Evidence for a mid‐Pleistocene shift of ice‐drift pattern in the Nordic seas

Sediment proxy records from a continuous, 1.5 million year long deep‐sea sediment core from a site in the western Norwegian Sea were used to obtain new insights into the nature of palaeoceanographic change in the northern North Atlantic (Nordic seas) during the climatic shift of the Mid‐Pleistocene Revolution (MPR). Red‐green sediment colour and magnetic susceptibility records both reveal significant differences in their mean values when comparing the intervals older than 700 000 yr (700 ka) with those from the past 500 kyr. The timing and duration of these changes indicates that the MPR in the Nordic seas is characterised by a gradual transition lasting about 200 kyr. Together with further sedimentological evidence this suggests that the mid‐Pleistocene climate shift was accompanied by a general change in ice‐drift pattern. It is further proposed that prior to the onset of the major late Pleistocene glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere a significant proportion of the ice in the eastern Nordic seas originated from a southern provenance, whereas later it dominantly came from the surrounding landmasses. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is Darwin's ‘Abominable Mystery’ still a mystery today?

Darwin described the Cretaceous diversification and subsequent rapid rise of flowering plants (angiosperms) as an “abominable mystery”: how could they have achieved worldwide ecological dominance by early Paleogene times when the oldest angiosperm fossils are only Cretaceous in age? However, recent phylogenetic and palaeobiogeographical analyses have suggested a much earlier, perhaps Triassic origin for the stem angiosperms. We suggest that the fossil record is accurately reflecting the rapid diversification of the crown angiosperms that molecular data suggests occurred in Cretaceous–early Palaeogene times, and which coincides with similar explosive diversifications that occurred in other parts of the terrestrial biota including insects, birds and mammals. Early, stem angiosperms are poorly represented in the fossil record for a combination of taphonomic and ecological reasons. We conclude that the reported evidence shows that the Darwin's “mystery” is in fact no mystery and confirms that it merely requires an appropriate reading of the fossil record.     

中国北方晚更新世人类的适应变迁与辐射

晚更新世是现代人在全球建立全面的生态优势的时期。中国北方有比较丰富的发现,但现有的材料和研究没有能够回答人类此时的生计状态、适应模式和环境联系。文章从行为重建和生态学的角度考察,将中国北方晚更新世的人类适应置于欧亚大陆整体人类演化框架中来考虑,重新审查已有的发现,提出中国旧石器时代晚期可以分为两个阶段:以骨角工具、装饰品和更精制的石器组合为代表的早段(EUP)和以细石叶工艺为代表的晚段(LUP);并确定中国北方晚更新世人类适应至少经历两次革命性的变化,同时存在至少4种适应模式;而且其地域化的特征是从早到晚加强。人类的适应辐射则主要表现于人口的扩张,特别是向极端环境的殖民,技术模式的迅速转换和地域化特征的加强。     

After a decade of critique: neoliberal environmentalism,discourse analysis and the promotion of climate-protecting behaviour in the workplace

In a 2004 special issue of Geoforum, McCarthy and Prudham argued that the connections between neoliberalism and the environment had been underexplored in critical scholarship. In an attempt to address this gap, the special issue reflected on a number of different case studies and set the stage for a decade of analysis and critique. This paper aims to contribute to the increasing body of literature by presenting a detailed theoretical analysis of neoliberal environmentalism and its role in modern society. Specifically, the paper focuses on one particular environmental issue – climate change – and uses it to categorise six discourses that either conform to the principles of neoliberalism (reformist) or reject neoliberal ideas (revolutionary). Drawing on interviews with designated ‘climate champions’ (individuals who are given responsibility for promoting climate protecting behaviour) in large corporations, the paper then demonstrates how this kind of typological framework might be applied to the analysis of neoliberal environmentalism in the ‘real world’. The paper finds that neoliberalism played a very influential role in the promotion of climate protecting behaviour in the workplace. However, there was also some limited evidence of resistance in the form of revolutionary discourses and ideas. Going forwards, the typological framework may provide a valuable analytical tool to assess the dominance and resistance of neoliberal environmentalism in the modern world.     

Transition of Quaternary glacial cyclicity in deep-sea records at Nansha, the South China Sea

High-resolution oxygen isotope records over the last 2249 ka (MIS 1–86) have been obtained from cores of the upper section (105.08 m) at ODP Site 1143 (water depth of 2772 m) drilled in the Nansha area, southern South China Sea. The sampling resolution is at about 2 ka intervals, resulting in one of the best oxygen isotope records over the global ocean. The oxygen isotope curves, displaying details in the Pleistocene glacial cycles, have revealed a nearly 300 ka long stage of transition from a predominant 40 ka to 100 ka periodicity. Therefore, the “Mid-Pleistocene Revolution” should be considered as a process of transition rather than an abrupt change. Within the 100 ka glacial cycles, the changes in tropical sea surface water were found to lead those in high-latitude ice sheet. Our comparisons show that the ice sheet expansion and the glacial stage extension in the Northern Hemisphere with the 100 ka cycles must have been driven not by ice sheet itself, but by processes outside the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.     

The Green Revolution re-assessed: Insider perspectives on agrarian change in Bulandshahr District, Western Uttar Pradesh, India

In spite of raising Asian per capita food production by 27% and making India food self-sufficient, the Green Revolution has received much criticism for its environmental and socio-economic impacts. Taking on board post-development critiques of ‘speaking for’ Third World ‘others’, this paper seeks to examine the Green Revolution from the points of view of people directly affected by it. Comparative, historically-informed research in three villages for which 1972 baseline data exist reveal that the Green Revolution has ensured, in the words of one marginal farmer that ‘nobody sleeps with an empty stomach nowadays’. Most villagers associate the Green Revolution with increases in living standards and weakening community-based wealth hierarchies. Nevertheless, socio-economic inequalities between certain Scheduled Castes and other villagers are still very apparent.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Marine Resources of Kuwait: Their Role in the Development of Non-oil Resources . Fatimah H. Y. al -Abdul -Razzak Recollections of a Revolution: Geography as Spatial Science . Mark Billinge , Derek Gregory and Ron Martin Entre l'Eden et l'Utopie . Luc Bureau Developments in Political Geography . M. A. Busteed The Elements of Graphing Data . William S. Cleveland Rural Resource Management . Paul J. Cloke and Chris C. Park Third World Atlas . Ben Crow and Alan Thomas Exploitation, Conservation, Preservation: A Geographic Perspective on Natural Resource Use . Susan L. Cutter , Hilary Lambert Renwick, and William H. Renwick . Wine Regions of the Southern Hemisphere . Harm Jan de Blij Regional Development: Problems and Policies in Eastern and Western Europe . George Demko The Geographer at Work . Peter R. Gould Change in the Amazon Basin . John Hemming Geography Since the Second World War . R. J. Johnston and P. Claval Urbanization in China: Town and Countryside in a Developing Economy 1949–2000 A.D. , R. J. R. Kirkby Transport and Communications for Pacific Microstates: Issues in Organisation and Management . Christopher C. Kissling Fluvial Forms and Processes . David Knighton The Urban Millennium . Josef W. Konvitz Technological Transition in Cartography . Mark Stephen Monmonier Field Guide to Soils and the Environment: Applications of Soil Surveys . Gerald W. Olson Northern Australia: The Arenas of Life and Ecosystems on Half a Continent . Don Parkes A Killing Rain: The Global Threat of Acid Rain . Thomas Pawlick From the Family Farm to Agribusiness: The Irrigation Crusade in California and the West, 1850–1931 . Donald J. Pisani Hybrid Maize Diffusion in Kenya . Franz -Michael Rundquist Warning and Response to the Mount St. Helens Eruption . Thomas F. Saarinen and James L. Sell Coastal Geomorphology in Australia . B. G. Thom Tropical Rain Forests of the Far East , 2nd ed . T. C. Whitmore The Dark Side of the Earth . Robert Muir Wood Categorical Data Analysis for Geographers and Environmental Scientists , Neil Wrigley     

逆风区的回波演变与强对流天气的结构分析

为研究逆风区回波结构的演变与中尺度强对流天气发生发展的关系,分析了2005年4月30日和6月22日在江西省境内有逆风区现象的强对流天气的多普勒雷达回波特征,对逆风区的回波强度与速度的演变进行对比分析后认为：逆风区不仅是暴雨判据,也是强对流天气的判据。逆风区的伸展高度一般较高,有逆风区的存在基本上都伴有剧烈的天气过程,只要逆风区的结构一直存在,强回波的反射率因子就不会减弱。本文提出了一种逆风区的三维结构模型,逆风区回波反映了强对流的生消结构,逆风区实为前方辐合上升、后方下沉的涡管结构,它是认识强对流天气系统三维结构的重要信息。     

憧憬未来与"爱""恨"交织的时代之歌——柳亚子辛亥革命前后诗词创作浅论

柳亚子是辛亥革命前后诗坛上影响最大的革命诗人之一.他在辛亥革命前后创作的大量诗词,追求理想,憧憬未来;关注现实,"爱"恨"交织;并以慷慨激昂,苍凉沉郁调子组成一曲曲激荡着宏音巨响的时代之歌,在中国近代的茫茫夜空中激荡震响,这些裹夹着雷霆风云与宏音巨响的诗歌创作在我国民主革命史和近代文学史上产生了重要影响,并放射出璀璨的光辉.     

Making autonomous geographies: Argentina’s popular uprising and the ‘Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados’ (Unemployed Workers Movement)

This paper addresses the idea of autonomy—the desire for freedom, self-organisation and mutual aid. Through challenging economic neoliberalism, state repression, a powerful transnational elite, and the commodification of nature and resources, many communities, especially in the global south, are trying to manage their own affairs. Using the example of the Movement of Unemployed Workers (El Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados) in Argentina, I explore the idea of autonomous geographies and how they are made and remade at three overlapping levels: the territorial, through the emergence of networked autonomous neighbourhoods which are selectively open and closed to translocal links; the material, through the development of a solidarity economy where immediate needs are met and work is redefined, and; the social, where collective action and daily practice helps constitute more collective, autonomous forms of social interactions. In their desire to manage connections with the outside world while at the same time inspire autonomous place projects elsewhere, the MTDs represent both a ‘militant localism’ and ‘militant pluriversalism’. Moreover, while such experiments in making and embedding ‘autonomous geographies’ face limits and have few widespread examples on which to draw, it is through constant questioning and collective struggle at the everyday level that autonomy is made real.