De Blij's Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever

Geography is an important factor to consider when you look at this worlds past, present, or future. So whether it be the earths physical geographic features, the geopolitics stirring up trouble across the globe, or the economics of growing or shrinking countries; geography plays a major role. In todays society, geographic knowledge is one of the most important and valuable tools to possess. Without it, we are victims of ignorance and endanger ourselves, others, and the world. This ignorance, possessed by many, is posing a great risk of self-destruction. The author of “Why Geography Matters More Than Ever”, Harm de Blij, makes many strong points on this matter, but occasionally makes unsupported and unclear statements which tend to stray off topic.

Much of my passion for Geography is derived from the fact that it depicts relevance to all aspects of society. It is dynamic in a sense that my perception and understanding is constantly evolving with the growth in understanding and perception. What intrigues my further pursuit of geography is how Geography unlike other subjects has direct links to both human and physical attributes. By further pursuing geography at a higher education level, I wish to enrich my understanding of the wider significance of issues being faced and how it affects society on a local and global level. It is important to identify and understand the interconnecting aspects of the world around us and apply such knowledge towards a more sustainable future. Geography

Africa has been seen by the Western world as a ‘dark’ continent and very little was known about its land or people. Geological explorations showed that the Sahara desert was initially a fertile area, overflowing in lush vegetation, animal and men. Climatic changes were responsible for the formation of the desert. Africa, therefore, came to be known as an inhospitable place, in spite of areas of with great rivers, thick forests and vast green-lands. This was mainly because the greater part of the continent was separated from Mediterranean civilization and was not open to outside influences.

Africa and America are two very different continents but can still be compared throughout their history. After previously researching Americas history it came about that a vital part of the American culture come down the native people deciding to move or remain in one place due to a huge climate change, a very similar thing happened in West Africa. In about 5500BC it was the ‘beginning of the desertification of north Africa, which ultimately lead to the formation of the Sahara desert from land that was previously savannah, though is still wetter than today. It's possible this process pushed people in the area into migrating to the region of the Nile in the east, thereby laying the groundwork for the rise of Egyptian civilization.’ [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_environmental_history].

Each person has unique person geography. Each of the five themes of geography can affect you and your enviornment. The five themes of geography are Movement, Region, Human-Environment Interaction, Location and Place.

Erin Paradis Mrs. Zemetres World Geography Five Themes Essay 9 January 2015 Imagine that you need to tell a friend how to get from their house to the grocery store. How would you give the directions? Would you give steps for the friend to follow? Or would you tell them that the grocery store is next to the local convenience store?

There are mutual effects between European colonizers and Africans. On one hand, European colonizers suffered from tropical diseases originated from Africa. On the other hand, however, Europeans affected Africa in the area of health and wellness in a more rapid and profound way. Not only did they contribute much

Geography is an aspect of life that we sometimes take for granted, geographical events have occurred around us our entire life and will continue to until the day we die, whether it be Russian submarines planting a titanium flag to claim untouched reserves beneath the North Pole or Oregon’s Lost Lake annually disappearing into underground lava tubes. As a geographer, I find it fascinating to find reasons from various perspectives, as to why such events occur and in the way that they do.

This relates to the impact of geography in the aspect of cities’ housing, as well as land use. Simply put, there just isn’t enough land the way it is. There are over 200,000 vacant houses, yet there are rising numbers of homeless. It just does not add up. What Lowe Guardians plans on doing is using the space to its fullest potential. They are getting people that are in search of an affordable home, in their pods. These pods are placed in the abandoned buildings and warehouses, to make use of the land. Which, is solving the problem of the lack of living space, as well as restoring the vacant living quarters.

This inquiry and exploratory artefact encourages and supports children to explore their surroundings with enthusiasm and supports directional concepts. Educators engage in meaningful conversations about position, size and direction; up, down, big, small, behind and in front of. Conversing using explicitly directional and positioning words provides this age group with meaning for words and their corresponding actions that relate to geographical vocabulary (Marsh and Hart 2003).

An average American citizen spends about $2,600 on food each year, while other countries can barely even get enough food to feed themselves every day. How did the world become like this? Why is the world so unequal? The reason behind this is geography. Geography was the main reason that Europeans were able to decimate other cultures and appropriate their resources. The geography of Europe allowed Europeans to have good crops, domesticated animals, steel to make weapons, and immunity to smallpox, which ultimately contributed to them coming to power.

Humans interact with the environment of Africa in many ways. Some of those ways help to improve the environment, but many of the other ways humans interact with Africa’s environment is hurting its health and sustainability. A couple of ways humans are affecting Africa’s environment are deforestation and desertification. These two environmental changes are happening rapidly and have consequences that all life forms have to deal with.

Take a look outside. What do you notice about your surrounding geography? What about the climate? How does this affect your ability to grow as a civilization? You may or may not have known this but geography, climate, and location have a remarkable impact on your food source, animal domestication, immunity to germs, and the development of steel. There is a technical disparity between different countries and civilizations because of their geography and climate. The European’s geography controlled by their agriculture giving them abundant crops, the ability to domesticate animals to increase development, immunity to germs as a result to exposure for animals, and ability to make steel which they used to decimate other civilizations.

Such faster rate of change has serious implications on the lives and livelihoods of the highlanders since the extreme temperature events will contribute to the increase in mean temperature. Previous studies in East Africa have documented that an increase in the mean temperature is associated with vector-borne diseases, including malaria by supporting the breeding and growth of mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus (Omumbo et al. 2011). The other study also projected that there will be a significant decrease in the main crop produced in eastern Africa owing to heat stress (Adhikari et al. 2015). Similarly, there is evidence that continued incidence of meteorological drought episodes, famines and climate-sensitive, resulting in human and crop diseases, both in the northern highland and southern lowland regions of Ethiopia (Aklilu and Alebachew 2009; Gebrehiwot and van der Veen 2013; Bewket et al. 2015; Degefu et al 2017). Primarily associated with climate extremes, Ethiopia has experienced 12 major droughts from 1900 to 2010 which claimed the lives of over 400 000 people and affected over 54 million people (You and Ringler 2010). The continued climate extremes in Ethiopia caused for loss of crops and livestock that contributed to food insecurity, including famine to the Ethiopian population (EPCC 2015; Savage et al. 2015). The 2015 El Niño-induced severe drought alone has resulted in

If you look at a map of North America you will find that Regina is in the centre of the continent. Regina is the capital city of Saskatchewan, which is one of the provinces in Canada. Saskatchewan is located in the South-Western area of Canada in between Alberta to the West and Manitoba to the East. To the North of Saskatchewan is Northwest Territories. To the south of the province is the United States of America.