find out how you can contribute to resolving the growing problem of global warming make a list as a geographer
Answers
Answer:
For example, improvements to energy efficiency and vehicle fuel economy, increases in wind and solar power, biofuels from organic waste, setting a price on carbon, and protecting forests are all potent ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases trapping heat on the planet.
Answer:
Explanation:
To most Americans, geography is about place names. Concerns about geographic ignorance usually focus on people's inability to locate cities, countries, and rivers on a world map, and geographic instruction is often equated with conveying information about remote parts of the world. From this perspective it may be a surprise to some that geography has relevance to many of the critical issues facing society in the late twentieth century.
Geographers and others using geographic knowledge and perspectives, in fact, are engaged in valuable research and teaching on matters ranging from environmental change to social conflict. The value of these activities derives from geography's focus on the evolving character and organization of the Earth's surface, on the ways in which the interactions of physical and human phenomena in space create distinctive places and regions, and on the influences those places and regions have on a wide range of natural and human events and processes. Such concerns are not simply exercises in expanding the encyclopedic knowledge of faraway places; they go to the heart of some of the most urgent questions before decision makers today: How should societies respond to the accelerated pace of environmental degradation in many parts of the world? What are the underlying causes and consequences of the growing disparities between rich and poor? What are the mechanisms that drive the global climate system? What causes the severe floods that have occurred in recent years, and how can society cope with such events? How is technology changing economic and social systems?
Addressing such questions goes far beyond the abilities and insights of any one discipline. Yet each question embodies fundamental geographic dimen-
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Suggested Citation:"2 Geography and Critical Issues." National Research Council. 1997. Rediscovering Geography: New Relevance for Science and Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/4913.×
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sions—dimensions that are ignored at society's risk. The geographic perspective is concerned with the significance of place and space on processes and phenomena (see Chapter 3 for a fuller discussion). The geographic perspective motivates such questions as: Why is a particular phenomenon found in some places but not others? What does the spatial distribution of vegetation or homeless people or language traits tell us about how physical and human processes work? How do phenomena found in the same place influence one another, and how do phenomena found at different places influence one another? How do processes that operate at one geographic scale affect processes at other scales? What is the importance of location for efforts to effect (or avoid) political, social, economic, or environmental change?
The importance of the geographic perspective to many contemporary "critical issues" for society is illustrated by a few selected examples in the following sections.