You have probably heard the narrative: since its heyday as the Motor City in the 1950s, globalization has left Detroit in ruins, moving auto-related jobs away to places where wages were cheaper, customers were closer, and climates were nicer. Is it totally true?
Despite huge decline, Michigan is still #1 in US automaking
First, in truth, Detroit and the state of Michigan still have lots of automaking jobs, just a lot fewer than decades ago. The article below shows that Michigan has far more auto jobs--especially assembly jobs, as opposed to sales--than any other state.
http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/storysupplement/stateautoworkers/
But compare the current jobs with the past:
-Detroit lost 90% of its manufacturing jobs since 1950s
-Michigan lost 50% of its manufacturing jobs from 2000-2010
So the decline of Michigan and Detroit has been steep.
Where have Detroit's jobs gone?
In the US, automaking jobs have tended to head for sunnier climates in the "New South" where real estate is cheap. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama in particular have the highest number of auto assembly jobs outside the traditional midwestern automaking core states.
Case in point: Japanese cars, country music, and tacos
Nissan's Smyrna, Tennessee plant is a good example of the shift in US automaking to the south.
In 1980 Nissan opened its first US plant in Smyrna, TN just 20 minutes outside Nashville, the capital of country music, and 10 minutes from Murfreesboro, a slightly run-down country town but home of Tennessee's largest university, Middle Tennessee State. By 1989 the Smyrna plant had produced 1 million vehicles and by 1994 it was named the most-productive auto plant in the US. Today, Smyrna is the only North American factory producing the Nissan Leaf, the only fully-electric mass-market car in the US.
Meanwhile, Nissan also opened a major North American plant in Aguascalientes, Mexico, a booming city that has attracted massive foreign investment and is one of the cleanest, most orderly cities in Mexico.
Today, Nissan has the goal of producing 85% of all Nissan cars sold in the US in North America--whether in the US, Mexico, or Canada--by 2015.
Shifts in auto production to be closer to foreign markets
A major overall trend in manufacturing has been for companies to relocate factories closer to the customers who buy products, rather than making things far away and shipping them thousands of miles.
Case in point: Bangkok, Thailand has become the largest auto-making hub in Southeast Asia, nearly doubling its output in the past 2 years to 2.5 million cars/year. Toyota alone has five factories in Thailand, along with Nissan and Ford.
See
Boom times for Bangkok the "Detroit of Southeast Asia"
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/08/boom-times-for-detroit-southeast-asia/
Chart of Ford operations worldwide.http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/operations-worldwide/global-operations-list
With Mexican Manufacturing Boom, New Worrieshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/with-mexican-auto-manufacturing-boom-new-worries/2013/07/01/10dd57e8-d7d9-11e2-b418-9dfa095e125d_story.html
Friday, January 31, 2014
Southeast Asian diets: a water world away from the standard American diet
Southeast Asia is a water world where diets revolve around water-intensive foods: fish and rice.
Southeast Asians eat a diet that is about as different from the typical US diet as it gets. Cambodians for example get 70% of their protein intake from fish--dried, pickled, farmed, fresh out of the water, etc. Meanwhile, on the map below, in the US we get less than 10% of our protein from fish.
Also, Southeast Asians get 60% of their overall food intake from one food: rice.
It is fascinating to me to think about the difference in diets around the world and also their relation to human physical differences. How have foods affected the way humans evolved in Asia vs. Europe vs. Africa because of foods they ate over thousands of years?
Rice paddy landscapes are one of the most eye-popping in Geography.
Meanwhile, many US citizens eat only an occasional can of tuna and get most carbs from bread and sugars--both refined carbs--is the primary source of carbs.
Meanwhile, many US citizens eat only an occasional can of tuna and get most carbs from bread and sugars--both refined carbs--is the primary source of carbs.
This page from GeoCurrents shows interesting maps of global beef and fish consumption.
http://www.geocurrents.info/cultural-geography/culinary-geography/global-geography-of-meat-and-fish-consumption
GeoCurrents
http://www.geocurrents.info/about
How deserts turn into grasslands and what to do about it
While conventional wisdom says that livestock grazing is a major cause of desertification (grasslands becoming desert), Allan Savory from Zimbabwe says the opposite is true: introducing livestock actually the only real solution to desertification.
The reason: something has to eat up dead grasses left behind by the dry season in wet-and-dry climates like those found in Africa. He says the dead tall grasses left from the dry season have to decay biologically in order for the new grass to grow when the rains return. In the absence of huge natural herds of wildebeest, elephants, etc. to eat the dead dry-season grasses, he says livestock grazing is the next best thing.
Allan Savory has been seeking solutions to the problem of desertification - grasslands becoming deserts -- for decades. He says desertification has led to the decline of civilizations and that nearly 2/3 of the world's land is affected.
How Can Deserts Turn Into Grasslands? by Alan Savory
http://www.npr.org/2013/11/15/243721657/how-can-deserts-turn-into-grasslands?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign=
The reason: something has to eat up dead grasses left behind by the dry season in wet-and-dry climates like those found in Africa. He says the dead tall grasses left from the dry season have to decay biologically in order for the new grass to grow when the rains return. In the absence of huge natural herds of wildebeest, elephants, etc. to eat the dead dry-season grasses, he says livestock grazing is the next best thing.
Allan Savory has been seeking solutions to the problem of desertification - grasslands becoming deserts -- for decades. He says desertification has led to the decline of civilizations and that nearly 2/3 of the world's land is affected.
How Can Deserts Turn Into Grasslands? by Alan Savory
http://www.npr.org/2013/11/15/243721657/how-can-deserts-turn-into-grasslands?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=share&utm_campaign=
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Blue eyes and dark skin?
Blue eyes and dark skin would seem to have opposite geographies: blue eyes are found in mostly northern latitudes and dark skin is a tropical trait found in people around the equator. They say blue eyes lack the brown filter in front so as to allow more sun to enter the eyes in northern regions where sunlight is scarce. Meanwhile, dark skin handles high amounts of sun well and actually requires lots of sun to make vitamin D.
So this new discovery poses the question why would an ancient hunter have blue eyes and dark skin in Spain 7000 years ago?
DNA shows ancient hunter had blue eyes, dark skin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/dna-shows-ancient-hunter-had-blue-eyes-dark-skin/2014/01/28/59aebbe4-8812-11e3-a760-a86415d0944d_story.html?hpid=z2
also
Genetic Mutation Makes Those Brown Eyes Blue
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/22934464/#.Uugwh7_0BT4
Friday, January 24, 2014
Water everywhere
Water is a topic that seems to keep popping its head up everywhere you look--in Geography and in the news.
Access to water in the world's exploding, dirty megacities cities; water at the center of climate change in terms of extreme rains and floods; water in the rapidly-melting glaciers in the Himalayas and Polar Ice Caps; water as the medium for increased shipping across the Arctic as more ice melts for longer seasons.
The US burbs that Joel Kotkin is a fan of stand to have major water issues as Laurence Smith also talked about -- Phoenix and Vegas are built in deserts and running on a finite supply of underground water from aquifers.
Matt Damon now has a whole charity involved with water. Some of my students have said they are going for degrees in Hydrology.
Water was the driver of Katrina and Sandy.
In Bolivia in 2012 I noticed giant signs for "MiAgua" i.e. My Water government program in which the indigenous socialist president Evo Morales has given 50% of the funds to local water projects all over the country.
New dams are one of the most controversial environmental topics today. Belo Monte dam being built in the Amazon of Brazil is really coming under fire for contributing to deforestation and disruption of ecosystems. Egypt's Aswan Dam and China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, are also controversial.
Mercury from factory pollution ends up in the ocean water, then in fish we eat. Bigger fish have more mercury from eating smaller fish. East Asians, who on average eat incredible amounts of fish, frequently have toxic blood mercury levels. 1 in 4 New Yorkers has elevated blood mercury levels, but the levels are highest among Chinese immigrants.
Even the health of "normal" tap water is questioned: overuse of fluoride, low pH levels, high copper content from pipes, and even traces of birth control and antidepressants.
Access to water in the world's exploding, dirty megacities cities; water at the center of climate change in terms of extreme rains and floods; water in the rapidly-melting glaciers in the Himalayas and Polar Ice Caps; water as the medium for increased shipping across the Arctic as more ice melts for longer seasons.
The US burbs that Joel Kotkin is a fan of stand to have major water issues as Laurence Smith also talked about -- Phoenix and Vegas are built in deserts and running on a finite supply of underground water from aquifers.
Matt Damon now has a whole charity involved with water. Some of my students have said they are going for degrees in Hydrology.
Water was the driver of Katrina and Sandy.
In Bolivia in 2012 I noticed giant signs for "MiAgua" i.e. My Water government program in which the indigenous socialist president Evo Morales has given 50% of the funds to local water projects all over the country.
New dams are one of the most controversial environmental topics today. Belo Monte dam being built in the Amazon of Brazil is really coming under fire for contributing to deforestation and disruption of ecosystems. Egypt's Aswan Dam and China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, are also controversial.
Mercury from factory pollution ends up in the ocean water, then in fish we eat. Bigger fish have more mercury from eating smaller fish. East Asians, who on average eat incredible amounts of fish, frequently have toxic blood mercury levels. 1 in 4 New Yorkers has elevated blood mercury levels, but the levels are highest among Chinese immigrants.
Even the health of "normal" tap water is questioned: overuse of fluoride, low pH levels, high copper content from pipes, and even traces of birth control and antidepressants.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
China investment in South America
China is scouring the world for resources for its huge population and investing billions to create ports and roads to transport these resources to China.
South America is no exception.
Brazil's huge new port highlights China's drive into South America
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/15/brazil-port-china-drive
South America is no exception.
Brazil's huge new port highlights China's drive into South America
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/15/brazil-port-china-drive
Brazil developing its remote interior with controversial Soy Highway and Belo Monte Dam, facilitating farms and deforestation
Brazil's project to pave the remote "Soy Highway" (BR-163) is nearly complete. The Soy Highway connects new plantations in deforested Amazon regions to the outside world. It is schedule to be totally paved by 2015, right now it is said to be at around 80%. A 2004 Economist article describes the old road as it existed then unpaved as a "river of mud" in rainy season on which a 1000-mile drive from Santarem to Cuiaba (see map below) could take weeks. With a new surface, the road will carry millions of dollars of farm products to the rest of Brazil and the world.
Speeding up agricultural development and deforestation
So much of Brazil's massive agricultural economy takes place in vast newly-deforested regions cleared within the last few decades. Staggering areas of Amazon rainforest and Cerrado dry forest have been razed and are now cattle ranches and plantations of soybeans, sugar, etc. Brazil has the world's highest deforestation rate, over twice the rate of the next highest country, Indonesia.
The Soy Highway addresses the biggest obstacle Brazil's exploding farming sector currently faces: lack of transportation infrastructure to rapidly deliver products from remote, newly-created farmlands to the rest of Brazil, where food processing and exporting takes place.
On the maps below, notice the Soy Highway cuts through the states of Para and Mato Grosso; these two states led Brazil in deforestation in 2013. Environmentalists like Philip Fearnside say the Soy Highway will just exacerbate deforestation. Para likes in the Amazon rainforest and includes the Amazon delta.
Along the highway, tribes and slavery-like conditionsNumerous indigenous tribes live along the Soy Highway, and many have been employed in the plantations that have sprouted up. In these areas, the highest number of cases of slavery-like conditions in Brazil have been cited, with Para state leading the country with 123 cases in 2005 involving over 3000 people.
US company Cargill pioneered soy in the Amazon -- foreseeing the Soy HighwayUS agribusiness company Cargill stands to benefit hugely from the Soy Highway. Cargill foresaw the paving of the Soy Highway and pioneered soy agribusinesses in Para in 2003 by constructing a $20 million soy port/processing plant on the Amazon River. This dramatically increased soy production.
Cargill battled with Greenpeace which reported slave labor conditions under Cargill and also that Cargill deforested indigenous tribal rainforest. Despite these controversies, Cargill remains in Santarem.
The interior: a new frontier for Brazil
Brazil for most of its history was called a "civilzation of crabs" because nearly all settlements were on the coast. These new farming areas are the reason Brazilians decided to delve inward into the areas they neglected for such a long time.
I've never eaten a lot of SPAM, but when I look at the cans they often say "product of Brazil" -- a testament to its beef production.
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