Is Global Warming all 'Doom and Gloom'?

After reading a web article about the future for global agriculture on ScienceDaily, my mind opened to the potential benefits to climate change. This article says about the possible changes to future crop land around the world.
Before reading this article, I thought that global warming would severely reduce the supply of crop land, especially just north and south of the equator, due to the increased temperatures causing more frequent and major droughts. However, the idea that the increased temperature in far northern parts of the globe, like Russia and Canada, may increase the area of suitable land for crops, such as wheat and maize, was brought to me. This got me thinking to further probable benefits for global warming outside of agriculture.
I then began to search on the internet for more advantages of global warming. I found several ideas. In particular, there was the concept that the increase in global temperature may reduce our need for energy, in the form of heat, especially in areas such as Scandanavia and Iceland, meaning that we may get closer to solving the 'energy issue', where our society faces the risk of having regular controlled power cuts to save electricity. Also, again benefiting colder countries, there may be fewer cold weather-related health problems, such as hypothermia, where in recent times, even British citizens, especially the vulnerable elderly population, have been affected by the cold weather and rising heating costs. Another, more specific advantage, is for the melting of the ice around northern Canada. This may seem bad news, but this may be very beneficial for trade between Canada and other countries, as the melting of the ice may open up sea transportation along the Northwest Passage.
Overall, from this, I can say that global warming may not necessarily be a negative thing for us as the earth, but could be a positive thing. However, my view is that the advantages and disadvantages will almost balance each other out, therefore our worry for the future generations is still understandable, yet potentially overdramatised by the media in current society.


Philip Barnes


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Urban Change in Moscow

Stephanie Denning writes about the rapid gentrification of Russian cities and towns, specifically Ostozhenka, Central Moscow. She gives a clear explanation to the dramatic switch Russia faced from communism to capitalism, due to it's independence in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR.
Gentrification is defined as "a shift in an urban community toward wealthier residents or businesses and increasing property values".Ostozhenka is a brilliant example of gentrification, where the former underdeveloped area, to one of the most expensive areas to live in the world, at the cheapest one-bedroom apartment being around US$6 million in value. This gentrification all started from Russian independence, and the political and economical idea to establish the 'new' Moscow as a 'global city', like London and New York, meaning that many areas were majorly regenerated, where many of these apartments and homes obtained double-glazing windows and many other modern luxuries.
This new capitalist Russia also gave the chance for some residents of these apartments in Ostozhenka to keep their homes after the fall of communism there. This benefited many residents, as those who could stay, gained an improved standard of living. However, this was not completely 'happy families', as many of the original residents were forced to move to a different area of Moscow, usually to an area of "lower social status" , with very little or no compensation, with many of these resettled residents finding themselves in an unstable building with poor quality foundations.
From this example alone, the process of gentrification seems to bring many improvements for land use; but, on the other hand, does have a few potential side-effects.

Philip Barnes


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Making Cooking Sustainable

Simon Collins tells us about how a third of the world's population cook their food by burning biomass. He writes about why this is such a bad thing, due to its health and environmental affects, and the solutions.
Firstly, cooking with these fires affects human health, especially when it is wet or cold, where these people from poorer areas, such as sub-Saharan Africa, cook inside, where there is usually no chimney. This is due to the 'particulates' released from the smoke which may enter the lungs, causing lung cancer, chronic emphysema, and other lung related problems. Also, if the toxic carbon monoxide gas builds up, this could cause brain damage, through atherosclerosis (which is effectively blood clotting), especially to vulnerable young children.
The environmental effects are mostly global warming-based. This is due to the carbon dioxide released from burning wood or charcoal, and deforestation from the chopping down of forests for the firewood. Also; however, this deforestation removes carbon sink, which leads to flooding and mudslides.
Luckily, there's good news! There are current solutions in place to reduce the number of people cooking using biomass. For example, efficient cookstoves are being sold at low cost to many of these people, with millions sold already. These stoves are better in almost every way than the traditional open fires, as they emit less fumes, reduce deforestation and also save millions of people multiple ours a week searching for firewood.
To me, this just proves that small, simple products, like these cookstoves, can be very useful in increasing the quality of life for many, by reducing health risks and the effects of global warming, giving an optimistic future for us all.


Philip Barnes


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Making Cooking more Sustainable

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This message has been sent through the Bedford School email Server, and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender, or administrator@bedfordschool.org.uk, and delete the email. The views expressed are the views of the sender, and not necessarily the views of the School. The information in this message may be confidential and should not be read, copied, or otherwise distributed unless permission is given. Bedford School is part of The Harpur Trust: a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England: Company No. 3475202. Registered Office: Pilgrim Centre, Brickhill Drive, Bedford, MK41 7PZ. Registered Charity No. 1066861

Angkor Wat

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This majestic Cambodian monument built 1,000 years ago, around the time of the Norman cathedrals, shows a genius of South East Asian history often ignored. The temple it’s self is modelled in perfect symmetry in the style of lotus blossoms. The massive 2 km square capitol building was once the centre of an empire covering its self 2 million square kilometres. And all this at a time when London had 18,000 residents, Angkor had closer to 750,000. In fact until the nineteenth century it was the most extensive city in the world! Unfortunately we know very little about the history and culture of this era. There are few surviving accounts due to the sheer time that has passed, also the extreme twentieth century communist rule in Cambodia means the area is heavily mined and many parts are damaged. Now the site is a tourist attraction providing such income that it alone accounts for twenty percent of Cambodia’s GDP. If this peaks your interest then watch the new BBC series Jungle Atlantis, I promise I haven’t spoiled all of it.

 

James Winder​

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This message has been sent through the Bedford School email Server, and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender, or administrator@bedfordschool.org.uk, and delete the email. The views expressed are the views of the sender, and not necessarily the views of the School. The information in this message may be confidential and should not be read, copied, or otherwise distributed unless permission is given. Bedford School is part of The Harpur Trust: a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England: Company No. 3475202. Registered Office: Pilgrim Centre, Brickhill Drive, Bedford, MK41 7PZ. Registered Charity No. 1066861

Year 9 Explain the Formation of Deserts

Year 9 students have been studying why deserts form in certain areas of the world and have put together the following playlist of videos to explain the factors involved.

The Seagull Crisis

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Seagulls are a common seaside site up and down the UK, but as our familiarity with them increases there potential problems also increase. Every time they are thrown your left over chips they gain in confidence, in recent months this has led to a large increase in the number of seagulls dive bombing people as they eat their lunch. This has led to many coastal communities appealing for fines on feeding seagulls. In fact in Aldeburgh in Suffolk the fines are already in place, in fact the fine here for feeding seagulls is a staggering £2,500. I bet that makes the tourists think twice!

James Winder

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Periglacial Landform: Pingos

I'd be surprised if you already knew this cold environment landform (including you upper sixth), pingos are found in periglacial conditions, meaning they are found around the edge of ice sheets. This means you can find pingos in located areas such as the largest, at 48m high, the Ibyuk pingo in Canada(above), but pingos are also recognisable on the surface of Mars, indicating periglacial conditions there. Clearly at this point we should discuss what a pingo is. A pingo in the simplest terms is a hill with a core of ice, it is formed when water often from lakes found above collects in a talik (basically a ball of underground water) and the freezes, as it freezes it expands pushing the ground above up into the characteristic dome shape. These domes can vary between 100m and 2km wide. They are commonly found in periglacial conditions in Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada.

James Winder

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This message has been sent through the Bedford School email Server, and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender, or administrator@bedfordschool.org.uk, and delete the email. The views expressed are the views of the sender, and not necessarily the views of the School. The information in this message may be confidential and should not be read, copied, or otherwise distributed unless permission is given. Bedford School is part of The Harpur Trust: a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England: Company No. 3475202. Registered Office: Pilgrim Centre, Brickhill Drive, Bedford, MK41 7PZ. Registered Charity No. 1066861

Book Review: "A Short History of Nearly Everthing"

I highly recommend this book by Bill Bryson to anyone with an interest in geography, particularly if this is accompanied by any level of scientific curiosity. This book aims to complete the monumental task of informing a reader of all the main processes that have led to the formation of the earth we know and us as a species, referring to how these ideas have changed over time. The areas discussed rarely venture beyond GCSE level however explain any difficult areas in a simple, but neither patronising nor condescending, manor that has helped to improve my understanding of ideas I previously considered mastered. I particularly recommend this to my fellow year 12/13s as an ideal base from which to begin supercurricular reading, as the areas of topic could easily be discussed in interview and a good level of understanding prior can only be to your benefit.

James Winder

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This message has been sent through the Bedford School email Server, and is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender, or administrator@bedfordschool.org.uk, and delete the email. The views expressed are the views of the sender, and not necessarily the views of the School. The information in this message may be confidential and should not be read, copied, or otherwise distributed unless permission is given. Bedford School is part of The Harpur Trust: a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England: Company No. 3475202. Registered Office: Pilgrim Centre, Brickhill Drive, Bedford, MK41 7PZ. Registered Charity No. 1066861

Article Review - 8 Summer Miseries made worse by Global Warming

Some of the year 12 Students will be improving the breadth and depth of their reading in coming months. Some of them will also be sharing their reviews of it to try and help other Geographers engage with interesting material. Jack's review of a National Geographic article on potentially negative effects of global warming is below:

Review of ‘8 Summer Miseries Made

Worse by Global Warming’ - Jack.L

As you would expect from the title, this article published on the National Geographic website explains the worsening of many of the bad parts of summer ranging from decreasing air quality to the increased danger to swimming in rivers.

The author Brian Howard goes into detail about the following eight topics; heat waves, bad air, biting insects, poison ivy, hay fever, food-borne illnesses, dangerous swimming and the risk to national parks and landmarks. Howard goes into basic details about each of the items stated about how they would be made worse in the future due to the global warming. For example he states that global temperatures are likely to increase by up to 5°C by 2100, if emissions are not reduced. Also that increased temperatures will lead to increased ground-level ozone pollution; which will lead to increased respiratory diseases, such as asthma and currently 27 million people in the US suffer from asthma.

All in all, I found Brian Howard’s article interesting and would recommend it to anyone that is interested in the effects of global warming.

Here is a link to the article:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140701-global-warming-summer-climate-change-science/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_n1p_intl_se_w#

Tourists overlook Navajo Canyon in 1948 at Mesa Verde National Park, which is now vulnerable to increased flooding and more frequent wildfires.

PHOTOGRAPH BY WILLARD CULVER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

UK Storms Prediction (Oct 2013)

A key theme for the year 13 climatic hazards course is how people can manage hazards. In terms of climatic hazards, prediction is key in enabling people to mitigate the potential effects of storms. The BBC video of how last October's storms were predicted gives an excellent look at how this happened and shows the development in the technology over the last 30 years.

Modern Slavery

Y11 students Charlie, Phil, Sam, Arjun, James, Jack and Ollie have set up the research hub below about slavery linking to their study of migration in the GCSE population topic.

Important Facts

• Official figures on the scale of the problem come from the UK Human Trafficking Centre, part of the National Crime Agency.
• In 2012, it identified 2,255 potential victims of human trafficking - an increase of 178 (9%) on 2011, according to its report.
• Of these potential victims, 778 were either found to have been trafficked or were awaiting a conclusive decision on their status. Of the 778 potential victims, 402 people - or 52% - were found to have been trafficked.
• The top five nationalities of those identified were Romanian, Polish, Nigerian, Vietnamese and Hungarian.
• Some 71% of the potential victims were adults, while 24% were children. The age of 99 potential victims was unknown.
• The two most prevalent types of exploitation reported were sexual exploitation, which accounted for 35% of the potential victims, followed by labour exploitation (23%).
• Of the potential child victims, 28% reported being sexually exploited, and 24% reported criminal exploitation.
•   Estimates indicate that at least 27 million people, in places such as Nigeria, Indonesia and Brazil are part of some sort of slavery.
• The total number of people in debt bondage around the world was about 20 million in 1998.
• The number of children in bonded labour in India alone was at 15 million at the end of the 20th century.
• More than 1,000 women were trafficked into the UK for sexual purposes (mainly from Eastern and Central Europe).
•  There are at least 5,000 child sex workers in the UK, most trafficked into the country.
•  Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 12 million people may be working as slaves and of these; approximately 43 per cent are trafficked into sexual exploitation.
• The worldwide traffic in human beings is worth at least US$32 billion annually.
•   In 2004, 218 million children were trapped in child labour worldwide
• 100,000 – 800,000 people are trafficked into the EU each year
• There are at least 5,000 trafficking victims in the UK
•  About 8,000 women work in off-street prostitution in London alone, 80% of them are foreign nationals
• Over 1000 women trafficked into prostitution have been referred to the Poppy Project since March 2003
•  200-300 victims of trafficking for domestic labour register with the relevant NGO each year
•  It is estimated 330 child victims will be trafficked into the UK each year
• About 60% of suspected child victims in local authority care go missing and are not subsequently found
• There is long-term government funding for 35 places for victims in safe accommodation
• 92 people were convicted of sex trafficking and four for labour trafficking between 2004 and December 2008
• There are only 100-300 prosecutions for trafficking across the EU each year
•  Each sex trafficker earns on average £500-£1000 per woman per week

 Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25048307

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/modern_1.shtml

http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/modern-slavery-united-kingdom

Useful Links:

The link below is to a useful website that includes a defintions of slavery and traffiking, explains what happens to the forced workers and includes a factual passage by previous slaves.

http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/trafficking.aspx

An article by the BBC from three days ago stating that offical numbers on the amount of slaves in Wales are just estimates. Also the increase in plans to raise awarness of slavery.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-26013283

This article from the BBC shows recent, shocking statistics for human trafficking and how it is growing at an alarming rate. It clearly illustrates the scale of human trafficking in the UK and how it is incredibly difficult to prevent it from happening

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19984615

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C9VwiCP2bQ

This video helps people realise what human trafficking is really about and the consequences if you don’t prevent it. It is very effective in keeping you alert about what actually happens in the UK and how you can prevent it from continuing. Not only does it raise awareness, it encourages you to get involved in prevention and to notice where trafficking occurs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25048307

The article sums up what human trafficking is and gives named examples of recent events that have occurred. Information provided also raises awareness of trafficking, including place specifics and stats.

There is evidence of thousands of children working in the sex trade. For example there is a young Romanian girl who had a very tough life at the start when was given the opportunity to find work in the UK in a restaurant but her story got worse as she arrived in the UK. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6224151.stm

It is estimated that 85% of brothel workers are from overseas forced into it.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6459369.stm this is a link to a horrific story about sex slaves being held in the UK against there will.

Other Sources

(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmhaff/23/23i.pdf)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_United_Kingdom)

(https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97846/human-trafficking-legislation.pdf)

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Year 10 Assesment of the UK Floods

10o1-GG2 have researched why the UK flooded before Christmas. Two interesting pieces of work on it are below as promised!!! Read and enjoy. (click on an image to make it larger)

UK Ageing Population Discussion

Y11s are going to be studying the UK's ageing population over the next few weeks. You can follow the conversation below:

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