de Blij v. Parker, Part II: Climate Change
by tdaxp ~ January 17th, 2006
Mark Safranski of ZenPundit declared de Blij the winner in the first part of our de Blij v. Parker death-match on the cores of the world.
Next up is climate change:
Who will win this round?
Answer: de Blij, by default.
While Parker teases with a map that appears to promise a discussion on the role of ice formations on human settlement:
It’s really nothing more than a map of the Global North — an environmentally determinist version of Barnett’s “Global Core.” Indeed it is immediately followed by a map of the G77 nations
which is actually a pretty good proxy for Barnett’s Global Gap.
By contrast, de Blij uses a similar-looking ice map:
but expands on it with charts of short-term, medium-term, and long-term climate change:
de Blij also describes climate change’s effects of primate and human migrations
Interested on de Blij’s view on climate chage? Check out Catholicgauze’s summary of his speech.
The Score So Far
HJ de Blij’s Why Geography Matters: 2
Geoffrey Parker’s Geopolitics: 0
The New York Times uses top 1% of income, not wealth. From the legend:...
January 17th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Interesting analysis and the human migration map is intruiging. It can help put human existence and evolution into perspective.
January 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I havnt read Parker, but I think De Bilj does an excellent job in the climate change area. I was just very disappointed he didnt really follow through with the issue of climate in his case studies, which were more narrowly geoeconomic.
April 10th, 2006 at 12:00 am
StrategyUnit,
Check out this Telegraph article [1], on climactic stabilization. The best quote:
“Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
…
Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).”
(hat-tip Drudge [2])
To those of us familiar with de Blij's book, and his mention of three decades of global cooling, within a century of global warming, within the cooling of our present interglacial, within the warming since the end of the last ice-age, within the long-term coolinz of the world, this isn't surprising.
Shay,
Thanks a lot!
Graphics help us think, and I've always loved maps. 
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/04/09/ixworld.html
[2] http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2006/04/10/20060410_195802.htm