On Geographic and geography

New Zealand Geographic is one of a number of geographical magazines published in the English‐speaking world that make little or no reference to work by academic geographers. It recently launched a New Zealand Geographic Trust to promote research into ‘New Zealand's life, culture and sciences’ and collaborated with four other publishers of geographical magazines to raise awareness of climate change: the work of academic geographers is again ignored. This exclusion of academic and school geography from such enterprises raises important issues regarding the discipline's public profile in New Zealand and suggests the need for greater public engagement activity by the country's geographers.     

Perceptions of climate change in China: The research and policy connection

Global climate change has evolved from a scientific problem into an economic and political problem oI worlOwloe rater- est. National perspectives play a crucial role in addressing climate change. Mutual understanding of perspectives is nec- essary to result in rational policies and a consensus among stakeholders with divergent interests. Conceptual frameworks for understanding the problem of climate change in China, the largest developing country and the largest greenhouse gas emitter, are of great significance to national and international efforts to address the problems of climate change. Chinese perceptions of climate change as a sustainable development problem have recently been in tension with an emerging Western perspective that frames climate change as a security issue. This paper explores Chinese perceptions of climate change as expressed in recent governmental policy statements, public opinion surveys, and academic scholarship with a focus on publications in Chinese-language journals, often unfamiliar in the West. It looks at the relationship between Chinese research and policy and finds that the Chinese policy frame of climate change as a sustainable development problem draws from the body of domestic research and is reflective of the perspectives and multidisciplinary approach of Chinese researchers in areas of climate change.     

全球气候变化与能源安全的地缘政治

当前,气候变化问题已经远远超出科学研究的范畴,它影响到经济运行模式,乃至于利益格局和地缘关系,并成为国际关系中的焦点。中国正处于工业化的中期,在国际经济社会发展转型、世界地缘格局重组关键期,应对气候变化也是中国发展阶段的内在需求。随着气候变化对各国国内竞争力,以及重要地缘战略地区影响加大,气候变化和地缘政治呈现出复杂多元的关系,气候变化时代的地缘政治逐渐影响到各国战略和外交。本文围绕利益和博弈来阐述气候变化带来的地缘政治新特征,并在此基础上提出相关政策建议：国际气候谈判中,权衡利益,处理好复杂的大国关系;加强风险研判,积极与美国和欧盟开展能源、气候变化方面的合作;依托“一带一路”,确保我国能源安全,并积极参与全球能源治理;在“南南合作”方面,创新机制,大幅增加投入力度。最后,提出地理学界在气候变化与能源安全方面应加强的研究方向。     

欧盟气候变化适应政策行动及其启示

在简要介绍气候变化对欧洲的影响、欧盟的气候变化适应举措的基础上,分析了欧盟水资源管理、海洋与渔业、沿海地区、农业、林业、生物多样性、金融与保险、减灾防灾、人类健康等9个重点领域的气候变化适应政策行动;总结了欧盟气候变化适应政策行动的特征：以“自上而下”的政府层面举措与“自下而上”的脆弱经济部门应对策略相结合,采取分阶段的推进方式,并重视相关平台工具的开发应用;最后,结合我国国情和气候变化适应行动现状,提出了我国加强气候变化适应政策行动的建议：及时制定气候变化适应国家战略;加强气候变化适应的科技基础设施与条件平台建设;加快完善气候变化适应的体制机制建设;强化气候变化适应的能力建设。     

Localization and characterization of populations vulnerable to climate change: Two case studies in Sub-Saharan Africa

Future climate change potentially can have a strong impact on the African continent. Of special concern are the effects on food security and the restricted adaptive capacity of Africa's poverty stricken population. Targeted policy interventions are, therefore, of vital importance. While there is a broad consensus on selection of climate and agricultural indicators, a coherent spatial representation of the populations' vulnerability is still subject to debate, basically because important drivers at household and institutional level are captured at the coarser (sub)-national level only. This paper aims to address this shortcoming by capitalizing on available spatially explicit information on households, food security institutions and natural resources to identify and characterize vulnerable groups in climate change prone areas of East and West Africa. First, we identify and localize groups with varying degrees of vulnerability, using food security and health indicators from georeferenced household surveys. Second, we characterize these vulnerable groups using statistical techniques that report on the frequency of occurrence of household characteristics, social bonding, remittances and agro-ecological endowments. Third we localize areas where climate change conditions affect production of major staple crops even after a maximum adaptation of crop rotations. Fourth, we characterize the vulnerable groups in the climate change affected areas and compare their profiles with the overall assessment to elucidate whether generic or climate change targeted policies are required. Since climate change will impact predominantly on agricultural production, our analysis focuses on the rural areas. For West Africa, we find that vulnerable groups in areas likely to be affected by climate change do not fundamentally differ from vulnerable groups in the study area in general. However, in East Africa there are remarkable differences between these groups which leads to the conclusion that in this part of Africa, poverty reducing strategies for climate change affected areas should differ from generic ones.     

Climate extremes in the United States: recent research by physical geographers

This paper reports our review of research on domestic climate extremes conducted by US physical geographers over the past 15?years. Sections cover extremes in wind, precipitation, lightning, and temperature, as well as derivative climate extremes (droughts, floods, and storm surges). Themes considered include: the spatial and temporal distribution of the climate extreme; its implications for our understanding of the physical processes that produce it; the spatial and temporal distributions of the extreme’s economic and human costs; lessons for assessment, policy, and management; and scale. We conclude that most of the works reviewed inadequately address the human basis of vulnerability to climate extremes, and encourage physical geographers to work with colleagues from the other subfields of geography and the social sciences to develop the holistic understanding of vulnerability needed to effectively adapt to the more extreme climate projected under climate change.     

THE GEOGRAPHY OF POST-COLONIAL AFRICA: SPACE,PLACE AND DEVELOPMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA (1960–93)1

This overview of human geographic studies of sub Saharan Africa begins with the contributions made by West European geographers to the colonial service, and the growing interest in post-war ‘development’ and to the anti-imperial movements in the late colonial period (1945–60). The paper provides an intellectual map of the contributions by European and African geographers to the broad array of development problems which emerged after 1960. North American geographers made significant contributions to the debate somewhat later, particularly in association with the growing involvement of U.S. development agencies in the 1970s. Particular emphasis is given to geographic studies in fields such as agrarian change, ecological degradation, industrialization, human mobility and patterns of urbanization and settlement.     

GEOGRAPHERS AND POLICY-MAKING: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE FAILURE OF THE NEW JERSEY DUNE MANAGEMENT PLAN*

The case of a New Jersey dune management plan demonstrates that geographers can initiate environmental policy by formulating and proposing meritorious plans. An evaluation of the plan's rejection shows the complexity of policy-making and indicates that failure to adopt useful plans may be due to distortion of information or misunderstanding of the original plan. In order to avoid failure, geographers should participate in the entire policy-making sequence and should encourage the participation of the public who will be affected by the plan.     

THE MEMPHIS MEETINGS

The case of a New Jersey dune management plan demonstrates that geographers can initiate environmental policy by formulating and proposing meritorious plans. An evaluation of the plan's rejection shows the complexity of policy-making and indicates that failure to adopt useful plans may be due to distortion of information or misunderstanding of the original plan. In order to avoid failure, geographers should participate in the entire policy-making sequence and should encourage the participation of the public who will be affected by the plan.     

PERSPECTIVE—USE IT OR LOSE IT [1]

International location and trade have been transformed by multinational corporate development. Governmental activities have been affected strongly. Yet governments tend to remain reactors rather than actors. They need new tools, conceptual and otherwise, to do their jobs effectively. Geographic researchers can help provide such tools through emphssizing public policy considerations. Canadian geographers have shown the way. If you find that conforming to the socially prescribed role of “objective scientist'’precludes public policy research, try simple courage.     

Geographical reflections on Sir Edmund Hillary (1919–2008)

Abstract: During the past year, the media, public and officialdom have focused on Sir Edmund Hillary, his achievements, and what they mean to New Zealand. In this commentary, we reflect on how they relate to human geography. Although we acknowledge the obvious tensions that exist between adventuring and the contemporary concerns of the discipline, we also illustrate how Hillary's life and actions resonate with many of the discipline's current hopes, aims and challenges. Specifically, we discuss thematic overlaps in the fields of geopolitics and national identities, colonial histories and resistances, as well as the emerging public geography. We posit that ‘Hillary's geography’ is closer to human geography than is realized or at least acknowledged by geographers.     

北京大学综合自然地理学研究的发展与贡献

北京大学的综合自然地理学缘起于1952年全国院系调整时在本校设置的自然地理学学科,在半个多世纪的发展历程中,经历了学科初创和完善等阶段,逐渐形成了面向学科前沿和国家需求的综合自然地理学学科体系。针对日趋严峻的气候变化、资源环境和社会经济发展问题,北京大学综合自然地理学在陆地表层过程及机理、土地利用/覆被变化及其生态环境效应、生态系统服务与人类福祉、生态风险评价与安全格局构建、自然地域系统划分等方面进行了开拓创新,取得了丰硕成果,引领了中国综合自然地理学的发展。展望未来,北京大学综合自然地理学将持续进行水、土、气、生等自然地理要素与过程的综合研究,认识人类活动与全球环境变化对主要自然地理过程和格局的影响机理,通过构建观测数据与地表系统模型融合系统,定量评估要素与过程耦合的区域资源环境效应及其对社会经济的影响,在生态文明建设、主体功能区划、国土开发整治和流域综合管理等国家战略服务方面做出更大贡献。     

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY OF THE AMERICAN TROPICS: A FORTY-YEAR REVIEW

For a decade or so after World War II, human geographers working in the American tropics found socio-political conditions and resultant research topics little changed from those before the war. This was in contrast to the Old World tropics where decolonization processes and the demands of economic development and new nation building produced divergent research currents, For the first half of the period under review, the American tropics continued to be the province largely of geographers with culturalhistorical questions grounded in natural historical bases. The legacy is Humboldt's; the practitioners most notably students of Carl Sauer or German counterparts such as Carl Troll. French and British regionalist approaches, strong in the region before World War II, survived less successfully. By the 1980s, however, broad pan-tropical currents of geographic discourse and debate had become established. New practices and theories were formulated and tested as North Atlantic geographers borrowed from antipodean innovators and others working in the Asian and African tropics. Since the 1980s, there have been greater efforts at dialogue and collaboration with host country colleagues. As might be expected in this era of ‘globalization’, national research styles and agendas have become less evident. This paper offers a highly selective map of research nodes within tropical Americanist geography since the early 1950s. The selection of examples includes qualitative criteria, but more importantly, research that signify stasis or intensification as well as turning points and departures in the overall development of this literature. The contours of this history suggest some highly evolved, even idiosyncratic enterprises, but in the main, it is an unfolding that suggests broad congruencies with human geographic work elsewhere in the tropics.     

Think globally and act locally: Voices of Chinese human geographers in the international arena

With the help of the mapping software Citespace and based on analysis of international human geographers’ journal outputs in terms of countries of residence, institutions, journals and key topics, this article demonstrates Chinese scholars’ contributions to both top and regional journals in the field. The analysis shows that Anglophone geographers have been leading the development of human geography. It also demonstrates that human geographers have taken a more micro and dynamic perspective to explain environmental and social phenomena, rather than a macro and narrative approach. Scholars tend to focus more on daily life, with research topics such as home, food, body and other micro-material matters. The analysis further finds that emotional geography, geography of embodiment, food geography as well as non-representational theory have drawn increasing attention from researchers. People's perceptions of nature have been constructed through the development and negotiation of social relations. As China becomes more visible internationally in the context of a highly globalized and mobile world, increasing numbers of Chinese geographers have become involved in research on human geography. Some representative scholars and institutions, especially those based in Hong Kong, act as academic leaders by articulating their own voices to tell the unique Chinese story internationally through the publication of their research.     

Sentinels of geography: legacy,public policy and contemporary relevance

Many geographers, past and present, have addressed public policy issues facing nations and peoples and in the process offered solutions to highly complex problems. Three ‘sentinels’ of the discipline, Halford Mackinder, Carl Sauer and Thomas Griffith Taylor, served as protectors of geography speaking up for the science in a way often confronting public officials, politicians and others. They contributed significantly to the development of geography in Britain, the USA, Australia and Canada, while engaging in public policy debates on topics such as geopolitics, geographical constraints on land use and natural resource management. All three were advocates for the unity of geography, stressing how an understanding of the interconnectedness of natural and human phenomena can assist in decision making. They were often frustrated by what they saw as ill-informed policies which did not respect geographic realities. Given their varied contributions, it is difficult to fully assess their impact both during their long and productive lifetimes, and subsequently, especially given the interdisciplinary and contested nature of their research. Today, academic geographers are faced with having to increasingly ‘prove the impact’ of their research, something beyond the comprehension of previous generations. Lessons from an analysis of the work of these ‘sentinels’, as well as my own experience, show how difficult a task this will be.     

Perceptions of Environmental Change and Climate Concern Among Idaho’s Farmers

Climate change public opinion research has identified conservative political ideology as the primary predictor of skepticism about climate change’s anthropogenic causes. Most farmers in Idaho are politically conservative, but they are also a unique group for whom observing their environment is part of daily life and work. We use data from in-depth interviews with 30 Idaho farmers to examine the relationship between observations of specific environmental changes and climate concern. We find that while most farmers report noticing changes in precipitation patterns, growing season length, and winter temperatures, few farmers connect these with long-term global climate change. These findings have two important implications: 1) direct experience, even in the form of disruption to an individual’s economic security, is not enough to overcome the influence of political ideology on climate change beliefs, and 2) acknowledging climate variation is not sufficient to convince individuals that the changes are produced by human activities.     

Black gold to green gold: regional energy policy and the rehabilitation of coal in response to climate change

Energy production has come under increasing scrutiny as concerns about energy security and climate change have risen. In the UK changes in government structure and privatisation of the electricity industry have led to the emergence of multi-level governance. This means that decisions on how to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the electricity-generating sector should no longer be solely a national policy decision. Previous studies have sought to explore how renewable energy may develop under multi-level governance, but this paper pays attention to a traditional fossil fuel source, coal, which is still an important means of electricity generation. Coal is the most abundant fossil fuel and advocates argue that carbon capture and storage techniques could make coal 'clean', paving the way for a long-term, secure and low emission way to produce energy. This study focuses on the Yorkshire and Humber Region, which has had a long association with coal mining and looks at the implications of this as the region seeks to develop a climate change action plan and an energy strategy within the new regional governance structures. The paper argues that the regional networks developed to address climate change are influenced by existing social power structures and alliances. The region as a territorial structure becomes a useful device in promoting national priorities.     

The Strange Case of the Missing Female Geographer∗

“It is not our desire to change needle and thread in women's hands into astrolabes and globes; neither do we consider it necessary that a woman should retreat to a room papered with maps and ornamented with globes ‥. Their high moral standards allow them, in our view, to possess wide knowledge of geography, on condition that they do not attempt, through use of terms too coarse for a lady, to appear too eager a group of geographers. I am certainly willing to let them use such words as climate, zones, and so forth; but I do not want them to scare me stiff quoting longitude and latitude at me. Let them speak as much as they want about what they read in travelers'tales, and I will listen with pleasure ‥. But I certainly do not want to see the day when a woman's knowledge of the earth equals that of men!'”(1)     

The Strange Case of the Missing Female Geographer*

“It is not our desire to change needle and thread in women's hands into astrolabes and globes; neither do we consider it necessary that a woman should retreat to a room papered with maps and ornamented with globes ‥. Their high moral standards allow them, in our view, to possess wide knowledge of geography, on condition that they do not attempt, through use of terms too coarse for a lady, to appear too eager a group of geographers. I am certainly willing to let them use such words as climate, zones, and so forth; but I do not want them to scare me stiff quoting longitude and latitude at me. Let them speak as much as they want about what they read in travelers'tales, and I will listen with pleasure ‥. But I certainly do not want to see the day when a woman's knowledge of the earth equals that of men!'”(1)