A volcano erupts in central Costa Rica, belching smoke and ash up to 3,000m (9,840ft) into the air and choking nearby communities.
Tags: Costa Rica, disasters, physical, volcano.
Source: www.bbc.com
Geography nuts have located the hardest place to get to on every continent and beyond.
Source: www.atlasobscura.com
The middle of nowhere…this is a common expression that is used to convey isolation, backwardness, wilderness, or a lack of network connections. This article focuses on 8 places that are the farthest away from coasts as well as land. The point on the map above is Point Nemo, right in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean; it is the farthest place on Earth from land and is one of the best candidates for the world champion title of “the middle of nowehere.” What is it close to? Nothing.
“The sense that the normal America is out there somewhere in a hamlet is misplaced: it’s not in a small town at all. I calculated how demographically similar each U.S. metropolitan area is to the U.S. overall, based on age, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity.1 The index equals 100 if a metro’s demographic mix were identical to that of the U.S. overall.”
Source: fivethirtyeight.com
We often do imagine that your typical American is from the Heartland, and that very term, strengthens that connotation. 100 years ago that was true that your average American was one a farm or a small town, as 72% of Americans lived in rural areas. Today, that is decidedly not the case but we still sometimes think (and act) as if it were (84% today live in urban areas). The United States is urban, diverse, and bi-coastal in it’s primary demographic composition.
“Venezuela has become a failed state. According to the International Monetary Fund’s latest projections, it has the world’s worst economic growth, worst inflation and ninth-worst unemployment rate right now. It also has the second-worst murder rate, and an infant mortality rate that’s gotten 100 times worse itself the past four years. And in case all that wasn’t bad enough, its currency, going by black market rates, has lost 99 percent of its value since the start of 2012. It’s what you call a complete social and economic collapse. And it has happened despite the fact that Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves. Never has a country that should have been so rich been so poor. There’s no mystery here. Venezuela’s government is to blame–which is to say that Venezuela is a man-made disaster. It’s a gangster state that doesn’t know how to do anything other than sell drugs and steal money for itself.”
Tags: Venezuela, South America, op-ed, economic, political, governance.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
“Schools in Beijing are closed and outdoor construction halted as the Chinese capital’s first ever pollution “red alert” comes into effect over smog levels.”
Source: www.bbc.com
A large part of China’s rapid economic growth has been dependent on cutting corners in labor and environmental standards. This is one reason why I don’t think that the Chinese economy can continue this growth indefinitely.
Tags: pollution, China, development, economic, megacities, East Asia, industry, sustainability, urban ecology.
“Schools in Beijing are closed and outdoor construction halted as the Chinese capital’s first ever pollution “red alert” comes into effect over smog levels.”
Source: www.bbc.com
A large part of China’s rapid economic growth has been dependent on cutting corners in labor and environmental standards. This is one reason why I don’t think that the Chinese economy can continue this growth indefinitely.
Tags: pollution, China, development, economic, megacities, East Asia, industry, sustainability, urban ecology.
Persecuting religious minorities that are perceived as a political threat is a time-honored American tradition.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
This is not intended to be a political post, but one that reflects of the history of religious persecution in the United States. If you find that to be a controversial political topic, so be it. In the past, when Americans have suspected that a religious group is undermining it’s country’s free, democratic political order, we have demanded—often violently—some radical action against that group. Let that past stay in the past.
Tags: religion, USA, historical, conflict.
Persecuting religious minorities that are perceived as a political threat is a time-honored American tradition.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
This is not intended to be a political post, but one that reflects of the history of religious persecution in the United States. If you find that to be a controversial political topic, so be it. In the past, when Americans have suspected that a religious group is undermining it’s country’s free, democratic political order, we have demanded—often violently—some radical action against that group. Let that past stay in the past.
Tags: religion, USA, historical, conflict.
“Thanks to a nonprofit, nonpartisan project known as the Gun Violence Archive, data on gun homicides and nonfatal shootings is now available well before the federal government releases its statistics. Those data include location information that makes it possible to plot those shootings on a map showing how many have taken place in your vicinity.”
Source: www.slate.com
Perspectives of gun rights and public safety are highly divided. Part of those divisions are ideological, but there are also big differences between urban and rural America. This map of the NRA’s “report card” on the legislators of Congress shows some pretty powerful spatial patterns. This interactive map of people how have been shot this year shows a decidedly differnt pattern that the first.
Questions to Ponder: How do most people feel about the second amendment where you live? What about your local geography might influence those opinions?
GEOGRAPHY EDUCATION 