POL

omaziz01

Hobbs_4e_ch03.pptx

Home >Political Science homework help >POL

HUMAN PROCESSES AND WORLD REGIONS

Chapter 3

Objectives

This chapter should enable you to:

Gain a historical perspective on the capacity of human societies to transform environments and landscapes

Understand why some countries are rich and others poor and recognize the geographic distribution of wealth and poverty

Objectives (cont’d.)

Recognize trends associated with globalization, including the decline of poverty worldwide

Explain the simultaneous trends of falling population growth in the richer countries and rapid population growth elsewhere

Explore the principles of sustainable development

Two Revolutions That Have Changed the Earth

The Agricultural Revolution

Began in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago

The Industrial Revolution

Began in 18th Century Europe

Hunting and Gathering

Hunters and gatherers

Foraging until 10,000 years ago

Small, family-based groups

Nomads who wandered from place to place to take advantage of changing opportunities on the landscape

Because of this movement, they had a relatively limited impact on the natural environment

Hunting and Gathering (cont’d.)

An ecologically dominant species

Competed more successfully than other organisms for nutrition and other essentials of life

Exerted a greater influence than other species on the environment

Pleistocene Overkill Hypothesis

Hunted many species to extinction

Farming: Welcome to the Anthropocene

Domestication brought about the Agricultural Revolution

Change in climate

Growing populations compelled people to find new food sources

Abandonment of nomadic lifestyles

Extensive land vs. intensive land use

Population densities increase

Irrigation along the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile Rivers

Farming: Welcome to the Anthropocene (cont’d.)

Civilization enabled by increased food production

Several culture hearths emerged between 8000 and 2500 B.C.E. in China, SE Asia, Indus River Valley, Egypt, West Africa, Mesoamerica, and the Andes

Carrying capacity

Expanding food surpluses of the Agricultural Revolution raised the size of the human population that Earth’s ecosystem could support

Hearths

Figure 3.4 Cultural, linguistic, and religious hearths worldwide. All areas are approximate.

The Industrial Revolution

Began in Europe around 1750 C.E.

Based on technological breakthroughs made possible by:

Economic capital

Improvements in agricultural productivity

Population growth

Greater number of people to devote their talents and labor to experimentation and innovation

Industrialization, Colonization & Environmental Change

Age of Discovery (Age of Exploration)

Began in the 15th century

Europeans looked abroad to feed growing appetite for innovation

Exploration resulted in colonization

European political and economic control over foreign areas

Industrialization, Colonization & Environmental Change (cont’d.)

Industrial Revolution’s impact on environment

Since 1750, total forested area on Earth has declined by more than 20%

Total cropland has grown by 500% during same period

Human use of energy increased 100-fold since 1750

Angelique Hamane () - Couldn't find this measurement in text

The Geography of Economic Development

Large disparity between wealthy and poor people

Evident both within and between countries

“Haves” vs. “have-nots”

More developed countries (MDCs)

Less developed countries (LDCs)

Newly industrializing countries (NICs)

Wealth and Poverty

Figure 3.7 Wealth and poverty by country. Note the concentration of wealth in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Measuring Development

No universally-accepted standard

Common indices:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

Gross National Product (GNP)

Gross National Income (GNI)

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP)

Human Development Index (HDI)

Why Did Some Countries Become Rich & Others Poor?

Dependency theory

Worldwide economic pattern established by both the Industrial Revolution and colonialism persists today

Advantageous & disadvantageous location

Location can influence a country’s economic fortunes

Resource wealth or poverty

Cultural, political, and historical factors

Globalization and Development

Globalization – spread of free trade, free markets, investments, and ideas across borders, and political and cultural adjustments

Multinational companies

Reduction of poverty and growth of the middle classes

Growth in inequality between some socioeconomic groups

Globalization and Development (cont’d.)

Potential for conflict

Geopolitical changes

Changes in technology, knowledge, and people power

Digital divide

Environmental Impacts of Underdevelopment

LDCs borrow money from MDCs

Borrowing countries often try to raise money quickly using these methods:

Cash crops

Sale of natural assets

Methods have a drastic long-term effect on the environment

Using resources too fast

Ecological bankruptcy

Occurs when countries exhaust their environmental capital

The Geography of Population

Demography

Population may be the most critical issue in geography

Number of people

The rate at which people consume resources

Human population explosion since 1800

Migration – spread of cultures, ideas, and opportunities

Can spark tension and violence

How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?

Homo sapiens ancestors came out of Africa around 100,000 years ago to populate Eurasia

Population explosion

1 Billion in 1800

2 Billion in 1930

4 Billion in 1975

6 Billion in 1999

Humans now are by far the most populous large mammal on Earth

How Can We Measure Population Changes?

Birth rate

Annual number of live births per 1,000 people in a population

Death rate

Annual number of deaths per 1,000 people in a population

Population change rate

Birth rate minus death rate

May represent either a growth or a loss

What Determines Family Size?

Education

Urban areas

Marriage age

Contraception

Value systems and cultural norms

What Determines Death Rates?

Health factors

Death rates can be reduced by:

Better sanitation

Better hygiene

Cleaner drinking water

Availability of antibiotics and immunizations

Availability of insecticides

Improvements in medical and public health technologies

What Determines Death Rates? (cont’d.)

Death rates rise with epidemics

HIV/AIDS, Black Death, etc.

Life expectancy

Number of years a person may expect to live in an environment

United States life expectancy in 2015

81 years for Women

76 years for Men

Life Expectancy

Figure 3.15 Life expectancy is closely tied to economic well-being; people live longer where they can afford the medicines and other amenities and technologies that prolong life.

What Determines the Population Change Rate?

Natural disasters, diseases, and wars

With birth rates higher than death rates, the trend has been one of growth

Doubling time

Number of years required for human population to double

Computed by dividing 70 by the growth rate

As of 2014, the global population change rate of 1.2% means a doubling time of 58 years

Why Has the Human Population “Exploded”?

If the birth rate is high and the death rate is low, the population surges

Surge since 1800

The death rate has fallen

Improvements in agriculture and medicine

Demographic transition model

Stage 1: Preindustrial

Stage 2: Transitional

Stage 3: Industrial

Stage 4: Postindustrial

Demographic Transition Model

Figure 3.17 The demographic transition models population change in the world’s wealthier countries. Note how the population surged in the wake of the Industrial Revolution as death rates fell while birth rates remained high, but then leveled out and began to decline as economic development advanced.

The Age Structure Diagram

Population pyramid

Classifies a population by gender and by 5 year age increments

Diagram shapes

LDCs are more bottom-heavy and pyramid-shaped

MDCs are more chimney-shaped

Population under age 15

29% of population in poorer countries

16% of population in wealthier countries

Population Diagrams

Figure 3.18 Population by age and gender in representative countries. The pyramid-shaped age structure diagram for Niger contrasts remarkably with those of the far more affluent United States and Germany, with their chimney-like shapes. A poor country, Niger has a relatively high birth rate, with half of its population under age 15. The US population is growing slowly, while Germany and some other industrialized nations are losing populations.

Where Do We Live?

Natural setting

China and India – most populous countries

China has a population of 1.4 billion

India has a population of 1.3 billion

United States ranks 3rd most populated

Migration the most important factor to increasing population

World Population

Figure 3.20 The demographic heavyweights of China and India stand out in the world population cartogram. The United States and Indonesia, the world’s third and fourth most populous countries, are prominent too.

The Geography of Migration

Movement of people

Within a community, within a country or between countries

Emigrant – from a place

Immigrant – to a place

Migration is driven by push and pull factors

Global Migration

Figure 3.22 The global picture of people on the move, drafted by a team of geographers. The major trends are of migrants in search of work in more affluent countries and of refugees driven by warfare or environmental adversity. The bilateral flows between 196 countries are comparable across countries and capture the number of people who changed their country of residence between mid-2005 and mid-2010. The circular plot shows the estimates of directional flows between the

50 countries that sent and/or received at least 0.5 percent of the world’s migrants in that period. Tick marks indicate gross migration (in 1 out) in 100,000s.

How Many People Will Live on Earth?

Projecting future numbers is difficult

Will birth rates fall faster than anticipated in developing world?

Will death rates surge due to disease or other epidemics?

Predictions by the United Nations

In 2050, the global population will be 9.6 billion

The maximum number of people that will ever live on Earth at one time will be 10.9 billion in 2100

Population Growth

Figure 3.24 United Nations 2014 projections for population growth. Most users of these data prefer to cite the medium projection of 9.6 billion by 2050.

The Malthusian Scenario

Thomas Malthus

English clergyman who lived during Industrial Revolution

Postulated that human populations, growing geometrically or exponentially, would exceed food supplies, which grow only arithmetically or linearly

Predicted a catastrophic human die-off as a result of this irreconcilable equation

The Malthusian Scenario (cont’d.)

Neo-Malthusians vs. technocentrists

Neo-Malthusians insist that birth rates must be brought down or humans will suffer nature’s solution, a catastrophic increase in death rates

Technocentrists are optimists who believe people can raise Earth’s carrying capacity

Malthusian Scenario Graphs

Figure 3.25 Malthus envisioned a race between people and resources, in which people lost.

Figure 3.26 The technocentrists reason that production of food and other resources will always stay ahead of population growth.

What Is “Overpopulation”?

People overpopulation

Characteristic of LDCs

Many persons, with each using a small quantity of natural resources daily to sustain life

Consumption overpopulation

Characteristic of MDCs

Fewer persons, but each uses a large quantity of natural resources from ecosystems around the world

Overpopulation

Figure 3.27 Two types of overpopulation, calculated according to this formula: number of people 3 number of units of resources used per person 3 environmental degradation and pollution per unit of resource used 5 environmental impact. Circle size shows the relative importance of each factor. People overpopulation is caused mostly by growing numbers of people and is typical of LDCs. Consumption overpopulation is caused mostly by growing affluence and is typical of MDCs.

An Action Plan for Global Problems

Birth rate solution

Change worldviews and value systems, recognizing finiteness of resources and reducing their expectations to a level sustainable by Earth’s capabilities

Consider the needs of future generations

Recognize that development and environmental protection are compatible

Wealth redistributed between MDCs and LDCs