THE GEOGRAPHER ONLINE

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        • 1. Causes of global climate change
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        • 1: Global trends in consumption
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        • 1. Global interactions and global power
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      • 1. Populations in Transition
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      • Oceans and their Coastal Margins
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      • Freshwater - issues and conflicts
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      • Measuring Global Interactions
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Environmental Change


Index

1. Degradation through raw material production.
2. The effects of transnational manufacturing and services.
3. Transboundary pollution.
4. Homogenisation of landscapes.

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Degradation through raw material production

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Key Terms
  • Agro-industrialisation: the form of modern farming that refers to the industrialised production of livestock, poultry, fish and crops. It is typically large scale and capital intensive.
  • Green Revolution: the introduction of high-yielding seeds and modern agricultural techniques in developing countries.
  • Organic farming: the process of producing food naturally, avoiding the use of synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and genetically modified organisms to influence the growth of crops.


  • Food miles: the distance food travels from the farm where it is produced to the plate of the final consumer.
  • Life cycle (of food): aggregate of emissions, waste and the resource use from soil to kitchen per unit of different food items.
  • Economies of scale: the reduction in unit cost as the scale of an operation increases. 

Characteristics of 
Agro-industrialisation

  • Large scale
  • Use of machinery
  • Often specialisation in one or a limited number of products (monoculture)
  • IT management systems
  • Intensive use of chemicals
  • Low labour inputs in comparison to outputs
  • Often owned by agrobusiness companies (many of which are TNCs)
  • Maybe vertically integrated with food processing companies.

Regions where Agro-industrialisation is evident

  • The Canadian Prairies
  • The corn and wheat belts in the USA
  • The Paris basin
  • East Anglia in the UK
  • The Pampas in Argentina

Post by Animal Equality.

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Using your Global Interactions text book make some notes on the following questions:
Pages 92 - 99

  1. What is agro-industrialisation? (explain an list its key characteristics)
  2. What are the main environmental consequences of agro-industrialisation?
  3. Explain the concept of 'vertical food chain integration' and why it is becoming increasingly important.
  4. What is the Green Revolution and what has been its impact on farming?
  5. What are the main characteristics of Organic Farming
  6. Why is food waste and packaging such a major problem and what does it hold for the future?

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Case Study:
Examine the environmental consequences of increasing international demand on Soybeans. Use the Global Interactions text book pg 99.


food Miles

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Food miles at Christmas
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IB Style Question: 
Explain what food miles are and how they impact our environment [10]
Other Perspectives


The effects of transnational manufacturing and services

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Key Terms
  • Product life cycle: the pattern of sales in the life of a product usually divided into four stages: early, growth, maturity and decline
  • Pollution: contamination of the environment. It can take many forms - air, water, soil, noise, visual and others.
  • Kuznets curve: a graph with measures of increased economic development on the horizontal axis, and measures of income inequality on the vertical axis. Hypothesised by Kuznets in 1955, it has an inverted U-shape. The environmental Kuznets curve shows the rate of environmental degradation on the vertical axis.


  • Deindustrialisation: the long-term absolute decline of employment in manufacturing.
  • Toxicity: a measure of the degree to which something is poisonous. It is often expressed as a dose-response relationship.
  • Externality: the side-effects, positive and negative, of an economic activity that are experienced beyond its  site.
  • Externality field: the geographical area within which externalities are experienced. 

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Read the document on the right and create a mind map showing all the factors that affect how TNCs locate around the world. 
Factors affecting the changing location of TNCs
File Size: 16 kb
File Type: docx
Download File


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Case Studies:
Watch the above YouTubes and make notes on where and why certain industries are located in countries outside the traditional core areas of Europe and North America.

Other supporting evidence:
  1. Toxic 'e-waste' dumped in poor nations
  2. Unused e-waste discarded in China raises questions

mumbai-choking-e-waste_report_mail.pdf
File Size: 2183 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File


Draw and explain the following graphs:
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Relationship between the cost of manufacturing and emissions
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Kuznets curve
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Modeling GPD per capita vs. Pollution


TRANS BOUNDARY POLLUTION 

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Key Terms
  • Incidental pollution: a one-off pollution incident
  • Sustained pollution: pollution that occurs over a significant period of time

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This unit can be linked to:
  1.  Optional Unit: Oceans and their Coastal Margins (Pacific Garbage Gyre)
  2. Optional Unit: Hazards and Disasters - Risk Assessment and Response (Chernobyl)


The Pacific Garbage Gyre

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The Pacific Garbage Gyre - synopsis

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Classwork: 
Go through all the images, pictures and videos whilst making some notes on each subheading areas.

Where?

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Pacific Grabage Gyre - Location
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GreenPeace interactive map

Causes?


Consequences?


Responses?

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Can the oceans be cleared of floating plastic rubbish?






Civil Society: GreenPeace

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Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace by:

  • Catalysing an energy revolution to address the number one threat facing our planet: climate change.
  • Defending our oceans by challenging wasteful and destructive fishing, and creating a global network of marine reserves.
  • Protecting the world's ancient forests and the animals, plants and people that depend on them.
  • Working for disarmament and peace by tackling the causes of conflict and calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
  • Creating a toxic free future with safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in today's products and manufacturing.
  • Campaigning for sustainable agriculture by rejecting genetically engineered organisms, protecting biodiversity and encouraging socially responsible farming.
Greenpeace is present in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

To maintain its independence, Greenpeace does not accept donations from governments or corporations but relies on contributions from individual supporters and foundation grants.

GreenPeace Summary Sheet
File Size: 30 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

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Reasons for Increased Social Awareness:



As suggested by the Kuznets curve, environmental awareness increases with economic development. 





  • Increased publicity and campaigning by NGOs and charitable organisations e.g. Greenpeace
  • Increased coverage of environmental problems by media organisations e.g. BBC and CNN
  • Environmental disasters like the BP Oil Spill have heightened awareness
  • Improved economic development allows people to consider other matters rather than just the economy and making money
  • Because people have more leisure time and greater disposable income they have more time to enjoy the environment so would like it protected
  • Government have created more protected areas e.g. National Parks as well as the UN e.g. World Heritage Sites which has increased the profile of the environment
  • Political parties like the Green party in the UK are growing in importance and stature and are increasing people awareness
  • Environmental campaigns can be spread easily via social media like Youtube, Twitter and blogs
  • Education about the environment e.g. the three R (reduce, reuse, recycle) has improved at school
  • The number of recycling centres and recycling bins have increased which has increased awareness
  • Environmental labelling e.g. FSC and Dolphin Friendly have made consumers more aware of the environment
  • The environment has been made one of the Millennium Development Goals - Goal 7 is Environmental Sustainability
  • UN conferences like the Rio Earth Summit have increased global awareness of the environment
  • Global issues like acid rain, the greenhouse effect and the hole in the ozone layer are better understood and better publicised and taught

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Explain how one international civil society organisation has impacted and improved environmental management. [10]


HOMOGENIZATION of Landscapes

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Key Terms
  • Homogenisation of landscapes: the process whereby different landscapes in a country increasingly resemble those found in other countries because similar processes of change are at work
  • Central Business District (CBD): the major commercial centre of an urban area, usually centrally located at the point of maximum accessibility
  • Accessibility: the degree to which a location is accessible to as many people as possible
  • Pedestrianised precincts: urban areas where vehicles are totally banned or very strictly controlled to allow total access to people on foot
  • Retail park: a grouping of retail functions requiring large floorspaces and offering many parking spaces, usually without charge. Usually located on major roads.
  • Rural-urban fringe: the boundary zone where urban and non-urban land meet. and an area of transition from agriculture and other rural activities to urban use.
  • Planning regulations: the conditions that govern exixsting and new building.
  • Cycle of urbanisation: the stages of urban change from the growth of a city to counterurbanisation through to reurbanisation
  • Counterurbanisation: the process of population decentralisation as people move from large urban areas to smaller urban settlements and rural areas.
  • Reurbanisation: when, after a clear period of decline, the population of a city, in particular the inner area, begins to increase again.
  • Gradient of homogenisation: the thesis that homogenisation is at its most intense at the core of an urban area and declines towards the periphery. 



Where are these places?

Where are these places in the world guess from Steven Heath
Where are these places in the world?
File Size: 4040 kb
File Type: pptx
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Factors that have caused global urban uniformity
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Using pages 132 - 138 in the Geography "Global Interactions" textbook answer the following questions:
  1. What common characteristics would you expect to find in the CBDs of large cities all around the world?
  2. What are the reasons for such similarities?
  3. Describe and explain other characteristics of urban areas which have become more uniform in recent decades. 
  4. Explain the meaning of a 'gradient of homogenisation' 



IB Style Question:
Explain how urban landscapes have become more uniform in recent decades? [10]


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  • Home
    • How to make a website: Tools and experiences
    • Maps and Regions
    • Travel Photographs and Videos
    • Live: Global Hazards and Disasters
    • Geography in the news
    • The Big Geography Challenge
  • New IB Geography 2017 onwards
    • IB Geography Introduction
    • Part 1: Geographical Themes >
      • Option B: Oceans and coastal margins >
        • 1. Ocean–atmosphere interactions
        • 2. Interactions between oceans and coastal places
        • 3. Managing coastal margins
        • 4. Ocean management futures
      • Option D: Geophysical Hazards >
        • 1. Geophysical systems
        • 2. Geophysical hazard risks
        • 3. Hazard risk and vulnerability
        • 4. Future resilience and adaptation
    • Part 2: Core Units (SL&HL) >
      • Unit 1: Changing Population >
        • 1. Population and economic development patterns
        • 2. Changing Populations and Places
        • 3. Challenges and opportunities
      • Unit 2: Global climate—vulnerability and resilience >
        • 1. Causes of global climate change
        • 2. Consequences of global climate change
        • 3. Responding to global climate change
      • Unit 3: Global resource consumption and security >
        • 1: Global trends in consumption
        • 2: Impacts of changing trends in resource consumption
        • 3: Resource stewardship
    • Part 3: HL Core Extensions >
      • Unit 4: Power, places and networks >
        • 1. Global interactions and global power
      • Unit 5: Human development and diversity
      • Unit 6: Global risks and resilience
    • Internal Assessment
    • Why should I study IB Geography?
  • IB Geography (Old Syllabus)
    • IB Core >
      • 1. Populations in Transition
      • 2. Disparities in Wealth and Development
      • 3. Patterns in Environmental Quality and Sustainability
      • 4. Patterns in Resource Consumption
    • Part 1: Geographical Themes >
      • Oceans and their Coastal Margins
      • Hazards and disasters - risk assessment and response
      • Freshwater - issues and conflicts
      • Urban Environments
    • Global Interactions - HL >
      • Measuring Global Interactions
      • Changing Space - The Shrinking world
      • Economic Interactions and Flows
      • Environmental Change
      • Sociocultural Exchanges
      • Political Outcomes
      • Global Interactions at the Local Level
    • IB Guidance >
      • Syllabus Guidance
      • IB Examination Guidance
    • Extended Essay
  • IGCSE Geography
    • Theme 1: Population and settlement >
      • Population Dynamics
      • Migration
      • Settlements
      • Urban Settlements
      • Urbanisation
    • Theme 2: The natural environment >
      • Plate Tectonics
      • Coasts
      • Rivers
      • Weather and Climate
      • Climate and Ecosystems
    • Theme 3: Economic development >
      • Development
      • Food Production
      • Industry
      • Energy
      • Tourism
      • Water
      • Environmental Risks of Economic development
    • GCSE Key Terms
    • GCSE Coursework
    • Alternative to Coursework
    • IGCSE Geography Examination Advice
    • IGCSE Revision Games
  • Key Stage 3
    • Year 6 >
      • My Place
      • Rivers
      • Brazil
    • Year 7 >
      • Maps and the world
      • Rocky Landscapes
      • Settlement
      • Weather & Climate
    • Year 8 >
      • Maps Introduction
      • Plate Tectonics
      • Economic Activity
      • Biomes
    • Year 9 >
      • Map Skills - review
      • Development
      • Coasts
      • Tourism
      • Paradise lost - Tourism in Thailand
  • AS Level Geography
    • World at Risk
    • Crowded Coasts
  • Geography Skills
  • Donations & Contact
  • YouTube Channel
  • Essential computer programs