Geography Matters

Some of the reasons why Geography is so important to us all.

Can city dwellers be more self-sufficient?

We may dream of quitting the rat race and moving to the countryside, but the reality is that we are overwhelmingly an urban population. In the UK more than 80 per cent of us live in urban areas. Globally, it's the same story, with the UN estimating that, by the end of this year, more than half the world's population will be living in towns and cities.
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Revision

Some lads have asked for a list of what topics we have studied, here is a basic list. You can though access the full specification at the following address http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/pdf/AQA-3032-3037-W-SP-07.PDF

Paper 1

1. Farming Food and the Environment
2. Electricity Generation for the
   Futurehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/energy/energytypesrev1.shtml
3. River Basins and their
   Managementhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/riverswater/riverprocessesrev1.shtml
4. Tourism in a Glacial
   Environment: The Lake
   District National Parkhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/glaciation/glacialprocessesrev1.shtml
5. The Changing Location of
   Manufacturing Industryhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/economic/industryrev1.shtml
6. Understanding the Modern
   Urban Environmenthttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/urbanrural/urbanpatternsmedcrev1.shtml

Paper 2

1. Rich and Poor Regions in the
   European Union
2. Development of the European
   Urban Core
3. Farming in Southern Italy:
   Problems and Development on
   the Periphery
4. Tourism in Mediterranean Spain:
   Development on the Periphery
   and the Results of this
   Development
5. Amazonia: Development in
   the Rainforest Environmenthttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/ecosystems/ecosystemsrainforestrev1.shtml
6. The Ganges Delta: Dense
   Population in a High Risk
   Environmenthttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/weather/globalclimaterev3.shtml
7. Aid, Investment and
   International Development
8. Population Growth and
   Urbanisationhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/geography/population/
9. Japan: Urbanisation and
   Industrialisation in a
   Resource-Poor Environment
10. Global Warming: Its Causes
    and Consequences

The links are ONLY a suggestion, you should try and use your class notes as much as possible.

Any questions, please get in touch.

Geography Audio Topics

BBC Bitesize offer MP3 files that you can download to help you with your revision.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/audio/geography/index.shtml

REMEMBER we do not study some of the topics covered on this site.

First photos of uncontacted tribe

Painted warriors from one of Brazil's last uncontacted tribes have been photographed for the first time.

They were spotted in Brazil's far western Amazon jungle near the Peruvian border.

The photos were taken on flights over the Ethno-Environmental Protected Area along the Envira River in the remote Acre state, the National Indian Foundation or Funai said.

The photos show "strong and healthy" warriors, six huts and a large planted area. But it is not known to which tribe they belong.

"Four distinct isolated peoples exist in this region, whom we have accompanied for 20 years," Funai expert Jose Carlos Meirelles Júnior said.

Funai does not make contact with the Indians and prevents invasions of their land, to ensure total autonomy for the isolated tribes, Funai said.

"We did the overflight to show [the tribe's] houses, to show they are there, to show they exist," said Mr Meirelles.

"This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."

UK based charity Survival International said the Indians are in danger from illegal logging in Peru.

This is driving uncontacted tribes over the border and could lead to conflict with the estimated 500 uncontacted Indians now living on the Brazilian side.

There are more than 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, most of them in Brazil and Peru, the group said.

Survival director Stephen Corry called for their territory to be protected by international law.

China struggles to enforce ban on plastic bags

The Government has prohibited the ultra-thin bags of 0.025 mm in thickness that are ubiquitous when buying such foods as takeaway dumplings

Jane Macartney in Beijing
Strolling along a Beijing street, a young couple paused to buy a bag of fried pork dumplings. The stallholder picked up half a dozen in the filmiest of plastic bags, rolled a couple of steamed buns into another and popped the lot into yet another plastic bag.

It would be hard to tell that new nationwide limits on such packaging took effect on Sunday.

China is almost suffocating under plastic bags. Its 1.3 billion people use three billion bags every day. That’s about 1.6 million tonnes of the items each year, and the Government wants to reduce that to 1.1 million tonnes.

Increasingly aware of the rapid and widespread degradation of the environment in China’s headlong race to industrialisation and modernisation, Beijing is trying to reverse the damage.

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Burmese children 'facing death'

Thousands of children in cyclone-hit Burma will starve to death within weeks unless food reaches them soon, UK charity Save the Children has warned.

The charity said 30,000 under-fives in the Irrawaddy Delta were malnourished before Cyclone Nargis hit on 2 May.

It says energy-rich food now needs to reach them "before it is too late".

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Thousands dead in Chinese quake

A powerful earthquake has killed at least 8,500 people in China's south-western Sichuan province, up to 5,000 of them in just one county.

Many more have been killed and injured in other parts of the country after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck at 1428 local time (0628 GMT).

At least 50 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of a school where an estimated 900 students were buried.

President Hu Jintao has urged "all-out" efforts to rescue victims.


Search teams were sent to the area but struggled to get through because routes were blocked, while nightfall later hampered the rescue attempts.




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Earthquake hits much of England

The biggest earthquake in the UK for nearly 25 years has shaken homes across large parts of England.
People in Newcastle, Yorkshire, London, Manchester, the Midlands and Norfolk and also parts of Wales, felt the tremor just before 0100 GMT.

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HIV / AIDS - A2

Below is the link for the up to date data from WHO Some figures include:

Number of people living with HIV in 2007
Total 33.2 million [30.6–36.1 million]
Adults 30.8 million [28.2–33.6 million]
Women 15.4 million [13.9–16.6 million]

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Wind farms ‘a threat to national security’

Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britain’s energy needs from offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere with its radar.

The MoD has lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in the line of sight of its stations on the east coast because they make it impossible to spot aircraft, The Times has learnt. The same objections are likely to apply to wind turbines in the North Sea, part of the massive renewable energy project announced by John Hutton, the Energy Secretary, barely two months ago. They would be directly in line with the three principal radar defence stations, Brizlee Wood, Saxton Wold and Trimingham on the Northumberland, Yorkshire and Norfolk coasts.

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Rain lashes the West, bringing flash flooding and travel chaos

Heavy rain brought flash flooding to communities still suffering from last summer’s disaster, disrupting road and rail travel around the county today. (Tuesday 15th Jan 2008)

More than 1.2in (30mm) of rain was recorded overnight in Wales and the West Midlands, with gale force winds causing the cargo ship Ice Prince to sink off the Dorset coast.

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Managing Flood Risk

Please click here to access resources published by the Geographical Association.

Antarctic is losing ice ‘nearly twice as fast as ten years ago’

The rate of annual ice loss in the Antarctic has increased by almost 80 billion tonnes in a decade, a study has found.

Measurements using satellite radar readings revealed that in parts of the continent the rate of loss has speeded up by 140 per cent since 1996. Global warming is thought to be among the most likely factors and the data provides one of the most detailed assessments yet of the changes.

The findings challenge suggestions from previous research that the overall quantities of ice and snow in Antarctica could increase over the next century because of greater snowfall. The total annual loss was estimated at 196 billion tonnes, almost 50 times as much as the 4 billion tonnes of drinking water supplied to Britain’s taps each year.

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First new nuclear power plant 'will be completed before 2020'

The Government today gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power plants, provoking a sharply polarised response from the supporters and opponents of nuclear energy.

Announcing the plans in Parliament, John Hutton, the Business Secretary, said that the proposals made sound commercial and environmental sense, and hoped that the first new nuclear power station would be completed well before 2020.

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Please add your own comments, what you think about nuclear power?