A brief look at Russian historical and territorial geography provides an insight into the recurring, although contentious, allegiance and memory across, now “independent,” territorial borders.  The ties that unite places like Ukraine, Belarus and the Russian core, are quite deep-rooted as they define significant parts of the shared “historical heartland” between these Slavic peoples.  Such memories are often revisited earnestly, despite their temporal distance of thousands of years back.  In more recent memory, the legacy of the Soviet system and its tenuous, federal “union” of diverse nationalities have also left an imprint.  The cultural organization of the Soviet system represented a fine line between political subordinance and cultural independence.   In the early 1990s, the appeal of cultural and political independence certainly won out.  However, the Soviet political and economic system, although globally judged as a failure, was somewhat a success on the ground as it provided a tangible safety net for people.  Communist-style support is now missed as capitalist alternatives have proven uneven and ultimately dissatisfactory.  In terms of global alliances, even former Republics that made the quickest turn to the West, are now rethinking such strategies as they find themselves increasingly peripheralized in complicated Western supra-national systems.  This geopolitical disillusionment has found a new opportunity as the Russian state has recently been making its own global resurgence, riding the wave of favorable global energy prices, reasserting its “need” for autocratic-style democracy, and reemerging as a global power in this multipolar world.

The strongest return has been that of Ukraine.  In 2004, the Orange Revolution was hoped to bring democracy and stronger ties to Europe.  However, since then, disenchantment has reigned and in February 2010 a pro-Moscow president was elected.  President Viktor Yanukovich ingratiated Ukraine with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, negotiating and signing some significant treaties and agreements that will have lasting effects.  This “re-turn” was not unilaterally endorsed, and some of the most comical political machinations resulted during the Ukrainian Parliament’s debate over these treaties.  Going even a step further, the new pro-Russian government is also rewriting its history books and erasing references to the pro-democracy interlude of the Orange Revolution.

In Latvia, economic troubles have contributed to the near return to Russian influence.  Historically, Latvia was one of the three Baltic States that declared their independence from the Soviet Union and made the quickest about face turn to the West.  However, following a recent economic collapse which associated blame with the West, the country nearly turned power over to a political party that is backed by the significant ethnic Russian population, itself a legacy of Soviet Russification.   Interestingly, there is an increasingly Latvian contingent that seems to view Russia as a lesser evil than Western Europe.

As Russia reemerges on the world political stage, there may be more former satellites that choose to return to its influence.  Especially as economic and governing politics in the European Union become increasingly uneven and contentious, perhaps even the most unexpected reversals may take place.

Soybeans growing in the semiarid ranchlands of western South Dakota.

This image submitted by Erin Fouberg provides a visualization of the scale and landscapes of crop agriculture in the United States.  The companion image description offers insight into this landscape and details over the two types of crop agriculture in this region.  It is also an interesting visual companion to some of the issues raised in the post, “Geographies of Green Diets.”

“Driving across the semiarid ranchlands of western South Dakota, I noticed the presence of a crop in the landscape that was recently found only in the eastern, moister region of the state: soybeans.

I called a colleague who works in agriculture at South Dakota State University to ask, “When did the cattle ranchers of western South Dakota start growing soybeans?” He replied, “When the soy biodiesel plants started popping up in Nebraska and Kansas and when genetically modified soybeans made it possible to grow the crop here.” He explained the development of Roundup Ready soybeans, a particular genetically modified soybean that can grow in more arid regions of the country. First, you plant the soybean; then you use an airplane to spray Roundup, a common weed killer that is manufactured by the company that produces the Roundup Ready soybeans, over the field. The application of Roundup over the entire field saves a lot of time and energy for the farmers because the genetically modified soybeans are resistant to the Roundup, but the weeds are killed. Monsanto, the company that produces Roundup, has developed soybeans, corn, cotton, and other crops that are resistant to Roundup.

Counter to the genetically modified Roundup Ready crops, organic agriculture —the production of crops without the use of synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers—is also on the rise in North America. In wealthier parts of the world, the demand for organic products has risen exponentially in recent years. Sales of organic food in the United States, for example, went from under $200 million in 1980 to $1.5 billion by the early 1990s to over $10 billion by 2003 and $17.8 billion in 2007. Organic foods are now about 3 percent of all food sales in the country. The growth rate is so strong that some predict organic sales will approach 10 percent of total U.S. food sales within a decade. Parts of western Europe are already approaching that figure—notably Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Germany.”

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Perhaps the most interesting characteristic of the questions behind a “Green Diet” is how geography is implicated in all aspects.  Whether this is a question of agricultural and land-use practices, of environmental problems or solutions, of scale from the local to global, or of socio-economic, culture or politics, each has a spatial component and consequence.

The United Nations International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management argues in a June 2010 report that, “Current patterns of production and consumption of both fossil fuels and food are draining freshwater supplies; triggering losses of economically-important ecosystems such as forests; intensifying disease and death rates and raising levels of pollution to unsustainable levels.”  The report calls for a controversial shift in global diets to reduce such environmental pressures.  This shift would be away from those including a large amount of animal-based products to those including more vegetable-based foods.  This report was certainly not the first to call for such a dietary shift, another contribution came from well-known author and activist, Michael Pollan who challenged readers to eat whole fresh foods, a little meat, and avoid processed foods.

Yet, after the UN-backed report, there seems to be a resurgence of dialogue over the greenness of our diets.  An author from the Atlantic asks, “Can Meat Eaters be environmentalists?” arguing that the two are not a contradiction.  She has also authored the New York Times article “The Carnivore’s Dilemma” researching the connection between meat and global warming.  An excellent Mother Jones article tackles the “merits of vegetarianism” by taking the question to a panel of experts and to readers, cheekily poised as “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers.”  This article is an outstanding source for both sides of the debate and includes plenty of interesting, albeit covert, geographical references from trophic structures to cultural preferences.  Another aspect of greening diets comes from the Local Foods movement, dubbed by the USDA as “Know your Farmer, Know your food”, which focuses more on where your food comes from rather that what you eat.  An NPR program and article offers a very interesting once over of the movement, but also of the economic and logistical challenges, combined with the overall reluctance of food distributors to make the change.

Overall, the underlying issues behind these questions have to do with various ‘costs’:  energy costs, food supply costs, economic costs, and environmental costs.  Each of these costs indicates difficulties that can be best understood in a holistic, interconnected way.  Indeed, geographers best understand the human-environment connections behind our diets:

-  How fossil fuel use may be translating into warmer climates;

-  How most crop agriculture is devoted to animal agriculture, creating fossil fuel and economic entanglements in between, and then topping it all off with the addition of more heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere;

-  How the economic networks associated with status quo crop and animal agriculture mean jobs, taxes, and livelihoods to large populations of Midwestern and Central United States;

-  How environmentally costly, both looking back and forward, commercial agriculture has been for native grassland ecosystems and rainforest ecosystems, freshwater supplies, and perhaps for climates throughout the globe.

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you know where your food comes from or how it is produced?  When you are out at your local grocery store, favorite restaurant, school cafeteria, café, farmer’s market, etc. look for clues about where food products come from, how they are produced, and how they are delivered.
2. What do you think about the arguments made in the “Bacon Lovers vs. Soy Huggers” article?  What conclusions can you draw about which diet is greener?  What are some further questions you might have?
3. Think about the connection between food production (meat, vegetables, and processed foods) and climate.  List the various ways that production, distribution, and consumption contribute or neutralize effects on climate.

Sarah Goggin

These solution examples, one propositioned and one executed, offer very interesting critical thinking discussion topics for geography classes.  Inherent behind these contributions to aid the cleanup efforts are general questions of scale, place, diffusion/movement, and environment.  Not to mention, the countless specific questions that can be formulated regarding biogeography, marine and wetland ecosystems, ocean geographies, human-environment, political geographies, economic geographies, and more.

The first solution example is offered in a recorded demonstration that presents an ingenious, yet simple proposal for soaking up oil using innocuous, abundant hay, or dried grasses.

Discussion Questions:

1)  What are some challenges that this demonstration might have in the actual environment?  Think about diffusion both in the open ocean and on the shore.

2)  Following a refresher on the concept of scale – What are the various scale considerations in implementing this demonstration?  In particular, think of the experimental scale of the demonstration and then to its enactment at the regional scale.  Focus on the extent and degree of the oil spill, the supply and availability of the grasses/hay in the demonstration, the logistical needs of implementation, etc.

3)  Why do you think it is important that the grasses they use in the demonstration do not have any seeds?  Focus on possible environmental impacts.

“Weeks Bay Solution”

Volunteers worked to assemble a boom behind barges set up at the mouth of Weeks Bay as part of a plan to keep spilled oil out.

A second solution is one that illustrates not only inventiveness, but decisive implementation by a small coastal town in Alabama in the face of waiting for BP’s “unified command structure” and federal government bureaucracy.

Discussion Questions:

1)  Following a refresher on the concept of scale – What are the various scale considerations that have been negotiated or considered by the actors in this article?  How are the institutions and actors at various scales portrayed and for what reasons?  Think about the political, economic and logistical arguments.

2)  What is an estuary?  What types of environmental interactions in estuaries contribute to the biodiversity found in a place like Weeks Bay?  What could oil do to such wetland ecosystems?

3)  How has wave action impeded the functioning of the BP unified command’s strand of booms?  What do you think about the possible environmental consequences of single strands of booms being the generally accepted plan?

4)  What are the two main parts of the Weeks Bay solution?  What do you think of this as an alternative solution?  Think about possible environmental, and even economic, consequences for the estuary that could accompany the semi-permanent wall of barges at the mouth of the bay, and for the possibility of closing off the bay completely if called for.

For more solutions topics, refer to the many idea articles and videos compiled by the Huffington Post.

Learning Objectives:

1. Discuss what development is.
2. Understand the difference between development indicators and indexes.
3. How do you define and measure development?

Download File: development

In this Google Earth(tm) virtual tour students will read about cultural imperialism, explore different examples of cultural diffusion and appropriation, then answer questions based on what they have learned.

Learning Objectives:

1. What are local and popular cultures?
2. How are local cultures sustained?
3. How is popular culture diffused?

Download File: cultural_imperialism