"In the garment industry, stories about workers who barely eke out an existence on 'starvation wages' are legion: Factory workers in New Delhi often describe living in makeshift hovels 'barely fit for animals.' A young woman from Myanmar might wrestle with the decision to feed her children or send them to school. In Bangladesh, sewing-machine operators frequently toil for 100 hours or more a week, only to run out of money before the end of the month. Workers have demanded higher pay in all those countries, of course, sometimes precipitating violence between protesters and police. Companies in general, however, have preferred to sidestep the issue altogether. In fact, no multinational brand or retailer currently claims to pay its garment workers a wage they can subsist on."
"The Last of the Free Seas is the title of this fantastic map of the Great Lakes made by Boris Artzbasheff. It was published in Fortune Magazine in July 1940."
The graphic above (Voronoi diagram) represents the relative size of each country’s economy in terms of nominal GDP: the larger the area, the larger the size of the economy. The areas are further divided into three sectors: services, industrial, and agricultural. The US economy is mostly composed of companies engaged in providing services (79.7% compared to the global average of 63.6%), while agriculture and industry make up smaller-than-average of portions of the economy (1.12% and 19.1% compared to averages of 5.9% and 30.5%).
"The ships, railroads, and trucks that transport containers worldwide form the backbone of the global economy. The pace of globalization over the last sixty years has accelerated due to containers; just like canals and railroads defined earlier phases in the development of a global economy. While distance used to be the largest obstacle to regional integration, these successive waves of transportation improvements have functionally made the world a smaller place. Geographers refer to this as the Space-Time Convergence."
Containers are part of globalization. It saves time and allows for extra space to store more products. Also, it is easier to handle using ships, railroad, and trucks while also facilitating more quality in terms of safety. However, on the other hand, with the creation of these containers employ mainly the use of technology which, unfortunately, downsizes the workforce. This, as a result, increases the unemployment rate for citizens. Although, when it comes to recycling, the idea of making houses with these containers helps families in diverse ways such as decreased costs, energy efficiency, and very short construction time. Containers have shaped the concept of shipping and living for many years, impacting regions with more business and expansion trades around the world.
This article describes the basics of globalization and what technology really allowed globalization to spread, the shipping the container. It allowed thing to be shipped organized and more efficiently. These containers fit together perfectly. It helps ideas and products transport all over the world and spread pop culture.
This relates to the idea in unit 3 of globalization. These shipping container allow ideas and products to be shipped all over the world. The shipping container was the key to better connecting the world.
I've posted here several resources about the global economy and the crucial role that containers play in enabling globalization. In this article for National Geographic Education, I draw on many of these to to put it all in one nice container.
"It is estimated that 97 per cent of all trade – the things we buy in shops – will have been transported in containers by ships at sea. The container vessel, stacked high with uniformly-sized metal boxes, has become a symbol of our globalized world. This is a world of imports and exports, a world where moving things across huge distances keeps the price of daily commodities low as items are manufactured in one place, then packaged in another, before arriving on the shores where they will eventually be sold. In recent geographical literature, attention has turned to the world at sea – a space traditionally overlooked. Geography means ‘Earth-writing’ and geographers have taken the origins of the term very seriously. They have written primarily about the Earth: the ground, the soil, the land. The sea is something ‘out there’ – seemingly disconnected from our everyday lives. However, an appreciation of the world as made from flows and connections has enabled geography to recognize that the sea is essential to our landed life."http://wp.me/p2Ij6x-5DS
A genetic clone, the Cavendish banana that stocks supermarket shelves could easily be wiped out by disease. Science offers hope of a sustainable approach
"Life imitated art in early 1980 when South African school children, fed up with an inferior apartheid-era education system, took to chanting the lyrics of Pink Floyd‘s 'Another Brick in the Wall.' The song, with its memorable line stating, “We don’t need no education,” had held the top spot on the local charts for almost three months, a total of seven weeks longer than it did in America. By May 2, 1980, the South African government had issued a ban on 'Another Brick in the Wall,' creating international headlines."
Not sure how I have missed the SciShow all this time, and definitely don't know how I missed this 2012 video about the Science of Overpopulation. He discusses many of the implications of exponential population growth, as well has the roots of this phenomenon in the Industrial Revolution. Hank does a great job in this video.
Also, if you want another take on this, watch this episode of Crash Course Ecology, where Hank talks about how unnatural our growth rate has become, and why we have been able to accomplish it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8dkWQVFAoA
Don't panic, it's not a babble fish but this prototype earpiece can translate languages in real-time. The implications are far reaching and could potentially change the way the world communicates.
"The Seattle-based internet book seller Amazon just announced plans to open an enormous fulfillment center in the North Randall, Ohio. This is a big deal for the small community which has suffered greatly since the Randall Park Mall, once the largest in America, shut down due to retail sales moving online. Amazon is actually building its new warehouse on the same land where the mall once stood. The irony of this is lost on no one."
North Randall, Ohio was once home of the largest mall in America until it lost all of it's business to online shopping. Ironically, Amazon the online shopping website is looking to build a new warehouse in the old mall building that is now vacant. This would have a huge positive impact on the town's economy. The majority of citizens in North Randall are excited for Amazon's plans with this warehouse as it will create 2,000 jobs in the community. This is a big deal for North Randall since many of it's citizens lost their jobs at the previous mall. Overall, this is going to have a great impact on the North Randall community in a positive way and is a good example of economic geography.
When any business closes its bad for the company but worse for the employees. It leaves multiple people unemployed. But when a mall closes it is detrimental for the whole town/city and even at times the state. So when amazon says it is building a new warehouse that is going to be just as big the mall was where it once stood that is going to boost the surrounding economies and create much needed jobs. Amazon will big in revenue, jobs will create money and money will lead to spending which will also bing upgrades to the surrounding geographical areas!
"There are around 6,000 cargo vessels out on the ocean right now, carrying 20,000,000 shipping containers, which are delivering most of the products you see around you. And among all the containers are a special subset of temperature-controlled units known in the global cargo industry, in all seriousness, as reefers.
70% of what we eat passes through the global cold chain, a series of artificially-cooled spaces, which is where the reefer comes into play."
I have written in the past about how containerization has remade the world we live in, but not much about the role of the refrigerated container (reefer). So many economic geographies and agricultural geographies in the our consumer-based society hinge of this technological innovation. This is yet another podcast from 99 Percent Invisible that is rich in geographic content.
"In its day, the spice trade was the world’s biggest industry. It established and destroyed empires and helped the Europeans (who were looking for alternate routes to the east) map the globe through their discovery of new continents. What was once tightly controlled by the Arabs for centuries was now available throughout Europe with the establishment of the Ocean Spice Trade route connecting Europe directly to South Asia (India) and South East Asia."
A very insightful article and shows the uttermost importance of geography in many phases. First off, it shows the importance of having key resources within your country or region. Southeast Asia is know for its spices which made it especially key during the age of exploration. Also, which is key is how do we get there? What are the best trade routes? Over the years, first the Romans then the Ottoman Empire controlled key lands in which connected Europe and Southeast Asia. Since, the Christian Europeans did not want to work with the Muslims they found new trade routes and well eventually we end up discovering the New World (the Americas". This shows how everything like always connects. Southeast Asia, which for most of its time has been colonized up until almost the mid 1980s is finally starting to grow on its own. It will be interesting to see how they use there own resources to try to gain traction in the global markets throughout the next few decades and it we see any smaller world powers come out of the area. The spice trade dominated thousands of years of trade, but Southeast Asia has many other key resources as well and it will be key for politicians and businesses in the future to capitalize on this into the future.
It is no exaggeration to say that the spice trade shaped the world as we know it today. Southeast Asia's location made it the only place in the world to obtain some of the most popular spices and other goods. Meanwhile Constantinople, being situated squarely between Europe and Asia, was the perfect middleman through which spices could get to markets in Europe -- where demand was high from Antiquity through the Middle Ages -- until the city fell to the Ottoman Empire and turned its back on Europe. This motivated Europeans to develop the sailing and navigational technology necessary to find sea routes to Asia, which led to the discovery of the Americas, and the rest is history. What followed were centuries of colonization, conflict, trade, and globalization on a scale the world had never seen before. All because people were crazy for spices that could only be found half-way around the world.
The spice trade not only opened up all the amenities Southeast Asia had to offer but spread their culture throughout Western Europe. It also opened up new routes for Europeans to explore Eastern Asia and then sail around the world.
"The map above, created with data from Telegeography, shows how those cables have developed since 1990. Most existing cables were constructed during a period of rapid growth in the mid-2000’s. This was followed by a gap of several years during which companies steadily exhausted the available capacity. Over the last few years, explosive new demand, driven by streaming video, has once again jumpstarted the the construction of new cables."
Telecommunication linkages between continents, regions and cities. Note the strength of the trans-atlantic connections. These communication linkages enable communication between these areas.
Corporations have increased their wealth vis-à-vis countries according to new figures released by Global Justice Now. The campaign group found that 69 of the world’s top economic entitie
Provided corruption is kept in check and governance improves in the developing world, free trade can benefit everybody, even the world’s poorest people
"As the UK prepares for what looks like a slow and painful divorce from the European Union, the people of Turkey are wondering how their relationship with Europe will now develop.
The government in Ankara has been seeking to strengthen its case to join the EU, but as Europe grapples with Brexit - is the Turkey's membership closer or further away?"
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.
Your new post is loading...
