o Urban sprawl has created cities that are dependent on cars
 Debate became more lively since oil prices have risen
 Cities have grown with cheap petrol and land – encourages
 Governments has power to stop growth – chosen not to
o Unsustainable cities
 Not all places are planned with the environment in mind
 Some modern technology increases energy consumption
 Tourism involving long-distance travel poses challenges for the environment
• International Campaigns
Year
1988 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Reported that the Earth has warmed 0.5ºC.
set up They recommend strong measures
1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro UNFCC is signed by 154 nations. Prevents
serious warming. Countries set voluntary
targets
1997 Kyoto Protocol Legally binding controls – 178 countries
2007 Bali Conference 90% chance that global warming is caused
 by human activity

Sustainable development for the planet

Definitions and interpretations of ‘sustainable development’

• Sustainable development
o UN definition
 Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of present
generations without limiting the ability of future generations to meet their
needs
o Less talk of present generations – widening gap between rich and poor
o Varying definition – sustainable often appears as meaning responsible/long-term
 Often first priority is to make a profit while trying to keep customers,
shareholders and workers happy
o Large organisation and their policies for sustainability
 Interface Inc.
• Largest manufacturer of commercial carpets
• 7 targets:-
o Eliminating waste in every area of business
o Benign emissions, elimination toxic substances
o Using renewable energy sources
o Closing the loop – redesigning processes and products to use
recovered and bio-based materials
o Using resource efficient transport
o Create a culture that integrates sustainability principles
o Creating a business model that demonstrates the value of
sustainability
 Unilever
• Tea Production
• Changed tree planting policy
o Coppicing – cuts back tree to stimulate growth – increases
wood supply by 15%
• Improved wood burning techniques – cutting back moisture in the
wood – reduce wood consumption by 25%

Urban Transport – the public versus private debate

• Transport solutions and the density of cities

o Fuel consumption in compact cities is lower
o High density – public transport is developed and used – easier to solve in high-
density cities
o Amsterdam – 700,000 bicycles and a tram network
• Congestion Charging
o Before – 334,000 vehicles entered the central zone
o 2006 – drop of 21%
o Traffic in western extension dropped by 25%
o Policy a success (environmentalists) –
 Greenhouse emissions in the zone reduced by 25%
 Health-affecting pollutants dropped by 12%

Resource Extraction from tropical rainforests

• Lightly populated regions – inhabited by groups who have little power

• Rainforests are fragile – vegetation grows quickly and breaks down quickly
 o Impacts more obvious and more difficult to reverse
o Local conflicts – local people gain the least, lose the most, compensation is small
o Biodiversity loss – rules in protected areas not always followed
o Soil and aquatic pollution – spills, toxic by-products dumped – pollutes land and
water
o Air pollution – by-products burned in open air – unnecessary flaring is a waste of
natural gas
• Oil from Ecuador
o Oriente
o First barrels extracted in 1972
o Little government oversight
o Little concern for non-economic problems
o Oil operations – discharged 4.3m gallons of toxic waste every day
o Contaminants in drinking water 1000 times the recommended safety standards
o Health workers report increase in –
 Gastrointestinal problems
 Skin rashes
 Birth Defects
 Cancers
o Basic social indicators have gotten worse
o Social inequalities more obvious
o 10-20 years of oil left – would only pay 1/5 of current national debt
o Most optimistic projections – in poverty and in debt
• Palm Oil production in Papua New Guinea
o Largest foreign exchange earner
o Nucleus estate & several local smallholders
 Smallholders supply the nucleus estate
 Nucleus estate owns the mills
• Supplies the seedlings, expertise, tools, fertilisers…etc.
• Mostly foreign owned
 Smallholders provide labour, maintenance and harvesting
o Government provides tax breaks for people interested in expanding the industry
o Problems
 Moving away from local customary processes of land use and allocation
 Waterway pollution
 Smallholders are totally dependent on the palm company and price
fluctuations
 Less biodiversity