When I was a teenager, I lived in Sunderland, and in 1966 my dad took me to two games staged at Roker Park in the town. I saw the national teams of Italy, Chile and Russia (labelled USSR). I have two memories of the matches – one was of an Italian fan who gave me a key ring with the Italian flag on it (which I kept for many years) and the other of seeing the Russian goalkeeper, Lev Yashin, as I stood (note – stood) in the Roker End. He seemed an enormous man – dressed in a black kit (do goalkeepers wear black these days?).

So, to 2026…. too many matches, hugely inflated seat/hotel/transport prices, ICE at stadiums, the crass ignorance of Trump, Vance and Hegseth, a stadium ban of hard resealable water bottles, half-time American-style entertainment (really!!), visa and social media checks, the horrendous carbon footprint, and, due to time differences, overnight games on the television.

But I will watch some of it. I have my Radio Times World Cup wall chart opened out in my home office; I have a 6-year-old Edinburgh-living granddaughter who loves to play ‘fitbaw’; and I have national pride and want to see England (and Scotland) do well.

What are the odds of an England/Scotland penalty shoot-out with Germany?]

Introduction

The Caspian Sea hosts major offshore oil and gas fields and critical maritime infrastructure, including ports, pipelines and terminals that connect the myriad of states in central Asia to global markets. It provides a ‘middle corridor’ east-west trading route from China to Europe via central Asia that avoids increasingly uncertain routes via Russia to the north and Iran to the south. It also provides a north-south route between Russia and Iran (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Black Sea/Caspian Sea region

China views the Caspian as a key corridor for energy supplies and its ‘Belt and Road’ initiative that is an economic strategy that intends to expand Beijing’s influence. This middle corridor links mainland China to Europe via Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Turkey also uses Caspian Sea links, especially fossil fuel transit projects, via Azerbaijan, to increase its influence across the Turkic world.

The 2018 Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea sets out how the Caspian’s oil, gas, and fishing resources are divided among the nations that border the sea. The agreement also prohibits the deployment of armed forces from third-party countries within the Caspian’s waters. This also establishes a regional security order that excludes western military presence.

The importance for Russia

For Russia, the Caspian Sea has a high value, currently as a bridge to Iran. Moscow maintains the strongest navy in the sea and has used the Caspian as a platform for its power projection. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Caspian Sea has also gained importance as a maritime space for Moscow. Elements of the Black Sea Fleet, increasingly under threat from Ukraine’s drones and missiles, have redeployed away from the contested Black Sea towards the Caspian Sea via a series of inland waterways. Despite this, Ukraine has recently attacked the fleet here too.

The Russia/Iran connection

The Caspian Sea plays a significant role in enabling coordination between Russia and Iran. It provides a direct logistical and economic corridor between the two states that is largely shielded from western military presence and interruption.

The Caspian corridor enables not only energy cooperation and trade flows but also the movement of technologies and materials relevant to sustaining both economies under war-related sanctions. This includes sanctioned goods, drone components and mutual technologies.

The current US/Israel/Iran war has accelerated the importance of these trading links. Israeli airstrikes have reportedly disabled dozens of Iranian Caspian naval assets, including missile boats, a corvette, a shipyard and a command centre. The strikes will have severely disrupted the Caspian corridor that links Russian ports to Iran’s port at Bandar Anzali, the largest Iranian port on the Caspian Sea. This could force both countries to rely more on riskier overland routes via Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan (see Figure 1).

Conclusion

The Caspian Sea has become an increasingly important strategic corridor linking two major conflicts. The wars in Ukraine and the war in Iran are not separate, but parts of a Eurasian conflict in which Russia and Iran are mutually dependent.

Iran’s provision of drones and other military support to Russia has directly affected the course of the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russia’s diplomatic, military and economic backing is key to Iran’s capacity to withstand pressure and sustain its economy. The Caspian Sea underpins this alignment by providing a relatively insulated corridor for logistics, economic and military exchange.

At the same time, other countries, notably China and Turkey, are investing in the east-west ‘middle corridor’. All of these movements are increasing the importance of the Caspian Sea, both economically and in terms of its geographical connectivity.

The latest edition of the above contains a summary of the recent article for the Financial Times by (fellow Bessacarr, Doncaster resident – how weird is that?) John Burn-Murdoch with his proposal why fertility rates around the world have plummeted ….. the existence of 5G (OK, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it’s a bit more complicated than that).]

Photo: NASA (April 28, 2022) — New Orleans, Louisiana, and its surrounding suburbs, pictured along the Mississippi River with Lake Pontchartrain at the top.

Introduction

Hurricane Katrina struck the region around New Orleans in late August 2005, and the U.S. President at the time was George W. Bush, who was in his second term. Katrina’s impact was catastrophic, reshaping the U.S. Gulf Coast physically, socially, and economically. It caused over 1,300 deaths, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, mainly low‑income and African American communities, and produced over $125 billion in damage, making it one of the costliest and deadliest disasters in U.S. history.

Twenty years later, according to a new study, the city of New Orleans faces compounding, structural, and accelerating coastal‑flooding threats driven by sea‑level rise, land subsidence, wetland loss, and intensifying storms. The city is now described by these researchers as approaching a ‘point of no return’ where long‑term habitation is in question.

Core problems driving coastal flooding in New Orleans

1. Rapid sea‑level rise

Southern Louisiana is projected to face 3-7 metres of sea‑level rise, enough to push the shoreline up to 100km inland, effectively surrounding New Orleans with the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the century. This scale of rise makes the region one of the most physically vulnerable coastal zones in the world.

2. Severe wetland loss

Coastal wetlands - New Orleans’ natural storm‑surge buffer - are disappearing at extreme rates due to:

• oil and gas canal dredging

• river leveeing that prevents sediment replenishment

• saltwater intrusion

• subsidence

Researchers estimate three‑quarters of remaining wetlands may be lost, removing the city’s last natural line of defence.

3. Land subsidence

Satellite‑based studies show parts of New Orleans are sinking up to 47mm per year, including sections of the $15 billion post‑Katrina floodwalls. Some floodwalls are subsiding faster than sea levels are rising, reducing their protective height and requiring constant, expensive upgrades.

4. Stronger, wetter hurricanes

Climate change is increasing the intensity of Gulf hurricanes, which:

• push higher storm surges into Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River

• overwhelm levees and pumps

• produce extreme rainfall events

This compounds the city’s exposure, especially as protective wetlands vanish.

5. Ageing and sinking flood defences

Despite billions spent after Hurricane Katrina, the levee and floodwall system:

• requires continuous elevation increases to keep pace with subsidence

• is already showing structural vulnerabilities

• cannot provide long‑term protection under high sea‑level‑rise scenarios

Researchers warn that levees alone cannot save the city in the long run.

6. Population and economic pressures

Louisiana is already experiencing population loss, and unmanaged climate migration could accelerate as flood risk grows. Studies argue that planned relocation may need to begin within decades to avoid chaotic displacement.

The Future

The scientific consensus emerging from recent studies is stark:

Coastal Louisiana has likely crossed a threshold where long‑term survival of New Orleans in its current form is uncertain. Even with aggressive climate mitigation, the combination of:

• rising seas

• sinking land

• disappearing wetlands

• intensifying storms

• ageing defences

creates a trajectory where flood risk will continue to rise for generations.

Implications

The study states that the process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, which would involve the movement to safer ground of over 350,000 people from the city. It recommends starting with the most vulnerable communities, such as those in Plaquemines parish who live outside the levee system.

New Orleans faces obvious challenges – situated in a bowl-shaped basin below sea level, the city already has 99% of its population at major risk of severe flooding, the worst exposure of any US city. A significant pressure upon the city is that its surrounding land is receding rapidly. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion, with a further 3,000 square miles set to vanish over the next 50 years.

To help counter this, over the last decade Louisiana has operated a plan that aimed to build fewer flood defences and instead sought to harness the Mississippi River’s natural ability to rebuild land. Levees and other man-made infrastructure have, until now, straitjacketed the naturally meandering Mississippi and pushed the sediment it carries straight into the Gulf of Mexico, rather than replenish the coastal wetlands.

The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, which started in 2023, intended to restore a more natural flow in the Mississippi Delta and allow sediment to build up in coastal areas where it has been lost. More than 20 square miles of new land would be created over the next 50 years under the plan, the project estimated.

However, Jeff Landry, Louisiana’s Republican governor, scrapped the project in 2025, arguing its $3bn cost was too high and that it threatened the state’s fishing industry. Supporters of the project, which was funded via a settlement from BP resulting from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, decried the decision as disastrous for the state, pointing out fishing communities will need to move anyway because of worsening erosion.

And so, according to the study, the loss of the sediment diversion plan ‘effectively means giving up on extensive portions of coastal Louisiana, including the New Orleans area’.

Introduction

The past few weeks have brought unpleasant echoes of the Covid pandemic: mysterious deaths aboard a cruise ship, a virus that causes a deadly respiratory illness and talk of forced quarantines. Firstly, there was an outbreak of hantavirus followed by a rapidly escalating Ebola outbreak in central Africa, with hundreds of suspected cases and many deaths.

Neither of these outbreaks is likely to have the effect the coronavirus did. The hantavirus can cause severe illness and death, but it isn’t greatly contagious and tends to die out. The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (see below) is scarier, but even that is likely to stay confined to DRC and its immediate neighbours, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

In late May 2026 the annual meeting of WHO took place in Geneva, Switzerland, and began with a report suggesting that disease outbreaks are not only occurring more frequently, they are also becoming more damaging - and the world is increasingly struggling to fight and recover from them.

A health worker at a checkpoint near Goma (DRC).

Photo. The New York Times

Cooperation?

Recent years have highlighted that scientists have developed the ability to analyse new pathogens with speed and accuracy and to make new vaccines remarkably quickly. However, the legacy of Covid has divided the world. Richer countries have hung on to their vaccines, giving out booster doses to their citizens before many in poorer countries received their first dose. Within many countries, policies on lockdowns, school closures and vaccine mandates have created political rifts and deepened mistrust in scientists.

At the WHO meeting, there were discussions of a new pandemic treaty. Low-income countries have said they are willing to swiftly share genetic sequences and samples of emerging pathogens - but only in exchange for equitable access to the tests, vaccines and treatments that are developed with that information. Some developed countries have been unwilling to offer those guarantees. The USA did not attend the meeting.

The USA absence

A major blow to global health occurred when the Trump administration abruptly shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and ended most foreign aid, shifting instead to agreements with individual countries, often with strings attached. The administration also withdrew from the WHO and rejected a global framework that obligates countries to report outbreaks.

The impact of these decisions is becoming obvious. American officials were not among those investigating the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship, and they initiated their response nearly a month after the first death. They only learned of the new Ebola outbreak nine days after the WHO first alerted other global health authorities. The U.S. was once the undisputed leader in any outbreak. It coordinated the response, providing funding and expertise. The Ebola epidemic already suggests that the lack of American leadership highlights weaker surveillance of infectious diseases, delays in testing and a lack of crucial protective gear for health care workers on the front lines. In recent days, the US has stated that its own citizens who might have been in contact with Ebola should quarantine in Kenya, rather than be returned to, and isolated in, the USA.

Added to this, other countries, notably the UK and Germany, have also greatly reduced their international aid budgets, citing financial issues regarding increased levels of defence spending (resulting from pressure by the USA).

The Ebola outbreak 2026 (DRC)

The WHO declared a global health emergency due to an outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda in May 2026. The fast-spreading Bundibugyo variant of Ebola virus advanced rapidly in Ituri Province, a region of the DRC that borders Uganda and South Sudan. The WHO suspects that at least 200 deaths and 600 cases have been caused by the current outbreak. Without a vaccine, containment is the top priority, but a highly mobile population supporting the local gold mining industry, limited government control, ongoing armed conflict, mass displacement, and a humanitarian crisis marked by severe resource shortages all present challenges. Health workers and the communities they serve are trying to work in an extremely difficult situation for the case finding, contact tracing, and care-giving required to contain the outbreak (see map below).

The Ebola outbreak spreading across Democratic Republic of Congo and into neighbouring Uganda became an early test of what a retreat in Western health funding might mean for global pandemic preparedness. For years, the US financed networks of laboratories, epidemiologists and emergency-response programs through agencies including USAID and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Those systems were designed not only to combat diseases such as HIV and malaria, but to identify dangerous pathogens before they spiralled into regional crises.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal of health funding that once helped support outbreak detection across parts of Africa represents the kind of cuts that contribute to the erosion of disease-surveillance systems. Health officials say the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola may have circulated undetected for six to eight weeks in northeastern Congo before lab testing confirmed the virus. By the time Ebola was identified, suspected cases and unexplained deaths had already spread across multiple health zones near the Ugandan border. The delayed detection is especially concerning because the Bundibugyo ebolavirus remains poorly understood compared with the Zaire strain responsible for the devastating West African epidemic a decade ago.

Footnote:

Yesterday, May 27^th 2026, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is spreading faster than the response, as overcrowded camps for displaced people, poor conditions and limited supplies fuel fears the virus could spread further across the region. The IRC warned the outbreak could become the deadliest on record without urgent action.

That same day Uganda closed its border with the DRC after seven cases of the disease were confirmed in the capital Kampala.

Conclusion

Systems built with international aid often serve multiple purposes: tracking outbreaks, transporting laboratory samples and monitoring unexplained illnesses in remote regions. When funding disappears, those networks weaken quickly. The case of Ebola illustrates what happens when fragile surveillance systems face simultaneous pressure from conflict, donor fatigue and shrinking levels of international aid.

And, finally, a climate change-linked update….

The WHO has also warned that dangerous human-snake interactions could increase across the world as snakes migrate due to climate change. The ranges of highly venomous snake species such as cottonmouth moccasins in North America, kraits in Asia, and the black mamba in Africa could shift due to rising temperatures and human encroachment, bringing snakes closer to densely populated areas and places where venomous reptile species never lived before. Increased proximity could be deadliest in poorer, rural areas, where farmers often work the fields without shoes and healthcare is far away and not easily accessible.

Risks are also high for the snakes, with some species facing possible extinction. Coral snakes in the Amazon, puff adders in Africa, and copperheads in Papua New Guinea are threatened by both hotter weather and increased levels of conversions of wetland, grasslands, and forests into monoculture, cattle ranches, and towns.

Hiss…sss.

A short post before the May school half-term…]

From 2026, there is a new format for the UCAS personal statement. Instead of one long essay/account, the 2026 university application form uses three structured questions:

1. Why do you want to study this course or subject?

2. How have your qualifications and studies prepared you for this course or subject?

3. What else have you done to prepare outside education, and why are these experiences useful?

This format is designed to make statements clearer and more focused.

For many, drafting the personal statement on a UCAS application is one of the more challenging parts of applying to university. So, what should you include (and leave out) in your statement?

For each of the three questions above, you will need to provide an answer with a minimum of 350 characters and the whole statement must be a maximum of 4,000 characters (including spaces). Those 4,000 characters are your opportunity to stand out from the crowd … and there is a crowd! In 2025, over 7,800 students applied through UCAS to study geography at university.

Plan before you write

Your personal statement is not just about what you write but also about how you write. It is important that your response to each of the UCAS questions has a logical structure and that it flows well. As in an answer to an essay question, remember to evidence your points.

Many applicants for a geography degree will say that they love to read. If this is the case – good – make sure you mention things that you have read and how they have influenced your thinking. Do not make things up because you think that is what the department will want to hear. Not everyone loves reading, so if that is you, tell them instead what you do like to do/browse/watch/listen to but take some time to link it to geography.

Avoid assuming that the department you are applying to will be impressed with ‘extravagant’ or flamboyant examples. Geography departments often get personal statements from applicants who say that they love to travel and then list the many exotic locations that they have been lucky enough to visit with or outside of school. The latter list is not necessary – just give an example or two. The department is likely to be just as, and probably more, impressed by students who write about their local communities and landscapes and how these have influenced their understanding of the subject.

Should I use AI?

It is easy to assume that you must write something bold or witty to stand out and there may be a temptation to draft your personal statement using AI.

There are several issues with this approach. A statement written by AI will likely be obvious and familiar to the reader (others will have had the same idea!) and, as such, it will tell the university very little about why you want to study the subject.

Universities are interested in you and making sure that the course you are applying for suits you because that way you will enjoy the course, study hard and graduate with a good degree.

Will AI achieve all this for you? Doubtful.

External experiences

Your response to the final question on the UCAS form may be shorter than the others. This section might include employment, leisure activities, volunteering or playing sport. What is important in this section is making links to how this has either helped to enhance your love of the subject or how it has helped you prepare for university life. For most students, university life will be very different to school but if you work, have committed to a sport or have taken on responsibility, you are demonstrating that you have the kinds of skills that geographers need: responsibility, teamwork, time management, resilience, etc. Make sure that you explicitly make the links from your interests outside of education to your own skills and qualities.

Use your words wisely to ensure that your application really shows off the breadth of your abilities and skills.

Good luck with your application!

[Adapted from the work of Fiona Smyth at Manchester University]

Note: I have previously posted on the Oxbridge interviews. You can find that post here.

Anyway, in the aftermath of the recent inconsequential summit between China and the USA…]

Introduction

Intergovernmental Organisations (IGOs) have played a significant role in the process of globalisation and the interconnectedness of countries around the world. IGOs promote global cooperation and unify standards on issues of mutual concern.

Several IGOs focus on economic issues. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) promotes free trade through encouraging the benefits of market liberalisation. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) promotes privatisation whereby countries are encouraged to transfer ownership of public-owned services and property to the private sector to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

Consequently, IGOs are often stated to be responsible for promoting capitalism, the dominant global economic system. Supporters of capitalism argue that through a global economy run on free trade, all nations will benefit from increased levels of competition, efficiency and innovation.

Maintaining capitalism

The IMF and World Bank were set up following the Second World War to promote global economic growth and stability. The World Bank and IMF both lend money to countries for development purposes. However, there is also a form of this called conditional lending.

For example, the IMF has granted Pakistan considerable loans in the past, including a $6 billion loan in 2019. However, the conditions attached to these loans included the requirement for Pakistan to make national economic reforms, including the privatisation of state-led industries. Consequently, Pakistan has seen several state-led energy providers being transferred to private ownership. Although this may improve energy provision, it has increased prices and driven wealth inequality, via the transfer of assets and profits to global TNCs.

The USA influencing the decisions

Not only can IGOs appear to push a capitalist agenda but also, due to the decision-making structures of these organisations, there is limited scope for less powerful countries to make changes.

The vote share of the IMF and World Bank is in favour of the USA giving them overriding influence on all decisions. The USA maintains a 16.5% vote share, while comparatively wealthy China – with its larger population – only has a vote share of 6.1%. The president of the World Bank is elected by the organisation’s Board of Executive Directors. The US domination of this Board ensures that the organisation is led by someone aligned with their interests. All previous presidents of the World Bank have been from the USA. The most recent president of the Bank has dual American Indian heritage but was appointed following his role as the CEO of Mastercard, a global US multinational.

Facilitating networking and soft power

IGOs provide a forum for discussion and networking. The World Economic Forum (WEF) aims to foster global cooperation and economic growth. The annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland are attended by global elites in politics and business, alongside a smaller number of NGO representatives and academics.

Superpowers’ attendance, involvement and networking at their annual meeting ensures that capitalist ideology and values are promoted. The world’s leaders can ‘pitch’ their thoughts on how this ideology and values should move forward. For example, in 2025, President Trump, via video link to the meeting, promoted his ‘America First Agenda’ by announcing tax reductions for businesses operating in the USA. He has used the forum as an opportunity to criticise the use of ‘red tape’ by the European Union (EU) for trade – promoting less bureaucracy and fewer restrictions to the USA’s trade.

Building strategic alliances

Cooperation through IGOs provides scope for alliances to be established that secure superpowers’ interests. This can be seen via lending from the IMF. Lending policies at the IMF are established via the Executive Board made up of 24 elected countries, which has always included the USA.

In recent years, Ukraine has been in receipt of IMF loans to help stabilise the country’s economy and promote Ukraine’s sovereignty. This simultaneously provides a counterbalance to Russia in the region. The UN security council (SC), the primary mechanism for maintaining global security, has also been involved in IMF loans.

And now, President Trump…

The influence of IGOs to secure the interests of superpowers has existed for decades. However, recently as discussed earlier, President Trump has taken a critical stance against the USA’s involvement in some IGOs, keen to ensure that America’s interests are put first. In January 2025, he announced that the USA would withdraw from the World Health Organisation (WHO). His central argument was that the USA was paying an unfair large share compared to other countries, with little benefit to the USA itself. The USA was the single largest contributor to the WHO by providing approximately 15% of the annual budget. The USA’s withdrawal has had far-reaching consequences for global health inequality.

President Trump has also criticised the WTO for failing to uphold a fair playing field for global trade, suggesting that it was ‘set up to benefit everyone but us’. However, historically, most WTO complaints filed by the USA against other countries have been ruled in the USA’s favour.

BRICS nations’ responses to traditional IGOs

To challenge the status quo, the BRICS nations have responded by developing both their economies and geopolitical power. In 2014, the BRICS nations established their own alternative to the IMF and World Bank called the New Development Bank. In this new IGO, BRICS nations (led by China) now have much greater influence over decisions. This has the potential to increase the collective influence and power of the BRICS nations across the globe and steer other developing and emerging economies away from USA-centric policies and ideas. By offering loans with different conditions and in non-US dollars, fewer countries are likely to be under the influence of the USA.

The current war between Israel/USA v. Iran may well intensify movements away from the influence of the US dollar. Iran has managed to still supply China with oil ‘through the back door’ that is the Caspian Sea and been paid for it in Yuan, not dollars. The recent summit between Presidents Xi and Trump, though it appears to have been cordial, may have reinforced China’s determination to provide an ‘alternative’ source of finance for developing countries. The financial ‘Thucydides Trap’ is developing ^1..

Conclusion

Capitalism as the dominant global economic system continues to prevail. IGOs have been established to maintain this system, promoting free trade, private and foreign investment and strategic alliances. In so doing, IGOs can still be seen as maintaining the status quo for the US superpower and its allies, although that power appears to be waning.

--------

1. For an excellent observation on the recent Xi-Trump summit see Nick Bryant’s piece here.

A quiz (Answers follow below)

1. Which international organisation was founded on 26 June 1945 by 51 member states?

2. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was founded in 1992 as part of the UN to fight ‘dangerous human interference in the climate system’. Which city was it founded in?

3. The United Nations is an IGO employing about 125,000 people worldwide. Which UN department employed the most people in 2022?

4. Which UN specialist organisation manages copyright, patents and trademarking at a global level?

5. Which activity sphere do USMCA, ASEAN and CARICOM operate in?

6. Effective since 1961, with 12 original members rising to 58 by 2026, what does the ATS seek to protect?

7. Two global IGOs are based in the Hague, the Netherlands. One founded in 1945 and the other in 2002. What do these two IGOs deal with?

8. Which is the newest member state of the United Nations? It became a member on 14th July 2011.

Answers

1. The United Nations. It was founded in San Francisco although its global HQ is in New York. The UN has 193 member states as of 2026.

2. Rio de Janeiro. The UNFCCC was founded at the UN Earth Summit. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is part of the UNFCCC.

3. UNICEF. It had over 15,000 employees in 2022. UNICEF provides healthcare, nutrition and social care to children in need.

4. WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization). It is based in Geneva and sets standards to protect intellectual property.

5. Trade. They are all examples of trade blocs. The Caribbean Community was established in 1973, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 1967 and United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement in 2018 (replacing NAFTA, that began in 1994).

6. Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty System governs territorial claims, scientific activity, fishing and tourism in what is often said to be the world’s last great wilderness.

7. Crime and justice. The International Criminal Court (2002) and International Court of Justice (1945) and both located in The Hague. It is sometimes referred to as the ‘international city of peace and justice’ due to the number of organisations based there that work in the field of justice.

8. South Sudan. It became a member following a referendum in Sudan that year that split the country into Sudan and South Sudan. Perhaps surprisingly Switzerland only became a UN member state in 2002.

Time for another Q&A post. This is to highlight the difference between AO1 (Demonstrating knowledge) and AO2 (Applying that knowledge) in the UK examination context. The geographical context is Globalisation/Sovereignty/Nationalism – a popular area of A level content.]

A reminder: for A level Geography, there are two key Assessment Objectives (AOs):

AO1: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of places, environments, concepts, processes, interactions, and change, at a variety of scales.

AO2: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to interpret, analyse, and evaluate geographical information and issues.

So, as on previous occasions, here are two versions of an answer.

The first is unannotated.

The second is in two formats:

(a) AO1 in italics

(b) AO2 in bold.

[Remember my self-imposed limit of 600 words for the essay answer – the word limit I believe is the maximum in the time allocated.]

Evaluate the extent to which the rise of nationalism can prevent globalisation.

Nationalism refers to the belief held by the people belonging to a particular nation that their own interests are much more important than those of people belonging to other nations. The concept is not new and owes its origins in western Europe to colonial expansion. Whether it can stop the spread of globalisation is debatable and possibly requires a judgement that one or another trend is not a good thing to have.

In the 19^th century nationalism was important in the development of empires. European states (including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium) had all established colonies overseas to create an empire. For example, France acquired huge areas across north Africa such as Algeria and Mali; similarly, Spain and Portugal in South America with Argentina and Brazil respectively. Such nationalism was in fact a forerunner of globalisation as the cultural and economic links back to the ‘home’ countries became strong. Trade flows of raw materials became an integral link between colonial power and the colonies.

Today, nationalism is reinforced by education (such as in interpretations of history, say of British explorers), sporting identity (e.g. support for national football teams in the UK) and some political parties (e.g. Reform). In many places nationalism is on the rise and is seen by some as an attempt to retreat from the perceived threats of globalisation. Such people believe that nationalism is a matter of retaining sovereignty, they see the EU and UN as organisations that make unfair rules and have unacceptable standards. This has led to fringe, and then mainstream, political parties referring to ‘taking back control’ – specifically of flows of people, information and ideas. International migration, a form of cultural globalisation, is a particular bugbear with them. They stress loyalty to the institutions and ideals of nation states. This is evidenced in the ever-increasing displays of the Union Jack flag behind government ministers when they appear on television for interviews. These politicians are seeking to build on a nationalistic feeling, and in principle one which is against many global values. The prevalence of St George flags on lampposts in England is a further example of this feeling.

However, nationalism in many European countries is complicated by the fact that most countries are multi-cultural with many contrasting ethnicities, for example the ethnic mix that is London. Questions of ‘loyalty’ have become complex – many people have mixed loyalties, to their place of birth, where they live, and their cultural heritage, and globalisation has brought such complexities more to the surface.

A related trend in recent years has been the rise of Nationalist movements in Europe, wanting some form of separatism. Examples include Catalonia in Spain, and Scotland and Wales in the UK. Separatism is the desire to have autonomy within, or independence from, a country. The causes may be due to different languages and cultures, a geographically peripheral location, an alienation with the central government, or a combination of these. Although based on nationalism, it is interesting that some European separatist groups seek to remain within the regional political union that is the EU. This is not a movement away from globalisation, but towards it.

In conclusion, it may be that many supporters of nationalism see their activities as a rejection of a globalised world, seeking to ‘take back control’. However, it is often the case that their actions are still dependent on the processes of globalisation, whether economic, social, political or cultural. These people still buy products from Amazon or watch Netflix. Perhaps the movement is more a case of seeking to protect their identity? (593)

Catalan colours (red horizontal stripes on a yellow background) on balconies in Barcelona

Photo. David Redfern

Evaluate the extent to which the rise of nationalism can prevent globalisation.

Nationalism refers to the belief held by the people belonging to a particular nation that their own interests are much more important than those of people belonging to other nations. The concept is not new and owes its origins in western Europe to colonial expansion. Whether it can stop the spread of globalisation is debatable and possibly requires a judgement that one or another trend is not a good thing to have.

In the 19^th century nationalism was important in the development of empires. European states (including the UK, France, Spain, Portugal and Belgium) had all established colonies overseas to create an empire. For example, France acquired huge areas across north Africa such as Algeria and Mali; similarly, Spain and Portugal in South America with Argentina and Brazil respectively. Such nationalism was in fact a forerunner of globalisation as the cultural and economic links back to the ‘home’ countries became strong. Trade flows of raw materials became an integral link between colonial power and the colonies.

Today, nationalism is reinforced by education (such as in interpretations of history, say of British explorers), sporting identity (e.g. support for national football teams in the UK) and some political parties (e.g. Reform). In many places nationalism is on the rise and is seen by some as an attempt to retreat from the perceived threats of globalisation. Such people believe that nationalism is a matter of retaining sovereignty, they see the EU and UN as organisations that make unfair rules and have unacceptable standards. This has led to fringe, and then mainstream, political parties referring to ‘taking back control’ – specifically of flows of people, information and ideas. International migration, a form of cultural globalisation, is a particular bugbear with them. They stress loyalty to the institutions and ideals of nation states. This is evidenced in the ever-increasing displays of the Union Jack flag behind government ministers when they appear on television for interviews. These politicians are seeking to build on a nationalistic feeling, and in principle one which is against many global values. The prevalence of St George flags on lampposts in England is a further example of this feeling.

However, nationalism in many European countries is complicated by the fact that most countries are multi-cultural with many contrasting ethnicities, for example the ethnic mix that is London. Questions of ‘loyalty’ have become complex – many people have mixed loyalties, to their place of birth, where they live, and their cultural heritage, and globalisation has brought such complexities more to the surface.

A related trend in recent years has been the rise of Nationalist movements in Europe, wanting some form of separatism. Examples include Catalonia in Spain, and Scotland and Wales in the UK. Separatism is the desire to have autonomy within, or independence from, a country. The causes may be due to different languages and cultures, a geographically peripheral location, an alienation with the central government, or a combination of these. Although based on nationalism, it is interesting that some European separatist groups seek to remain within the regional political union that is the EU. This is not a movement away from globalisation, but towards it.

In conclusion, it may be that many supporters of nationalism see their activities as a rejection of a globalised world, seeking to ‘take back control’. However, it is often the case that their actions are still dependent on the processes of globalisation, whether economic, social, political or cultural. These people still buy products from Amazon or watch Netflix. Perhaps the movement is more a case of seeking to protect their identity? (593)

The impact of physical geography is significant in the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz – the narrowness of the seaway having a major effect on the movement of ships and goods. However, the role of physical geography in this region is even more important when considering future alternative ways to get oil and gas out to markets. This recent piece in The Conversation explains why.

In the study of Changing Places, urban art often gives an interesting take on how people feel within that place – their identity. Perhaps the best-known protagonist of urban art is Banksy. This piece by former BBC journalist Nick Bryant tells an interesting story about Banksy.]

Introduction

A recent study from King’s College London found that exposure to air pollution during the first stages of pregnancy is associated with delayed speech and language development in babies. Researchers studied 498 infants in Greater London from 2015 to 2020 and found that those exposed to higher levels of pollutants like nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), primarily from vehicle emissions, scored about 5 to 7 points lower on language assessments at around 18 months. Premature infants with the highest exposure levels scored on average 11 points lower.

Researchers found no significant association between pollution exposure and language outcomes during the later stages of pregnancy.

Air quality in urban areas

Air quality is a direct reflection of the extent to which there is atmospheric pollution. The amount of air pollution in the atmosphere depends on the rate at which pollutants are produced and the rate at which they are dispersed (diluted) as they move away from their source.

In the UK, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) provides a summary index of the total amount of pollution in the UK atmosphere. It covers the five key atmospheric pollutants which are likely to have an impact on health. These are:

• ozone (O₃)

• nitrogen dioxide (NO₂)

• sulphur dioxide (SO₂)

• particulate matter (as PM₁₀) from exhausts, cement dust, tobacco smoke and ash

• fine particulate matter (as PM_2.5).

Concentrations vary in time and space, because of variability in the sizes and locations of polluting sources. For example, in most cities a significant local source of air pollution is traffic emissions. These vary significantly depending on factors including:

· the volume and speed of traffic

· the types and proportions of vehicles (buses, lorries, cars, motorbikes, etc.)

· the age and level of maintenance of vehicles

· the temperature of the engine and fuel type used.

The geography of the urban built environment (such as the height of buildings and how close they are to the road, the width of the road and shape of the road network, local topography and presence of vegetation) can also affect air-pollution concentrations. This means that the highest concentrations are not only found where the emissions are highest, but also in areas where pollutants get trapped and do not disperse effectively. Such pollutant hotspots move around over time - a hotspot observed during morning rush hour may not be found at the same place during the evening rush hour.

It is difficult to determine the exact health effects of exposure to specific air pollutants. This is because we are continually exposed to a mixture of pollutants, sometimes called a pollutant ‘soup’. Exposure to high concentrations of pollutants often occurs at the same time as weather extremes (very hot or very cold temperatures) which impact on health and on people’s behaviour (whether they choose to exercise outdoors, how they travel to work, etc.). Generally, we expect long-term exposure to low or moderate levels of air pollution to result in chronic health effects, while short-term exposure to high concentrations is likely to cause more serious immediate health consequences. The moderate levels of air pollution which we experience in the UK today impact most on people who already have heart and lung conditions or have an increased vulnerability due to age or ill health.

We experience our highest levels of air pollutants when we are moving through urban spaces, generally while commuting to and from work. This means that, although we might spend less than 10% of our day commuting, it may account for more than 50% of our total exposure to air pollution.

Photochemical smog

This is the result of a chemical reaction between sunlight and nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and leads to high levels of ozone in the lower atmosphere. This can be the cause of health problems (headaches, eye irritation, coughs and chest pains) as well as being damaging to vegetation. Los Angeles has had a serious problem with photochemical smog because of its high density of vehicles, frequent sunshine and the favourable topography that traps the high concentration of photo-oxidant gases at low levels. European cities have seen a growth in photochemical smog in the second half of the twentieth century particularly when anticyclonic conditions prevail that can trap the pollutants at low levels. Athens is often quoted as the worst sufferer in Europe, but conditions can be equally bad in other cities, such as London and Paris.

Pollution reduction policies

There are several ways in which governments (local and national) have tried to reduce atmospheric pollution in cities.

(a) Clean Air Acts: after the London ‘peasouper’ smog of 1952, the UK government decided that legislation was needed to prevent the amount of smoke entering the atmosphere. The Act of 1956 first introduced smoke-free zones into the UK’s urban areas which slowly began to clean up the air. This early Act has been reinforced by further legislation. In the 1990s, for example, very tough regulations were imposed on levels of airborne pollution, particularly on the level of PM₁₀s in the atmosphere. Local councils in the UK are now required to monitor pollution in their areas and establish Air Quality Management Areas where levels are likely to be exceeded, and some have planted more vegetation to capture particulates on leaves.

(b) Vehicle control in inner urban areas: several cities have looked at ways on controlling pollution by trying to reduce the number of vehicles that come into central urban areas. In Athens, for example, the city declared an area of about one square mile in the centre to be traffic free. Many British towns and cities have pedestrianised their CBDs. In London, attempts to control vehicle numbers have been made by bringing in a congestion charge (a road toll) which means that vehicle owners will have to pay if they wish to drive into the centre.

(c) More public transport: attempts have been made to persuade more people to use public transport rather than bring their cars into the city. Such schemes have included Manchester’s development of a tram system (Metrolink), the development of bus-only lanes into city centres, the growth of park-and-ride schemes in many British cities and the encouragement of car sharing schemes.

(d) zoning of industry: industry has been placed downwind in the city if possible and planning legislation has forced companies to build higher factory chimneys to emit pollutants above the inversion layer;

(e) Vehicle emissions legislation: motor vehicle manufacturers have been forced to develop better fuel burning engines and introduce catalytic converters which remove some of the particulates from exhaust fumes. The switch to lead free petrol has also brought about cleaner air. In 2008, London introduced the Greater London Low Emission Zone (LEZ) within which the most polluting vehicles are required to pay a daily charge for being within that area. The aim is to improve the air quality of the air in the city. The ULEZ then followed (see below).

(f) The rapid growth of electric vehicles will have an increasingly diminishing effect on vehicle emissions.

Finally, a short quiz (Answers follow after the photo)

1. Which global governance body publishes threshold standards for urban air pollution?

2. Which form of air pollution is estimated to kill 1.5–1.7 million people per year, almost half of them children under 5 years old?

3. Urban air pollution often focuses on particulate matter called PM₁₀ or PM_2.5. What do the numbers 10 and 2.5 refer to?

4. Many modern diesel vehicles use a liquid called ‘AdBlue’, which is injected into the car exhaust. Which pollutant is this designed to reduce?

5. What air pollution management measure was introduced in London in April 2019?

6. Which continent has the highest levels of urban air pollution?

7. Which potential air pollutant is sometimes described as being ‘good up high but bad nearby’?

8. Globally, how many deaths are attributed to outdoor air pollution each year?

Photo (Toronto): Kristin Morith (Unsplash)

Answers

1 The WHO - since 1987 the World Health Organization (part of the UN) has published guidelines for the safe level of particulate matter, low-level ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.

2 Indoor household air pollution. This particularly affects households in developing countries where cooking indoors uses open fires and inefficient wood or charcoal stoves. Women and children are the most badly affected.

3 Particle size in microns. A micron, or micrometre, is 1/1000th of a millimetre. PM2.5 particles are 0.0025 mm in size and because of their tiny nature, can travel deep into the lungs causing cancer, asthma and coronary disease.

4 Nitrogen oxides (NOx). AdBlue is a form of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) made of urea and water. It converts NOx into nitrogen by a process called Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR). NOx emissions from diesel engines are a major source of urban air pollution.

5 The Ultra-Low Emission Zone or ULEZ. Congestion charging in London was first introduced in 2003. The ULEZ charge (£12.50 for cars) applies to vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards. Pollution in central London fell by 20% following the launch of the ULEZ.

6 Asia. Based on WHO databases measuring PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 pollution in the worst 500 cities for air pollution, over 300 of the worst cities were in China and over 50 in India. In Europe, cities in Poland and Italy tend to have the highest PM pollution levels.

7 Ozone. Ozone (O3, or a molecule with 3 oxygen atoms) is present ‘up high’ in the stratosphere where it filters out harmful UV-light within the ozone layer. However low-level ozone (‘bad nearby’) is an urban air pollutant that leads to respiratory problems.

8 The WHO estimates 4.5 million deaths are attributed to outdoor air pollution. However, 9 out of 10 people worldwide breathe air that is polluted in some way and tens of millions have reduced quality of life and reduced life expectancy due to outdoor air pollution.

1. If you are preparing for exams (or teaching) on Global systems and want/need a summary of the wider impact of the current war in Iran, then read the latest (short) post on Ann Pettifor’s Substack here. Note… having contemporary information in response to exam questions always enhances the quality of your answer.

2. Hannah Ritchie has recently won the Unwin Award for non-fiction authors for her book ‘Not the end of the world’ which will be available in the UK for £0.99 on Amazon Kindle throughout May. If you don’t subscribe to her Substack By the Numbers, you should.]

The current situation

Earlier this month yet another 250 Rohingya people seeking to escape refugee camps in Bangladesh and Myanmar drowned in the Andaman Sea.

A report from UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, confirmed that 2025 was the deadliest year on record for maritime movements by Rohingya refugees in South and Southeast Asia. Of the over 6,500 Rohingya who attempted perilous sea crossings last year, more than 900, or around one in seven, were reported missing or dead in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, the highest mortality worldwide of any major route for refugee and migrant sea journeys. The predominantly Muslim Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh have fled Buddhist-majority Myanmar following a military campaign over several years targeting Rohingya villages (see section below).

Despite the extreme dangers, thousands continue to undertake these journeys in often overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh or from Rakhine State in Myanmar towards Indonesia or Malaysia (see Figure 1). Living in camps facing cuts in humanitarian aid, the refugees have limited access to work, education, and basic services.

So far in 2026, more than 2,800 Rohingya have attempted maritime crossings.

Figure 1. Routes taken by Rohingya from Myanmar (2026)

The Rohingya – background

The Rohingya are a Muslim people that were brought to the west coast of Myanmar (Rakhine state) in large numbers from as early as the eighth century AD from neighbouring areas in the Bay of Bengal, including present-day Bangladesh (Figure 2). Between 1825 and 1942, when the area was under British colonial rule, many more Muslims arrived in large numbers. However, in 1942, bitter fighting broke out between the Rohingya and the local Buddhists, coinciding with the Japanese invasion of Burma, and many Rohingyas fled to nearby Bangladesh and Malaysia. Six years later, Burma (now known as Myanmar) gained its independence from Britain.

The Burmese 1982 Citizenship Act did not recognise the Rohingya as one of the 135 official ethnic groups and they were refused citizenship. The Act created three categories of citizen: national, associate and naturalised. Full citizenship was only for national ethnic groups such as Burmans, Mons and Rakhine, and for those whose ancestors had been in Burma since before the first Anglo-Burma war (1824). Thus, the Rohingya became stateless in 1982. Initiatives since then have generally failed to protect them, and many have suffered persecution.

During the 1990s, some 200,000 Rohingya, who had fled Myanmar to Bangladesh, were forcibly repatriated. In 2012, around 140,000 Rohingya were forced into refugee camps by Buddhist Rakhine mobs. Some 200 Rohingya were killed. Since then, thousands of Rohingya have attempted to flee Rakhine in flimsy vessels, hoping to reach Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia. Furthermore, in 2014, the Myanmar government expelled some supportive humanitarian groups, thus preventing healthcare and aid for the Rohingya.

The Rohingya remain a thorn in the Myanmar government’s side. According to the government, they only entered the area after 1948. However, it is estimated that over 1 million of them now live in Rakhine state. Around 30,000 also live in two refugee camps in Bangladesh – in Cox’s Bazaar and Kutupalong. (Bangladesh also does not allow the Rohingyas citizenship.) A further 100,000 are believed to be in Malaysia, drawn by the country’s relative prosperity and Islamic heritage.

The sight of hundreds of emaciated men, women and children packed into the traffickers’ rusty old boats caught the world’s attention. As with other countries, Malaysia refuses to grant the Rohingya any legal status. They are not allowed to work by law, but in practice employers exploit many new arrivals, housing them in cramped apartments or makeshift shelters. The Malay state provides no healthcare and does not educate Rohingya children.

Figure 2. Location of the Rohingya in 2015

In Myanmar, since the mid-2010s, when 140,000 Rohingyas were forced into squalid refugee camps, the situation has worsened. They are cut off from their livelihoods and barred from schools and hospitals. Although traffickers continue to prey on the people, the conditions in Rakhine are desperate. Human rights groups have warned that the situation in Rakhine is at grave risk of additional mass atrocities and even genocide – some have suggested that a process of ethnic cleansing is taking place.

Violent incidents have been common:

· In 2014, sparked by the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman by three Rohingya men, about 200 Rohingya people were killed as Rakhine mobs rampaged through Sittwe and other areas to drive the Rohingya from their midst.

· In 2016, the Myanmar army launched a fierce crackdown against the Rohingya in Rakhine state following attacks by militants on several border posts. UN investigators say that during the military operation, women were gang raped by soldiers and Rohingya babies were slaughtered.

· in May 2024, the Arakan Army (AA) [the military wing of an organisation seeking autonomy for Rakhine state in Myanmar – a further threat to the Rohingya] carried out a large‑scale arson attack in Buthidaung, displacing thousands of Rohingya residents.

· In August 2024, another AA attack killed many Rohingya civilians fleeing Maungdaw near the Bangladesh border. The AA denies responsibility. In addition that month, Rohingya speakers at a UN General Assembly conference presented evidence of Rohingya civilians killed in a drone strike by the AA, describing it as part of a systematic pattern of attacks.

Those attacking Rohingya enjoy almost complete impunity; prosecutions are rare, with very few jailed.

Conclusion

Rohingya communities continue to face lethal violence from both the Myanmar military and, more recently, the Arakan Army, including killings, arson, drone strikes, and systematic destruction of civilian areas. These acts support claims of genocide and are occurring amid collapsing humanitarian access and international inaction. Is it any wonder the people facing this violence seek to migrate, no matter the risks?

A member of the Border Guard of Bangladesh inspects a boat carrying Rohingya refugees from Myanmar

Photo. David Redfern – taken from a train exiting New Street Station, Birmingham

I have a personal interest in HS2 – my elder son has been involved in another aspect of the project - the design and construction of the new tunnel beneath the Chilterns – completed last summer.

Photo. Michael Redfern

And finally, within the concourse of New Street station (part of the rebranded Grand Central regeneration scheme) in the city centre is this magnificent construction – initially designed for the Commonwealth Games in 2022 – and now moved to its permanent home. It is Ozzy the Bull (named after a well-known Brummie – the late Ozzy Osbourne) – an interesting representation of place?

Ozzy the Bull

Photo. David Redfern.

Now to today’s post….]

Wind power

The North Sea off the east coasts of England and Scotland hosts some of the world’s largest and most advanced offshore wind farms, forming the backbone of the UK’s clean‑energy transition. These sites deliver multi‑gigawatt power output, support national net‑zero goals, and are continuing to expand rapidly.

The UK is home to seven of the 10 largest offshore wind farms in the world – and ten of the world’s top 20. And we’re not slowing down - six of the biggest new schemes in the world are under construction here.

Why the North Sea is a global offshore wind powerhouse

The North Sea offers strong, consistent winds, relatively shallow waters, and proximity to major grid connections in eastern England and eastern Scotland. These have made it the epicentre of UK offshore wind development, with dozens of operational farms and many more under construction or in planning.

Examples of major wind farms off the east coast of England

These English North Sea projects are among the largest in the world:

· Hornsea One & Hornsea Two. Located off the Yorkshire coast, each with capacities exceeding 1 GW. Live data shows Hornsea Two producing over 1,100 MW per hour during peak conditions. When the Hornsea 3 project in the North Sea connects in late 2027, it will be nearly twice the size of the current world leader (Hornsea 2). Hornsea 3 connected its first export cable from the seabed to the UK coast on 26 March 2026.

· Dogger Bank A & B. Situated far offshore on the Dogger Bank plateau in the middle of the sea, these farms each have 1.2 GW capacity. They are part of a multi‑phase mega‑project that will become the world’s largest offshore wind zone once fully built. Dogger Bank C is under construction.

· Dudgeon. Off the Norfolk coast, this 400 MW farm has been operational since 2017.

· Greater Gabbard and Galloper. Located off Suffolk, these farms together exceed 850 MW and form a major cluster feeding power into East Anglia.

· East Anglia One. A 700 MW project off Suffolk, part of a larger multi‑phase East Anglia development zone.

Scottish North Sea wind farms

Scotland’s east coast hosts some of the UK’s most ambitious offshore projects:

• Beatrice (and Beatrice Extension). Located in the Moray Firth, the extension alone adds 580 MW.

• Seagreen. A major project in the Firth of Forth region, with over 1 GW capacity.

• European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (Aberdeen Bay). A 93 MW test and innovation site.

• Inch Cape (under construction). One of Scotland’s largest at 1.1 GW, located 15 km off the Angus coast. It will use 72 turbines and feed power into East Lothian.

Scale and national significance

• As of early 2026, the UK has 16 GW of operational offshore wind, with 10.4 GW under construction and over 40 GW in planning. If all projects proceed, the UK could reach ~76 GW of offshore capacity in the 2030s.

• Offshore wind already supplies over 17% of UK electricity, with monthly generation exceeding 16 TWh.

• The North Sea region alone frequently produces over 7.5 GW of live output, making it the UK’s most productive offshore zone.

The impact on the east coast of England and Scotland

For communities from Hull, Grimsby, and Lowestoft (England) to Aberdeen, Montrose, and Leith (Scotland), offshore wind has become a major driver of:

• port regeneration and new supply‑chain jobs

• investment in grid upgrades and hydrogen‑ready infrastructure

• training programmes for turbine technicians and marine engineers

• long‑term economic diversification in regions formerly involved in oil‑and‑gas drilling.

Using the land of former coal mines

Several renewable energy projects are being built in former industrial heartlands, including on the land of former coal mines, thereby giving them a new lease of life.

Former mining sites and the waste tips that accompany them can make perfect locations for solar energy generation. The areas covered are huge and exposed. Wind turbines can also be situated on top of spoil tips for increased elevation and wind exposure, and the land underneath can still be used for other purposes. Crucially, many of these sites already have the essential infrastructure – transmission lines and roads – reducing development costs.

The projects offer economic renewal to communities still bearing the scars of de-industrialisation since the 1980s.

a. The Coel-Ely solar farm, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Wales

Photo. Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board

Coed-Ely solar farm is built on a reclaimed 84-acre colliery tip. This solar farm in Rhondda, Wales supplies electricity directly to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital via a dedicated power line. Operational since October 2025, the hospital said the scheme would fully power its operations on the sunniest days and gains 15% of its energy use across the year.

b. Gateshead Mine Water Heat Network, Tyne and Wear, England

The Gateshead Energy Company – owned by Gateshead Council – uses water heated underground in mines to power thousands of homes. Operational since March 2023, it is the largest project of its kind in the UK. Mine water, at 15°C, is taken from drilled boreholes and passed through a heat exchanger which transfers heat, via a heat pump, into a network of underground pipes that supply hot water at 80°C to more than 350 homes and more than 25 buildings – including Gateshead College, the Glasshouse, and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

There are plans to expand this to 270 more private homes, a conference centre, and a hotel.

The solar park next to the heat pump building also means that the machinery itself runs on 100% sustainable energy for several months of the year.

c. Lindsay Mine, Carmarthenshire, Wales

A mine water heat scheme at Lindsay Mine became operational in March 2025, harnessing previously untapped heat from a mine water treatment project near Ammanford, Wales, to provide low-carbon heating for a nearby business.

d. Black Law Wind Farm, Forth, Scotland

Across 1,850 hectares of abandoned coal mine land, 88 wind turbines are generating large amounts of wind power in South Lanarkshire. The site is an old open cast coal mine, much of which has been restored to shallow wetlands. It has been operational since 2005 – one of the first renewable projects of its kind on ex-mining land.

e. Oakdale Wind Energy, South Wales

A 4MW wind farm at the old Oakdale Colliery in South Wales provides approximately 10GWh a year. Two 130m turbines sit over the former colliery powering 2,400 homes.

f. Welbeck Colliery, Nottinghamshire, England

A 30MW solar farm now sits on the sites of several former collieries. The developer Anesco said the installations would generate enough low-carbon energy to power approximately 9,000 homes. Welbeck was the first site to come online in 2014, covering almost 32 acres, with over 44,000 solar panels.

g. Lochhead Open Cast Mine, Dunfermline, Scotland

Now home to a 100-acre site of 80,000 solar panels and a large battery storage system, the Lochhead open cast mine is ready to power the equivalent of 15,000 homes a year. A second site at Cullerlie near Aberdeen uses 26,000 panels across almost 50 acres. Together, they will deliver renewable energy equivalent to 20,000 homes.

h. Williamthorpe Colliery Solar Farm, Chesterfield, England

Funded by a grant from GB Energy’s Mayoral Renewables Fund, approximately 14,000 ground-mounted solar panels are due for completion in Spring 2026. The 2MW solar farm will be council owned. The former coal mine has been closed since 1970 and is now a nature reserve – soon it will provide renewable energy too, powering more than 700 homes.

i. Holme Hall Quarry, Maltby, England

A planning application for a solar park at Holme Hall Quarry was submitted to Doncaster and Rotherham Councils in August 2026. The investor Infinis said it was hopeful of a decision in the coming months. It would power approximately 5,500 homes each year.

j. Seaham Solar, County Durham, England

A proposed solar park near the former Dawdon Colliery will power about 11,000 homes. The application is awaiting a decision by Durham County Council and Sunderland City Council – however, both are currently under the political control of Reform, climate change cynics. Subject to approval, construction is expected to take around 12 months, with first electricity generation aimed for in 2027.

[Much of the latter material was taken from The Byline Times. ]

Geoff Gibson also posted on the North Sea this week. You can find it here.

By coincidence, can I recommend the latest post by fellow Substacker Miguel Garcia Alvarez (A cartographer’s tale) on this issue here?

So, here is another post …]

The five oceans cover over 70% of the Earth’s surface, most of which are regarded as global commons - shared resources which are not controlled by any sovereign state. The lack of state ownership and responsibility, combined with their vast scale, has led to people around the world treating the oceans as a dumping ground for waste.

Photo: Naja Bertolt Jensen (Unsplash)

Coastal dead zones

A 2018 study by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science found that ocean dead zones had expanded by more than 400% since the 1950s (Figure 1). Dead zones are found in shallow coastal waters close to major cities and coastal industrial zones, especially at the mouths of major rivers.

Figure 1. Coastal dead zones

Dead zones are caused by pollution originating on land entering the sea, for example:

· river discharge polluted by agricultural chemicals (nitrate and phosphate fertilisers) and nutrient-rich animal waste

· untreated, or partially treated, sewage discharge from urban areas

· industrial processing waste containing organic material.

Polluted water causes eutrophication in the ocean leading to algal blooms that remove oxygen from the water creating dead zones. Partially enclosed seas (Baltic, Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico) are particularly at risk as they are less frequently ‘flushed’ by unpolluted water from elsewhere.

Beginning in March 2025, a devastating algal bloom appeared in off the coast of Adelaide, Australia. It expanded to affect over 500 km of the South Australia coastline. The toxic algae killed over 400 species including dolphins, sharks, sea lions and entire shellfish ecosystems. This major eutrophication event resulted from nutrient-rich runoff from farms and urban areas entering the ocean off Adelaide. A ‘marine heatwave’ – with ocean temperatures 2.5°C above normal – exacerbated its impact.

Reducing pollution can prevent the spread of dead zones. Widespread but costly use of sewage treatment helps, but managing agricultural runoff from numerous dispersed sources is much harder. In 1995, global fertiliser use was 130 million tonnes. By 2024, this had risen to 200 million tonnes. Future increases in fertiliser demand are expected which will likely expand coastal dead zones further.

A sea of plastic

Marine plastic pollution is developing into a major environmental concern. How much plastic is in the oceans is not known, but estimates suggest the following:

· 8–14 million tonnes enter the ocean each year

· 100–200 million tonnes are in the ocean already

· Trillions of individual pieces of plastic are in the ocean and on beaches.

Approximately 80% of marine plastic comes from land, discharged into the ocean via rivers, while 20% has an at-sea source such as discarded fishing gear. The problem with plastic is that it does not decompose but rather degrades over time. Large plastic waste (bottles, bags, food containers) breaks down into smaller pieces called microplastics and nano-plastics. Some harder plastic objects could take 400–600 years to be broken down into smaller pieces. Fish and marine mammals can become entangled in large plastic debris. However, micro and nano-plastics are a much greater threat because they can enter the marine food chain and even the human food chain (Figure 2). It is widely accepted that management to reduce ocean plastic pollution is needed, but so far little has been achieved.

A plastic pollution treaty?

• In 2022, the United Nations launched negotiations for a Global Plastic Pollution Treaty. After five rounds, talks culminated in Geneva in August 2025 but ended without agreement, leaving the process stalled.

• Supporters of a strong treaty aim to phase out many single-use plastics, design products for easy recycling, reduce primary microplastics that enter oceans via rivers and drains, and strengthen global waste management.

• Disagreement centres on production limits: the High Ambition Coalition seeks cuts to new plastic production, while several oil-producing nations prefer focusing on recycling, as plastics are primarily made from crude oil feedstocks.

Figure 2. The impacts of ocean plastic pollution

This week the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated this:

‘Yes, the climate does change. We are going through cycles, and I believe that it is very difficult to deconstruct the reasons around why anything changes.’ He also stated that climate change is ‘a belief held by the elite’.

Scott Bessent

In response Professor Dessler (described above) wrote the following:

‘This is not a new argument. In 2018, when Trump made basically the same claim, the Houston Chronicle asked Dan Cohan and me to write an op-ed responding to it. It remains one of my favourite op-eds, and since the argument clearly hasn’t gone away, I thought it was worth reprinting here.’

For UK students, an op-ed is a piece of writing in a newspaper that goes on the opposite page to a newspaper editorial. Imagine opening the central section of a newspaper like The Times, and the editorial is likely to be on the left-hand side, and the op-ed is on the right of that double page spread. For that newspaper it is usually a relatively lengthy piece of writing.

So here is that op-ed….]

Houston Chronicle

We’re scientists. We know the climate’s changing. And we know why.

[Andrew Dessler and Daniel Cohan (October 22, 2018)]

At this point, just about everyone recognizes that the climate is changing. Even Donald Trump says, “I think something’s happening.” Now, the question being debated is why the climate is changing.

Though there may be a public debate, there’s no debate among scientists like us - decades of research have demonstrated that human activities, primarily the emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels, are driving the climate change we are experiencing.

To understand why we are so confident, it’s useful to think about climate change as a whodunit. Climate does not change by itself, so scientists are detectives trying to solve the mystery of what has been warming the Earth for the past century.

Because we know that the climate varied before humans were burning fossil fuels, there are clearly other mechanisms besides humans that can cause change. So, the first thing that scientists do is study these mechanisms to see if they could be the culprit.

One possible non-human mechanism is the brightness of the Sun. If the Sun has been getting brighter, then that could explain the warming. The Sun, however, has an airtight alibi - we have direct measurements of the output of the Sun from satellites, and we observe that the Sun has not gotten any brighter. One suspect down.

Another possibility is the orbit of the Earth. We know that ice ages are paced by small wobbles in the Earth’s orbit, so one might wonder whether this could be causing the present warming. However, Earth’s orbit changes too slowly and is now in a phase that should be slowly cooling temperatures. Another suspect down.

Volcanoes can cool the atmosphere for a year or two. But that can’t explain decades of warming. Another suspect down.

There is an entire list of suspects that scientists have looked at, and they have not identified a single viable one. With one exception - greenhouse gases.

Police shows sometimes feature the “world’s dumbest criminal” - who doesn’t wear gloves, leaves fingerprints all over the house, drops his wallet at the crime scene, is caught on videotape exiting the crime scene, brags to his friends that he committed the crime - and when he is finally arrested has evidence of the crime in his pockets.

Carbon dioxide is like the world’s dumbest criminal - it leaves evidence all over the place that it’s guilty. First, the laws of physics tell us that adding carbon dioxide, or any other gas that absorbs infrared radiation, to the atmosphere should warm the planet.

Second, we are 100 percent sure that humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Just based on that, Nobel Prize-winning scientist Svante Arrhenius predicted in the late 19th century that humans would warm the climate. And, sure enough, the climate is warming.

The timing of warming, beginning just after the industrial revolution, and the magnitude of the warming, match our theories almost exactly. The figure below shows that the rapid warming of last few decades was accurately predicted in 1975.

Observed temperatures are from NASA GISS; predicted temperatures are from W.S. Broecker, “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?,” published in Science, 189, 460-463, 1975. The dotted line shows when the prediction was made, 1975.

Such predictions are the gold standard of science - if you can make a non-obvious prediction about some physical system, then it means that you understand something fundamental about it. This prediction shows that we really understand the warming of the climate system.

Finally, the geologic record is filled with evidence that greenhouse gases impact the climate. For example, during an event about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a huge amount of greenhouse gases was released into the atmosphere. At the same time, temperatures spiked. Then, as the greenhouse gases were removed from the atmosphere during the following 100,000 years, temperatures slowly returned to what they were before.

This is why scientists are so confident that human emissions of carbon dioxide are warming the climate - there is a mountain of evidence supporting that explanation and no plausible alternative suspects. In this whodunit, you would have no choice but to arrest carbon dioxide for warming the planet.

You can view Professor Dessler’s own Substack here:

We’re scientists. We know the climate’s changing. And we know why.

A reminder: for A level Geography, there are two key Assessment Objectives (AOs):

AO1: demonstrate knowledge and understanding of places, environments, concepts, processes, interactions, and change, at a variety of scales.

AO2: apply knowledge and understanding in different contexts to interpret, analyse, and evaluate geographical information and issues.

So, as on previous occasions, here are two versions of each answer.

The first is unannotated.

The second is in two formats:

(a) AO1 in italics

(b) AO2 in bold.

[Remember my self-imposed limit of 600 words for the essay answer – the word limit I believe is the maximum in the time allocated.]

In response to previous questions, a comment on the marking of this essay follows.

Evaluate the extent to which past and present connections shape the characteristics of one place you have studied. (20)

The characteristics of central Liverpool have been profoundly shaped by both its historical connections and its more recent economic, cultural, and regeneration links. The city centre today can be understood as a layered landscape in which past global networks and present‑day urban transformations interact to create a distinctive sense of place.

Historically, Liverpool’s identity was established through its maritime connections. Its location on the River Mersey, on the west coast of England, enabled it to grow from a small medieval settlement into a significant port. These early connections shaped the physical form of central Liverpool through the construction of docks, warehouses, and mercantile buildings, many of which still define the city’s architectural character. For example, an early flagship regeneration project in Liverpool was the Albert Dock, a former derelict dock that was opened as a tourist attraction in 1988, including a museum dedicated to the slave trade.

The port’s role in global trade - including the transatlantic slave trade, migration flows, and commerce - embedded Liverpool within world-wide economic and cultural networks. As a result, central Liverpool developed a cosmopolitan population, with significant Irish, Welsh, African, Caribbean, and Chinese communities. Many of the prestigious buildings in the city such as the Walker Art Gallery, and street names such as Penny Lane are linked to the slave trade. These historical connections continue to influence how the city is represented: as a global, outward‑looking place with a complex and sometimes contested past.

Cultural connections have also played a major role in shaping Liverpool’s meaning. The city’s musical heritage, most notably The Beatles, created a global cultural identity that remains central to how Liverpool is perceived. This connection is physically embedded in the city centre through the Cavern Quarter, Mathew Street, and associated tourist activities.

The award of European Capital of Culture in 2008 further strengthened these cultural connections. This period marked a shift from an industrial to a post‑industrial identity, with culture used as a tool for economic regeneration and place‑branding. Large-scale investment poured into the city after 2008. For example, the retail space Liverpool ONE opened. This consisted of a £1 billion redevelopment that transformed 42 acres of the city centre. It delivered new retail, leisure, hotels, and public spaces and is widely credited with repositioning Liverpool as a major UK retail and visitor destination.

Present‑day connections have continued to reshape central Liverpool’s meaning, particularly through large‑scale regeneration projects. Further developments such as the Lime Street Gateway, the Metquarter (an area of boutique shopping), Kings Waterfront, and the proximity to the Knowledge Quarter (an area based on the universities, hospitals and research institutions) have transformed the city centre’s land use, economy, and visual identity. These projects connect Liverpool to new economic networks - retail, leisure, tourism, higher education, and science - redefining the city centre as a space of consumption, culture, and innovation rather than port-based industry.

Regeneration has also altered the demography of central Liverpool. The growth of residential areas such as Ropewalks and Baltic North has brought new populations into the city centre, including students (many from China - Liverpool has Europe’s oldest Chinese quarter), young professionals, and international residents. This contributes to a representation of Liverpool as a youthful, dynamic, and increasingly diverse urban space.

Overall, past connections have shaped the identity, built environment, and cultural footprint of central Liverpool, while present connections have reshaped its economy, visual landscape, and global image. Central Liverpool today is therefore the product of an ongoing interplay between its maritime heritage, cultural globalisation, and contemporary regeneration. Both past and present connections largely continue to define how the city centre is represented. (599)

The Royal Liver Building, Liverpool

Evaluate the extent to which past and present connections shape the characteristics of one place you have studied. (20)

The characteristics of central Liverpool have been profoundly shaped by both its historical connections and its more recent economic, cultural, and regeneration links. The city centre today can be understood as a layered landscape in which past global networks and present‑day urban transformations interact to create a distinctive sense of place.

Historically, Liverpool’s identity was established through its maritime connections. Its location on the River Mersey, on the west coast of England, enabled it to grow from a small medieval settlement into a significant port. These early connections shaped the physical form of central Liverpool through the construction of docks, warehouses, and mercantile buildings, many of which still define the city’s architectural character. For example, an early flagship regeneration project in Liverpool was the Albert Dock, a former derelict dock that was opened as a tourist attraction in 1988, including a museum dedicated to the slave trade.

The port’s role in global trade - including the transatlantic slave trade, migration flows, and commerce - embedded Liverpool within world-wide economic and cultural networks. As a result, central Liverpool developed a cosmopolitan population, with significant Irish, Welsh, African, Caribbean, and Chinese communities. Many of the prestigious buildings in the city such as the Walker Art Gallery, and street names such as Penny Lane are linked to the slave trade. These historical connections continue to influence how the city is represented: as a global, outward‑looking place with a complex and sometimes contested past.

Cultural connections have also played a major role in shaping Liverpool’s meaning. The city’s musical heritage, most notably The Beatles, created a global cultural identity that remains central to how Liverpool is perceived. This connection is physically embedded in the city centre through the Cavern Quarter, Mathew Street, and associated tourist activities.

The award of European Capital of Culture in 2008 further strengthened these cultural connections. This period marked a shift from an industrial to a post‑industrial identity, with culture used as a tool for economic regeneration and place‑branding. Large-scale investment poured into the city after 2008. For example, the retail space Liverpool ONE opened. This consisted of a £1 billion redevelopment that transformed 42 acres of the city centre. It delivered new retail, leisure, hotels, and public spaces and is widely credited with repositioning Liverpool as a major UK retail and visitor destination.

Present‑day connections have continued to reshape central Liverpool’s meaning, particularly through large‑scale regeneration projects. Further developments such as the Lime Street Gateway, the Metquarter (an area of boutique shopping), Kings Waterfront, and the proximity to the Knowledge Quarter (an area based on the universities, hospitals and research institutions) have transformed the city centre’s land use, economy, and visual identity. These projects connect Liverpool to new economic networks - retail, leisure, tourism, higher education, and science - redefining the city centre as a space of consumption, culture, and innovation rather than port-based industry.

Regeneration has also altered the demography of central Liverpool. The growth of residential areas such as Ropewalks and Baltic North has brought new populations into the city centre, including students (many from China - Liverpool has Europe’s oldest Chinese quarter), young professionals, and international residents. This contributes to a representation of Liverpool as a youthful, dynamic, and increasingly diverse urban space.

Overall, past connections have shaped the identity, built environment, and cultural footprint of central Liverpool, while present connections have reshaped its economy, visual landscape, and global image. Central Liverpool today is therefore the product of an ongoing interplay between its maritime heritage, cultural globalisation, and contemporary regeneration. Both past and present connections largely continue to define how the city centre is represented. (599)

You are now probably wondering what mark this answer would get, or even what grade it would represent. Let me address each of these in turn.

I have written about how A Level essays are marked in more detail in a previous post. You can find it here:

(1) The marking of essays - by David Redfern

The above essay is worthy of the highest Level – Level 4 – and hence within the mark allocation of 17-20 marks, it should score highly. For an exact mark, …. that would be within the mind of the actual examiner – see the article above as to how that (in theory) works.

As to the grade it represents, then I must state that, much to the chagrin of many Geography teachers (and their senior managers), there is no such thing as a Grade A* essay, or a Grade A essay or indeed a Grade E essay. That concept is nonsense.

Exam grades are decided after a student has completed ALL the examination papers required, and the marks totalled up and then placed in the rank order of all the students who have done that exam series. At that point, Senior Examiners will award a Grade A* to the top 5% of all students, Grade A to the top 25%, Grade B top 50% and so on down. An added complication is that the %’s I have just quoted may be altered on the day of awarding by an email/phone call/text from the Department of Education in Whitehall, London (I have experienced and am aware of all the above).

In short, you cannot determine a Grade A* essay until all 13,000 students of an AQA or Edexcel (for OCR it is 5,000) exam series have completed the same tasks.

It’s not a bad essay, though.

This post is dominated by the USA too. Before that, last Friday the New York Times published the article below. I am sure most A Level Geography students here in the UK can spot the (subliminal perhaps??) error in the headline….

(Just an advance note – as the exam season approaches here in Blighty, the next post will be an exam Q&A post in the context of Changing places.)

Now to two areas of the world which are experiencing significant changes in climate, which in turn are impacting on the generation of hydro-electric power (HEP).]

HEP issues in Norway

The mountains of southern Norway, where winter snowfall is usually very heavy, are experiencing a lack of this valuable resource this year.

• For example, across the mountains surrounding the Vatndals dam the craggy slopes are not covered with much snow at all.

• The reservoir here depends on spring melt to replenish and generate electricity. However, after Norway’s driest winter in decades, the water level is far below where it should be, prompting the electricity company to limit the outflows.

• With little precipitation, snow reserves have fallen to their lowest levels in two decades. This potentially represents a deficit of approximately 25 terawatt-hours of energy, taking account of the likely HEP output. This represents a fifth of Norway’s total HEP output in 2025.

• This shortfall is already impacting electricity markets, reducing exports to the UK, Denmark and Germany (see map below) and increasing Scandinavian electricity prices. More than half of the Scandinavia’s supply comes from HEP, and in Norway it accounts for nearly all generation.

Drought in the Colorado River basin, USA

The Colorado River basin is experiencing one of the most severe, prolonged droughts in its recorded history. The basin is a 250,000 square-mile watershed zone that includes southwestern Wyoming, western Colorado, southern and eastern Utah, southern Nevada, western New Mexico, Arizona, and eastern California. For administrative purposes, it has been split into the Lower Basin (CA, AZ, NV) and the Upper Basin (CO, WY, UT, NM), with the dividing line at Lees Ferry (see map below).

The Colorado River Basin generates nearly $4 trillion in economic activity each year and supports 30 tribal communities. Its crisis is not just an environmental issue - it’s a major challenge for national water security, energy reliability, and long‑term regional planning.

There are several interconnected factors for the water issues here:

Record‑low snowpack

The snowpack in the Rocky Mountains is the river’s primary water source. Recent winters have produced:

• the lowest snowpack since records began in 1941, with the snow containing only about half the usual moisture.

• snow melting earlier than normal due to higher temperatures, leaving little runoff for spring and summer.

This means far less water flowing into the river and its downstream reservoirs.

Extreme heat and climate change

The western area of the USA has endured:

• the warmest winter (2025/26) on record, followed by record-breaking heat in March 2026.

• higher temperatures increase evaporation and reduce the snowpack, compounding the drought.

A warming climate is the underlying driver of the long-term decline in the snowpack.

Overuse and outdated water agreements

An agreement signed over 100 years ago, the Colorado River Compact (1922) (when representatives from the seven Colorado River states entered an agreement aimed at ending interstate conflict and litigation to clear the way for developing dams and diversions on the river), allocated water based on unusually wet years. However, today:

• the river’s flow has shrunk by about 20% since 2000.

• demand far exceeds supply - 40 million people, several major cities, and vast agricultural regions depend on it.

• the states are now locked in tense negotiations over how to share the shrinking supplies, with federal intervention (i.e. national government) being threatened.

Impacts across the region

Reservoirs are at critical lows:

• Lake Powell is about 25% full (see photo below); Lake Mead is around 34% full.

• Low levels threaten HEP generation at major dams like Hoover and Glen Canyon.

Minimum power pool:

In December 2025, the elevation of the water in Lake Powell above sea level was 1080m (against a maximum height allowed of 1128m). The elevation below which HEP production is no longer possible because it is lower than the dam’s penstocks is 1064m above sea level. This is particularly critical at Lake Powell because if water cannot be released through the penstocks and turbines, it must go through lower river outlets, which are not equipped for long-term releases and could be damaged by constant use. Also, the electricity from the dam is critical to Southwestern USA power grids.

Agriculture is under strain:

Farmers in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado rely heavily on river water. Many face cuts to supplies of irrigation water. The city of Yuma, Arizona - which grows most of America’s winter lettuce - is especially vulnerable.

Wildfire risk

The low snowpack and persistent heat are creating earlier and longer fire seasons, with vegetation drying out months ahead of normal.

Urban restrictions

Cities like Denver are imposing mandatory water restrictions, including serving water in restaurants only on request, aiming to cut consumption by 20%.

The future?

The situation is urgent. A key development that is needed includes new water‑sharing rules (a redrafting of the 1922 Compact?). The current agreement expires soon, and states must agree on new allocations of water between them. Without a consensus, the federal government has stated it will impose a plan. However, with a current national administration that does not recognise the phenomenon of climate change, and one that seems to have its priorities elsewhere, one wonders how effective such as plan will be.

Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell…. [Photo clearly taken in wetter times]

Photo: Bureau of Reclamation

1. The (deeper) importance of the North Atlantic Drift

While the role of the North Atlantic Drift (NAD)/Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation [AMOC]/Gulf Stream (choose your weapon) in transporting heat from the tropics to the polar regions has been studied for decades, a new study argues that its bio-geochemical influence is also important for the carbon cycle.

Drawing on data collected from the coast of Florida, particle-tracking simulations, and ocean modelling, the study identifies what they call a ‘bio-geochemical stream’: a subsurface current that transports nutrient-rich, anthropogenically carbon-depleted waters (i.e. not from human sources) from the subtropics to the sub-polar North Atlantic.

The study shows that waters released in layers off the Florida coast follow lower, sub-surface trajectories that extend into the sub-polar gyre (a circular pattern of currents), while surface waters remain largely confined to the subtropics. In other words, carbon transport occurs below the surface, along lower layers that are insulated from the wind-driven surface.

However, climate projections have suggested a likely weakening of the AMOC over the coming century. As the NAD forms part of the upper limb of that circulation, a slowdown could reduce the delivery of nutrient-rich and carbon-depleted waters to high latitudes. Such a weakening would diminish the North Atlantic’s capacity to absorb atmospheric CO₂.

Global role

The North Atlantic plays a major role in the global carbon budget. Though it covers just 7% of the ocean’s surface, it accounts for 23% of global air-sea CO₂ fluxes and 15% of anthropogenic carbon storage. This disproportionate uptake is linked to both heat loss to the atmosphere and intense biological productivity in subpolar waters.

Beneath the NAD’s warm surface waters lies a subsurface ribbon of older, denser water. These waters are high in nutrients and low in anthropogenic carbon because they were last in contact with the atmosphere decades ago, when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were lower. When these waters surface in the sub-polar gyre, they are chemically carbon under-saturated relative to today’s atmosphere, allowing them to absorb additional CO₂.

These waters are also very rich in nutrients. When they surface, they fertilise phytoplankton blooms that further draw down CO₂ through photosynthesis. The NAD does not merely redistribute heat; it helps sustain the chemical and biological conditions that allow the North Atlantic to function as a carbon sink.

2. Using nature to address eutrophication

Another new study examines one of the most worrying problems in freshwater ecology: eutrophication, the nutrient overload that turns clear lakes into murky, algae-choked systems. The report focuses on Lake Taihu in China, one of the largest shallow freshwater lakes in the world and a severe example for toxic algal blooms driven by human activity. Using more than 15 years of monitored data, the researchers examined how nutrients, water movement, and aquatic vegetation interact over time.

The study found that boosting aquatic vegetation to 28% coverage moved the lake from an unhealthy eutrophic condition to a healthier state. Restoring submerged aquatic plants does more than beautify a lake - it fundamentally alters nutrient dynamics, particularly phosphorus, and can push a lake out of a eutrophic state and toward ecological recovery.

Global problem

Eutrophication is a global issue, intensified by fertilizer runoff and wastewater discharge. Traditionally, management strategies have focused almost exclusively on reducing nutrient inputs, especially nitrogen and phosphorus, from upstream sources. This approach has often proven insufficient on its own.

The study reveals a positive feedback loop involving making use of aquatic plants. Aquatic plants do not just respond to nutrient conditions; they actively regulate them. Submerged vegetation stabilizes sediments, limits nutrient re-suspension, competes with algae for light and nutrients, and improves oxygen levels. So, rather than relying solely on costly chemical treatments or perpetual dredging, lake managers could prioritise vegetation recovery as a long-term, self-sustaining solution. Aquatic plants anchor sediments, reduce phosphorus release, and create conditions that favour clear water over algae dominance.

Climate change adds a layer of complexity. Warmer waters can intensify algal blooms and stress aquatic plants. So, vegetation restoration is not just about local water quality - it is a form of climate adaptation, enhancing ecosystem resilience in the face of increasing environmental variability.

This is the final ever edition of this magazine from Hachette (Hodder), which has been published for 39 years. I have been fortunate to be involved in its production for the last 15 years or so of this wonderful product.

As ever you can still find free resources online to support the magazine, including this April, here:

Answers & Extras | Hachette Learning

…. including a quiz on Food security, a ppt on Oceans (governance, waste, plastic and trade) and a ppt from me, based on material from the great Hannah Ritchie, which tries to provide an optimistic viewpoint of the world as we find it (also inspired by the work of Hans Rosling).

The above link also has an archive of similar materials stretching back several years. Hachette have said that they will maintain the materials here until the end of 2027, but you never know…

Finally, the editorial team behind Geography Review has entered a new partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (RGS). If you would like to be ‘kept in the loop’ about this new chapter for the magazine (which is unlikely to be called Geography Review – Hachette are hanging on to the title), then please register your interest via the email address: resources@rgs.org.

Approximately 80% of world trade is conducted via sea routes. Global supply chains have become a key element of the globalised networks of economy and trade. These supply chains depend on a small number of geographical locations which act as pinch points on the movement of goods - as we are seeing currently with oil, natural gas and fertilisers.

As of 25^th March 2026:

· In South Korea, people are being asked to take shorter showers and to use their washing machines on weekends only

· In Nepal, evening dinners are cold due to a lack of cooking gas

· In Pune, India, gas cremation is restricted

· In Laos, 40% of petrol stations are closed

· In Sri Lanka, Wednesdays are now a public holiday

· In The Philippines, a national emergency has been declared due to a shortage of fuel.

We have been warned

The Ever Given incident of March 2021 was a warning. When the mega-ship ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal in both directions, the world watched as a single vessel brought approximately $16 million in daily revenue to a halt, stranded nearly 400 ships, and sent energy prices spiking. That was an accident. What the world now faces is something far more deliberate: the strategic weaponisation of a maritime pinch point, the Strait of Hormuz, as an instrument of great power competition and sadly, warfare.

We’ve been here before too… The 2023 and 2025 Houthi campaigns against commercial shipping in the southern Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli bombardment in Gaza showed that the latter was not an isolated conflict. It highlighted the global contest over who controls the arteries of the 21st-century world trade system.

The global pinch points

We are experiencing a geography of economic vulnerability. Several trade pinch points are of immense importance within the global system with major geopolitical and geo-economic implications for international affairs. It is striking how most of them form a chain of strategic bottlenecks that encircles Eurasia (see map above):

The Suez Canal connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and serves as the critical artery linking Asian manufacturing to European markets. The waterway handles 10% of global seaborne trade, including 22% of container traffic, 20% of car shipments and 10% of crude oil. Any disruption forces the costly diversion around the Cape of Good Hope - adding seven to ten days and added fuel costs.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait, the gateway between the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, is the southern entry point to the Red Sea and therefore the gateway to the Suez Canal. Whoever controls or threatens this passage controls access to Europe’s most important maritime corridor.

The Strait of Hormuz is the most critical pinch point on the planet – at its narrowest it is 33km wide. It offers no alternative route for ships exiting the Persian Gulf. Approximately 20 million barrels of oil pass through it daily - roughly 20% of global oil consumption. The Strait carries around 39% of the seaborne crude oil trade and 19% of natural gas. Shipping giants Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have suspended all shipments through the strait. Traffic is down at least 90%. Its closure does not merely disrupt markets; as shown above, it is triggering cascading energy crises around the world.

The fertiliser dimension of a Hormuz closure is a key element too - arguably the most dangerous for long-term food security. More fertilisers traverse the strait on the way to international markets than hydrocarbons do. With nearly half of global sulphur flows and close to a third of urea shipments moving through the corridor, the impact will reverberate around the world.

Urea and ammonia - both nitrogen-based fertilisers - are widely used in staple crop production including wheat, maize, and rice, while phosphates are essential for maintaining soil fertility. The concentration of these exports from the Gulf region means that a halt to exports via the Strait of Hormuz can quickly translate into price volatility. Fertiliser markets are already sensitive to energy prices, as natural gas is a key feedstock for ammonia and urea production. Disruptions to transport routes add an additional layer of risk. Agricultural producers in major importing regions such as South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America rely on steady fertiliser supplies to sustain crop yields.

The Strait of Malacca is Asia’s critical artery - the narrow passage between the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra connecting the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea, through which roughly 80% of China’s oil imports move (see below). It is China’s single greatest maritime vulnerability, which it calls the ‘Malacca dilemma’.

The Malacca strait is the busiest shipping lane on Earth. It carries 24% of all global seaborne trade, including 45% of seaborne crude oil and 26% of cars. The waterway is also home to Singapore, which hosts the second-busiest container port in the world. It is the gateway through which China, Japan and South Korea receive their energy imports.

Piracy remains a concern, with over 130 incidents reported in the Malacca strait in 2025. It is also exposed to natural disasters, including tsunamis and volcanic activity. The Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, for example, caused significant damage to coastal infrastructure at the strait’s southern entrance.

The Turkish Strait (Bosphorus and Dardanelles) connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean - the exit point for Russian naval power projection and a critical corridor for Ukrainian grain and energy exports. The strait carries 3% of global seaborne trade. While this share may appear small, it includes around 20% of global wheat exports from Ukraine, Russia and Romania.

At just 700m wide at its narrowest point, running through the centre of Istanbul in Turkey, navigation is complex and minor collisions are common. Turkey controls military access to the straits, a power the Turkish government has used since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine to restrict the movement of warships while keeping commercial traffic open.

The region’s high seismic activity adds another layer of risk.

The Panama Canal links the Pacific and Atlantic, connecting Asian manufacturing to US east coast markets and Latin American trade networks. The canal handles around 2.5% of global seaborne trade – a modest share but concentrated in high-value and strategic cargo such as containerised goods, cars and grain. The canal carries around 40% of all US containerised shipments, valued at US$270 billion annually. In 2023 and 2024, severe droughts caused water levels in the canal’s freshwater reservoirs to fall sharply, forcing restrictions on vessel numbers and size.

For over a century, the canal was a feature of American hegemony, a geographic extension of the Monroe Doctrine applied to global commerce. Over the last 20 years, that assumption has been systematically eroded. Chinese state-affiliated companies - most prominently CK Hutchison Holdings - have held operating concessions at ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific entrances of the canal, a commercial foothold that the US government has been concerned about.

The Trump administration’s demands in early 2025 for Panama to reduce Chinese influence over canal operations, followed by Panama’s announcement that it would not renew the Hutchison Holdings port concessions under US pressure, marked the start of a direct pinch point contest - one that China has watched closely.

USA v. China

As shown above, for much of the 20^th and 21^st centuries, the USA has secured all these global sea lanes through uncontested naval dominance since 1945. The US Navy’s ability to project power through every major pinch point has been a visible foundation of the capitalist international economic order. American hegemony was dominant.

Recently though, China’s strategic imperative has been to erode that dominance – not through direct confrontation, but through the gradual construction of alternative strategies: China’s Belt and Road Initiative developing overland rail corridors and port investments that bypass US-dominated sea routes; Russia’s Arctic shipping route offering a northern corridor outside NATO’s reach; oil pipelines across Pakistan, Myanmar and central Asia; massive port infrastructure investments across the Indian Ocean, East Africa, and the Mediterranean creating what some analysts call a ‘String of Pearls’ - a network of dual-use facilities capable of supporting commercial and naval operations alike.

The current turmoil over the Strait of Hormuz may be the beginning of a wider conflict over sea routes.

A quick reminder that viewing this post in the Substack app will be a much better experience than email – the photos that feature will be clearer.]

I have posted previously on each of the skill of describing geographical features from photographs, and the concept of synopticity. You can find the two posts here:

From 2 years ago….

Describing photographs - by David Redfern

And another from three years ago:

Synopticity - by David Redfern - A Level of Geography

In this post, I am seeking to connect the two themes of the above.

The aforementioned Laura Shillington has written the following in an online piece for ‘The Nature of Cities’:

‘In late April 2025, I took my Introduction to Geography students outside on the campus front lawn. Working in pairs, students were tasked to do the following: (1) to record and describe in detail as many elements of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and lithosphere that they could see and feel; (2) to describe what they think are possible interactions between different spheres; and (3) to describe how anthropocentric (human) activities might have changed or are changing each of the four spheres. Each student was provided with a paper worksheet to write down their detailed observations, and everyone was situated together in one area of the lawn looking towards the lakeshore so that they all had the same perspective. Creating the sketch map required them to imagine how the landscape might look from above. My instructions specifically stated that no phones, tablets, or laptops could be used, especially for the sketch map (e.g., no using Google Maps). Both the observations and the sketch map were to be submitted at the end of class.’

You can read the rest of Laura’s article here.

I think it fair to say Laura’s students found the task a challenge. She writes ‘More than half of the students take out their phones and take a photo of the landscape, then begin to write observations, looking at the photo rather than the real landscape. Several other students attempted to upload the photo of the landscape into ChatGPT so that they could prompt it to make the observations for them.’

I must confess, the latter was something I hadn’t foreseen myself – how naïve am I?

Three things struck me about the task:

1. Describing a landscape, whether ‘live in person’ or on a photo, is a basic geographical skill that many students find difficult. Is it due to a lack of vocabulary, or a lack of self-confidence that what they see is ‘correct’, or both?

2. Making deeper connections between different aspects of what they see, touch, smell – the sky, the land, the water, the air, the plants – takes them further out of their comfort zone.

3. And then linking all the above to the role that other people may have played in what they see…. is, well, brain-hurting!

The latter two, to me, illustrate the notion of ‘Thinking like a geographer’.

Let’s re-examine each of these in turn…

How to describe features in a live view or photograph

Here are my 6 pointers on the sort of thing you should do, depending on the actual landscape or photograph.

• Name/identify what you are looking at.

• Write what it looks like – ‘paint a picture’ in words.

• State what it is made of.

• State its size – give some sense of scale.

• State the context in which the feature is found – called the ‘field relationship’.

• Look for some variation in the landscape/photograph – look for an anomaly or something unusual.

Synopticity and ‘Thinking like a Geographer’

The concept of synopticity first appeared in UK assessment terms in the mid-1990s. The aim was to encourage students to look beyond the limits of discrete sections of the subject - in simple terms of Physical and Human Geography, and between subsets of these discrete parts. It is the case that we tend to separate out say, Tectonics from Ecosystems in physical geography, or Population from Development within human geography. Students were encouraged to look beyond these separate elements for the connections between the different parts of the subject, and to see how one element of, for example, landscape geography influenced aspects of human geography (sometimes called determinism) or vice-versa.

A phrase to try and explain to students what they needed to do was born: ‘Think like a Geographer’. I’m not sure who first came up with the phrase, I like to think it was the late Professor Michael Bradford, but I can’t be sure. For years, when addressing teachers and students, I would corrupt the statement further…. ‘Think like a Geographer…. Sting like a bee’ (with apologies to Muhammad Ali).

In assessment terms, one aspect was to say to students …. here is an essay title; the answer is complex, you can develop it as much as you want, in whatever direction you want to take it (as long as it was appropriate), and you have 60 minutes to write it. Think, and take your time. I used to suggest they should write a minimum of 1000 words, but ideally about 1400 words. The key aspect was that students were in control of their synopticity – they spread their knowledge and understanding outwards from a question. It was an OPEN process.

[As I point out in the second previous post, this understanding of synopticity in assessment in the UK was altered in 2015. Read the post to find out what changed.]

At a smaller scale, ‘thinking like a geographer’ could be assessed by the command word ‘Comment on’. A typical question in the 1990s and early 2000s was that students were given a photograph to ‘Describe and comment on the main features of photograph X’. The first part of the question was pure description, the latter part of the question asked students to think about, for example, what might have been the causes behind the features in the photograph, or what might be the consequences of what could be seen, or even better, what were the connections or interactions between different elements in the photograph – the same things being asked of students on a grassy lakeshore in Montreal several years later! Indeed, any valid geographical observation could be credited too. There is no right answer – what is written just needs to be plausible, linked to the photo, and most importantly, geographical.

So, let’s have a go. I have assembled three photos that could be used for this task. I have taken all three photos in different locations around the world. Short responses are given after each photo – note such questions would need to be answered in about 7/8 minutes each.

Describe and comment on the features shown in Photograph A

Photo A

Answer

Photo A shows a largely green vegetated area under a cloudy sky. The foreground has a range of wild plants, including grasses, brambles and on the water’s edge rushes and reeds. In the middle of the photo is a lake, with possibly one or two vegetated islands. The lake is at least a kilometre wide. In the distance there seems to be more of the same type of vegetation as in the foreground, and on the horizon, I can see a line of electricity pylons.

I would suggest that this area is a wetland area, that has been allowed to develop. It is probably to allow certain types of wildlife (plants and animals) to exist without being impacted by humans. There is likely to be a nature reserve for home and migrating birds – the latter including water-loving birds such as egrets, ducks and swans. Birds that prey on these, such as marsh harriers, may also live here. There is likely to be limited access for people to the reserve – possibly bird watchers, or just people who like to walk in nature.

Finally, what may have caused the area to exist? It could be an officially protected area within an otherwise urban area, thereby providing an area for people to relax.

[The area shown is Potteric Carr, Doncaster UK. It is indeed a nature reserve belonging to the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. The lake was caused by subsidence in this former coal-mining area.]

Describe and comment on the features shown in Photograph B

Photo B

Answer

The photo shows a river valley on the left-hand side which is flowing into the sea in the left distance, about 2 kilometres away. On the right-hand side is a road which is hugging the coastline. The road has been cut into the hillside with some evidence of cutting on the right, and a steep drop away to the left down into the river valley. This is indicated by the metal barrier along the side of the road – there to stop vehicles dropping off down the slope. The vegetation is short grassland, with some taller plants (thistles?) by the road fence. There may be a couple of houses on the left side of the photo. There is also a road sign that says 60⁰N – could this indicate a line of latitude, which is an unusual thing to indicate on a roadside?

The area shown in the photo appears to be quite a remote coastal area with limited evidence of human occupation or indeed human activity. Other than the road, the area is dominated by natural processes.

[This is the main road between Lerwick and Sumburgh Airport, looking south, on the mainland of the Shetland Isles, Scotland. The road sign is indeed identifying the crossing of the line of latitude of 60⁰N.]

Describe and comment on the features shown in Photograph C.

Photo C

Answer

The photograph shows an area of water with an arid mountainous landscape in the far distance, several kilometres away. The sky is clear blue, which with an arid landscape, would suggest a desert region. The water is quite choppy, with elements of white water, which would suggest a windy day. There are at least four large ships arranged in a procession along the water behind where the photo was taken from – is this a river? – and these ships look to be large cruise ships. The water’s edge is vegetated with some evidence of trees, fed by water from the nearby river, but this does not appear to be a wide area before the desert landscape begins.

The four cruise ships would indicate an area where tourism is important to the local economy, although if all those cruise ships make landfall in the same location, the problem of overtourism – where places become overrun with tourists – will arise.

[The photo was taken from a cruise ship on the River Nile, downriver of a dam north of Aswan. The cruise ships were queuing up to pass through a lock to the western side of the dam. And, Aswan was awash with tourists later that day.]

Is this skill that hard?

Meanwhile, the ‘Orange Wrecking Ball’ (courtesy of Anthony Scaramucci) is causing havoc in the middle east, and across the world, without any clear strategy as to why he is doing this, or how to end it. The consequences are ever-increasing – is Epic Fury becoming more Epic Failure? AI data centres in the region are likely to be affected greatly.

Much of this post is adapted from materials produced by Geography Review.]

The current war being staged in the middle east between Israel, the USA and Iran has impacted on AI data centres in the region. The map below shows the location of data centres in the region – the digital economic fallout of the conflict is likely to be significant. [Note the number of data centres in the UAE and other Gulf States.]

What is AI?

The prospect of artificial intelligence (AI) dominates economic news. AI comprises digital systems and devices that can perform tasks characteristic of human intelligence – namely, learning (from data and experience), problem-solving and decision-making. For instance, AI often takes the form of virtual assistants and is the ‘brain’ of self-driving vehicles. Major technology companies such as Nvidia and Google are promoting its use in business, in government, in the military, in public service provision, in education and in everyday life.

Issues

One concern is the speed and scale of the AI roll-out, notably its capacity to replace hundreds of millions of jobs by automating them. Another issue is the enormous energy demands of maintaining AI systems. Thousands of new ‘data centres’ are being built around the world to allow AI to become embedded in all areas of human life (see photo below). These centres contain hardware that can handle enormous volumes of data storage and processing.

The energy requirements of a single centre are equivalent to those needed to power a small English town and cooling facilities are needed at each centre. This energy demand is invisible to us when we use ChatGPT on our mobile phones. Given that most energy is still generated by burning fossil fuels, the roll-out of AI poses a climate change challenge. Hence, it puts pressure on most governments (not the USA) to accelerate the use of renewables in national energy systems. AI demands a world of increased not reduced energy supply.

Google data centre – Cheshunt, Hertfordshire.

The link to Global systems

• Data flows are as vital as movements of goods, money, people and ideas in global systems.

• Digital networks enable instant communication, coordinate trade and finance, shape culture and support decision making.

• Their speed and scale intensify interdependence, inequality and vulnerability, making governance and security key concerns today.

Data centres

• Data centres are the physical backbone of the digital AI economy, storing and processing vast quantities of information every second.

• They are the locations where data is stored and accessed by internet users. The ten largest server farms in the world are in the USA – but many more exist globally to meet growing demand for AI services.

• Data centres are usually built in places with reliable electricity, strong internet connections and cool climates (though not always – see below) that reduce the need for energy-intensive cooling.

• Governments compete to host data centres because they bring investment, infrastructure and skilled jobs.

• The number of data centres worldwide is growing rapidly as demand for AI, cloud computing, and digital services increases.

Data centre case study: Luleå, Sweden

• Luleå in northern Sweden is a data-centre hub [owned by Meta (Facebook)] – see photo below. The cold climate lowers cooling costs, while abundant renewable hydroelectric power reduces carbon emissions.

• Located 100 km south of the Arctic Circle, this has a subarctic climate with short, mild summers and long, cold and snowy winters.

• Winter temperatures are below freezing; summertime highs rarely climb above 25C. For around eight months, the high-power computer equipment will cool itself at no cost using the icy outside air.

• The low relief site also offers flat land with room for expansion.

AI and climate change

• As most global energy still comes from fossil fuels, expanding AI infrastructure risks increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

• Some data centres in the USA are even located near coal- or gas-fired power stations, potentially undermining climate-reduction efforts. There is controversy here where local domestic electricity charges have increased due to the presence of data centres.

• Although AI was not created to solve climate change, its growth could indirectly push faster action toward cleaner energy systems.

What next?

• Some technology investors, including Elon Musk, have discussed the possibility of building data centres in space.

• Space-based facilities would use solar energy and reduce pressure on Earth’s power systems, but this would raise major technical, economic, and legal challenges.

• Outer space is a global commons, meaning it belongs to all humanity rather than any single country or company. Expanding digital infrastructure into space should therefore require international cooperation, regulation and debate about fairness, access and environmental responsibility.

Rain is coming to Antarctica – here’s how it will change the frozen continent

There has been a lot of discussion regarding ‘resources’ recently. Oil and natural gas are key resources, and one area now under pressure regarding these resources is the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump has stated that ‘he’ will escort and insure ships carrying valuable resources through this narrow seaway. Yesterday a container ship was attacked and disabled – it now floats aimlessly in the waterway. Here is an interesting graph published by Bloomberg:

Now a thematic look at the concept of a resource.]

A resource is any feature of the environment which can be used to meet human needs. Some nations have an abundance of resources (for example, water, oil, minerals), whereas others have less.

The traditional approach to a resource considers that it is the act of exploitation which converts a commodity into a resource, i.e. it emphasises the use of the commodity. More radical approaches stress the exchange value of a resource. On commodity markets profits can be made without doing anything to a resource, owners buy at one price and sell on at another without perhaps ever seeing the resource or even taking ownership of it in the sense of storing it. Such speculative behaviour, which also applies to the purchase of land in anticipation of its future potential value, views resources in a different way.

Classification of resources

Resources may be classed as renewable (or flow) resources, or non-renewable resources. Renewable resources are those which can be replenished with the passage of time and should therefore always be available for humans to use. Distinction should be made between those that occur constantly, independent of human activity, such as solar radiation, winds and tides, and those which can be maintained, depleted or sometimes increased by humans, such as soil and natural vegetation, such as trees.

Non-renewable resources are also referred to as ‘stock’ resources. Both these terms relate to the fact that these types of resources have been created by long-term physical processes over geological timescales and therefore cannot be replaced. This group includes:

• fossil fuels such as coal and oil

• rocks such as limestone and granite

• precious and semi-precious stones such as diamonds and emeralds

• metallic elements contained within rocks such as iron ore, copper and rare earth elements.

Stock resource evaluation

Key determinants of the value of stock resources are the quantity and quality of the materials in their natural state. High levels of both should make them economically viable to extract. However, the evaluation of their worth is more complex than this.

‘Resources’ includes all the deposits of a mineral/commodity which includes that which is discovered, undiscovered or unviable. ‘Reserves’ are those parts of the ‘resources’ which can be economically, technically or legally able to be extracted. Of course this can change as commodity prices can fluctuate, and technology is always increasing. More ‘resources’ can become ‘reserves’ over time or otherwise. The latter can be exemplified by the fact that some oil reserves in the North Sea became economically unviable as oil prices have fallen. A McKelvey box can be used to illustrate these ideas [Figure 1].

Figure 1. A McKelvey box of Resources v Reserves

Those resources where geology is a key factor – mineral resources – can also be subdivided into four other categories [Figure 1]:

• Proven (measured) reserves – where the quantity and quality of a resource are well-known enough that they can be estimated with a high level of confidence. These are viewed as being economically viable.

• Probable (indicated) reserves – where the quantity and quality of a resource are well-known enough that they can be estimated with a level of confidence sufficient to allow further evaluation of their economic viability.

• Possible (inferred) reserves – occur where the quantity and quality can only be estimated based on limited evidence. There may be issues regarding depth, continuity and access.

• Possible resources – are based on broad geological knowledge of the existence of other similar situations to where resources have already been discovered. Hence these resources are largely undiscovered, and confidence of their existence is low. Such resources have been further subdivided into ‘hypothetical’ and ‘conditional’.

Natural resource development

There is a range of influences on the rate at which resources are explored, exploited and developed:

• Population ‘need’ - as population numbers grow it is inevitable that demand for resources will rise particularly for food, water, energy and building materials. In simple terms a world of over 7 billion people in the twenty first century needs many more resources than a world of around 1 billion people in the eighteenth century.

• Population ‘wants’ - even when basic needs are filled, demand for resources continues to grow as people aspire to ever higher standards of living.

• Economic development - natural resources are commodities that are important in their own right or form the raw materials for manufactured goods. These drive continued exploitation in order for economic growth to occur.

• Exploration and innovation – some resources may be unused until it becomes possible and/or economic to exploit them. Some resources may not be needed until new products and technologies which make use of them are developed.

The concept of the resource frontier

A resource frontier is a location where a resource is brought into production for the first time. Such areas are typically geographically remote (peripheral) and lack infrastructure - transport, social and economic. These often must be brought in by the developers of the resource. Once the resource is being exploited the area begins to develop as further associated activities move in. Resource frontiers can be illustrated by a range of oil exploration sites around the world over recent decades – Dubai and Abu Dhabi, North slope (Alaska), the east coast of Scotland and Kashagan in the Caspian Sea.

The concept of resource peak

This is perhaps best illustrated by the notion of ‘peak oil’. Peak oil refers to the point in time when crude oil production reaches its maximum level [Figure 2]. After peak production, supply will decline and oil prices will rise.

Figure 2. The concept of peak oil

Crude oil and natural gas are fossil fuels so it is said that there is a finite supply of them and they will eventually run out. The peak is more important than the point in time they run out, because of the economic factor of rising prices as supply falls.

There is considerable debate over when global peak oil production will occur. The question may not be as easy to answer as it seems. This is because of the price of oil. There are two ways of defining how much oil is left in the ground:

• Oil resources - the total quantity of hydrocarbons that are underground, including those that may not be economically feasible to extract and those that are still undiscovered.

• Oil reserves - the amount of oil that it is economically viable to extract.

The price of oil determines the economic feasibility of oil extraction. Therefore, as the price of oil changes the volume of reserves changes. Oil that it was too expensive to extract under one market condition may well be viable under another. The volume of oil reserves is therefore always changing because of changes in price, and the volume of oil resources is also changing as new discoveries are taking place, partly because of exploration and partly as better extraction methods are developed.

The reason for these varying estimates of peak oil is that different studies use different underlying assumptions about oil reserves, the future price of oil may vary, and the changing rates of extraction of conventional and non-conventional oil [Figure 3]. For example, oil companies might increase the rate at which they pump oil, or use enhanced recovery methods, to try and maintain production. A further complication is that peak oil often relates only to the production of light crude oil (also called conventional oil), which is cheap to extract, process and transport.

In addition, the steep price rises expected after peak oil could be limited by developing alternative supplies, known as unconventional oil – such as that from tar sands and oil shales by the process known as fracking. However, although these are likely to increase the reserves of oil, none of these is likely to dramatically decrease the price of oil.

Figure 3. Changes in global oil production and peak oil predictions

I have posted several posts on various types of exam questions: data response, data stimulus, extended prose and essays. You can find them in the archive on the Substack app (can I recommend the app yet again for a much more pleasant read than direct email?).

One type of exam questions that I have not written about is the ‘pure’ AO1 question…. till now.]

What is an AO1 question?

The Assessment Objective One (AO1) assesses a student’s ability to ‘demonstrate knowledge and understanding of places, environments, concepts, places, interactions and change, at a variety of scales’ (Ofqual).

An AO1-only question is the only place in an exam where students are required to regurgitate what they have learnt in class, and/or what is in their notes.

What is not appreciated by many, both teachers and students alike, is that there is a maximum for such questions in any examination series. Ofqual laid down the regulation that ‘No more than 15% of the total marks for the qualification should reward demonstrating knowledge in isolation’.

No exam board reaches the maximum of 15%. Consequently, there are a limited number of AO1-only questions used by the various exam boards in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The mark allocation for these questions varies between 4 marks, 6 marks and 8 marks.

The assessment of AO1 questions

4-mark questions are assessed by point-marking – also known as tick marking. You can imagine an examiner placing a tick alongside each correct point (though as most exams are marked on a computer screen, this does not physically happen).

6- and 8- mark questions are levels marked. Each of the exam boards publish mark schemes which use adjectives such as basic, clear and detailed to indicate the increasing levels of quality of answer. I prefer to use my simple distinction:

2 Levels

Level 1 – attempted the question but not answered it

Level 2 – answered the question.

3 Levels

Level 1 – attempted the question but not answered it

Level 2 – answered the question.

Level 3 – answered the question well.

The rest of this post will examine some exemplars of AO1 questions, with an answer (and commentary) in each case.

An 8-mark question

General points

This style of question needs to be treated with care:

■ It is not an ‘essay’ question because there are no AO2 marks.

■ It does not need an introduction or conclusion.

■ It does not need long case studies: you need to complete your answer in no more than 10 minutes.

It is very easy to write far too much for this style of question and turn the task into something much more complex than it really is. A good approach is as follows:

■ Make sure you define and/or explain all the key words in the question

■ Make two or three points, in the form of two or three short paragraphs.

■ Use examples to support your points (but avoid writing detailed case studies).

Question

Explain why globalisation may cause political tensions within nations. (8 marks)

Answer

Globalisation has increased connections between places, such as air travel and cruising, as part of a worldwide increase in tourism. This can bring economic benefits to places but also costs as previously isolated places become ‘loved to death’ by mass tourism. This has led to cultural erosion, environmental damage and conflict between local communities in places such as Bali in Indonesia and even Mt Everest in Nepal, where traditional lifestyles, landscapes and sacred spaces are under threat.

Globalisation and the global shift have led to huge FDI in Asia by global TNCs and the local companies to which they contract manufacturing. Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia have seen growth in textiles and clothing manufacturing in the last 20 years. This has created jobs but also low wages, exploitation and in some cases dangerous working conditions. Local worker groups often struggle to gain union representation and clash with governments and TNCs over basic worker rights and pay.

At a global level, there is political tension over who should act to stabilise or reduce growing carbon emissions caused by a rapidly globalising world economy. Emerging and developing countries argue that historic emissions by the USA and Europe are largely to blame, whereas others seek to blame China (currently the world’s largest emitter) and countries with rapidly rising emissions like India. These arguments play out annually at the UNFCC COP meetings.

Comment

The question is assessed by 3 levels. This answer is Level 3 – 8 marks. It explains three sources of tension between different groups linked to processes of globalisation. The examples used are relevant and accurate and there is a range of ideas. Each source of political tension is explained in enough detail to be developed and so the answer avoids becoming over-long.

A 6- mark question

General points

This type of question tests a small part of the specification. Questions like this need concise answers that use good terminology. It is useful to try and write short sentences, to avoid getting tangled up in an endless ‘this leads to that, this leads to this’ writing style. To avoid over-writing, it may be useful to think of scoring the 6 marks by writing two or three well-developed points. You have 7/8 minutes to answer.

Question

Explain the role of convection currents in the asthenosphere. (6 marks)

Answer

The asthenosphere is a layer inside Earth between the lithosphere and the main part of the mantle below it. The theory is that it is a weak, plastic layer that is less than 1% liquid and it can flow very slowly as part of convection currents. This means that tectonic plates can move very slowly, because the asthenosphere acts like a lubricating layer.

The convection process is caused by heat generated from radioactive decay in the Earth’s core. The heat rises at divergent plate boundaries like mid-ocean ridges where a combination of ridge-push and slab-pull forces work with convection currents to move tectonic plates from areas of high to low elevation at the surface.

Comment

The question is assessed by 2 levels. This is a Level 2 answer – 5 marks. It shows good understanding of the asthenosphere and its characteristics, as well as showing how it plays a role in convection. The use of terminology is good and the answer is concise.

4- mark questions

General points

Remember this is point-marked. A good answer needs to be to the point. Two developed points should be enough to gain 4 marks. You can use examples - however, they need to be brief. The question should be answered in 5 minutes.

Question 1

Outline the influence world cities have on the global economy. (4 marks)

Answer

World cities like London and Tokyo have a disproportionate influence on global GDP and wealth, because the most important 100 world cities generate about 30% of global wealth. Many world cities are hyper-connected global hubs, which have very large flows of money and people flowing through them such as global stock market wealth and elite migrants working for global brands.

Comment

This answer scores 4 marks. There are two clearly extended points in the answer (global GDP + global hubs), both of which are clearly linked to the global economy.

Question 2

Explain why an outsider perspective might give a different sense of place to an insider perspective. (4 marks)

Answer

Insiders are people who usually live in a place and have a strong sense of community, whereas outsiders are visiting a place for the first time. They may be people who live there but for some reason don’t feel part of that place, for example recently arrived refugees who feel excluded and isolated.

Insiders, such as permanent residents of places such as the Lake District, have perspectives that recognise isolation, harsh winters, and the challenges of the seasonal rural economy. Outsiders in these locations may have an idyllic perspective determined by media representations and the experience of a few beauty-spots they visit for a short time.

Comment

This also scores 4 marks. The student understands the difference between the insider and outsider perspective and the complexity of it, i.e. a refugee who is ‘inside’ but at the same time ‘outside’. The example of the Lake District clearly explains why the sense of place is different between the two groups.