The Geographer: Atmosphere (Autumn 2011)

The

Geographer Autumn 2011

The newsletter of the

Royal Scottish Geographical Society

The Science of the Atmosphere

In This Edition...

Bright Balloons, Brown Clouds, and the Black Triangle

•N ews Feature: The Fair Maid’s House Opens its Doors •E xpert View: A Short History of the Atmosphere •E xpert Views and Opinions: Air Quality – Local, Regional & Global Perspectives •C ountry in Focus: Somalia, and Famine in the Horn of Africa •R eader Offer: Scotland: Mapping the Nation

“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.”

plus other news, comments, books...

Mark Twain

RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet

The

Geographer R

SGS is proud, and rightly so, of realising its vision and breathing new life into the historic Fair Maid’s House in Perth, now the RSGS’s public visitor and education centre.

the science of the atmosphere

The Fair Maid’s House ~ “Glad to see geography being looked after like this!”

JL, Rayleigh

It is a delight!

It is an ideal place on the planet for people of all ages willing to learn - and our less willing learners, too, will most certainly find something to wake up a sleepy corner of the brain!

Visitors have responded so positively, so warmly and so enthusiastically, both to the renovation of the building and to the way the RSGS has made use of the space to create a home for geography. The range of information throughout provides challenge, provokes thought, and stimulates interest in people, places and the planet.

For school groups, it forms a natural link in a geography fieldwork day in Perth. It could be the starting point (studying the excellent aerial photograph to discover the growth of Perth), could fit somewhere in the middle (changing focus and pace by visiting the Earth Room), or could provide a conclusion (summing up the day).

I encourage you to visit the Fair Maid’s House and experience it for yourself. Allow time to do it justice.

Maybe start your day by having a short stop in one of Perth’s many coffee (s)pots… then come round the Concert Hall, either direction is fine, and suddenly you’re there. After your visit, there are many interesting lunch places…and you’ll still have time for ‘retail fieldwork’. Or do it all the other way round.

“It was VERY cool and interesting, and old.”

“Perfect experience!”

AP, Bankfoot

MK, Czech Republic

“The building is magnificent and I applaud the great stewardship you and your colleagues apply to the rich archive you hold.”

John Swinney MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth

“Fantastic, we’ll tell everyone about this place!”

I recommend you do it very soon!

F&LA, Australia

Erica Caldwell Chair, Education Committee The Fair Maid’s House project won the Perth Civic Trust Award 2011 for Restoration and Renovation. The Assessors judged this to be “an exemplary approach to the adaptation of a listed building for a new use. It was the stand-out winner for Restoration.”

“Fabulous resource for Scotland!”

JB, Edinburgh

RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: Cameron Balloons Masthead image: Mike Robinson

“Really interesting – loved the map room and the reading room.”

LN, Dunkeld

“Will be back – very impressed.”

EM, Stirling

Volunteers

Wa n

We are still seeking volunteers with good inter-personal skills and enthusiasm for RSGS, to help welcome visitors to the Fair Maid’s House in Perth.

Commitments can be for mornings (10.00am to 1.00pm), afternoons (1.00pm to 4.00pm), or both. We always aim to have three volunteers on duty at any one time, and we will provide some on-going training. Please contact Fiona Parker on fiona.parker@rsgs.org to register an interest.

RSGS: helping to make the connections between people, places & the planet

The

Geographer

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Autumn 2011

NEWS People • Places • Planet

~ now open!

“Friendly people & a delight to visit it.”

PG, Irvine

“Wonderful, could spend hours here!”

The bright and

AM, Canada

airy education

room offers whether it’s follo wing the themes of ‘ex treme geography ’ (hot and cold at the moment), or takin g home ideas such as tra cking a polar be ar with a satellite collar on your home comp uter.

I defy you to res ist the pull of th e Explorers’ Room makes you want . It to pick up a book and read; wheth a Lonely Planet er it’s Guide to your ne xt destination, a Geography book Horrible , or an old editio n of the Society’ publications. Or s open a drawer to find a wee tre simply ‘be’ there asure. Or and enjoy the am azing atmosphe re...

Erica a flexible space,

Caldwell, Chair,

Education Comm

ittee

“Fascinating exhibition.

Need to visit regularly.”

LJ, Perth

“Superb! Brought a large geographical grin. :-)” JS, High School of Dundee

“I am hugely impressed by the restoration of the Fair Maid’s House.

It has been faithful to the architecture of the building, and yet provides a modern environment for study, and for the exhibition of the Society’s important artefacts.

After decades of uncertainty, this historic building will, once again, play a vital role in Perth’s academic and cultural future.

Congratulations to the RSGS.” Dr John Hulbert, Provost of Perth & Kinross

What we have achieved in the Fair Maid’s House is quite ex ceptional; tradit ion and history exempli fied by the Explo rers’ Room, combined with modernity and some of the best technology available in the exhibition and education spaces. Truly so mething for every one, which we now need to value, support an d encourage oth ers to use.

Bruce Gittings , Vice Chairma

n

“A beautiful & thoughtful display of Scotland’s proud geographical knowledge – superb!”

RP, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland

“An excellent resource area for schools – hope it will be successful.”

T&HR, Birmingham

My wife and I have now completed two full days as volunteer guides in the Fair Maid’s Hous e, and it has been both an enjoyable and a heartening experience.

Gratifying, too, to see the frequent use of superlatives in the visitors’ comments, and note their clear intention to return with friends or famil y.

It speaks volumes about the commitmen t of Mike and his small staff that this whole development took place while they were also running the Society. I must also acknowledge the huge assistance given by many members of the Society, both on the Board of Trustees and from the membership. I am not talking here abou t a few hours of work; many have put in many days, and in some cases many weeks, of work, none more so than our Vice Chairman Bruce Gittings.

The result is that, in the Fair Maid’s Hous e, we have created something of which the Society can be justifiably proud , and which has the potential to take geography to a much wider audie nce than ever before.

With best compliments and my thank s to you all, Barrie Brown, Chairman

“Great exhibition, lots to read and digest – we will be back. Thank you.”

E&RR, Formby “I really enjoyed my visit.”

“It’s fantastic to see geographical research alive and kicking at this exciting new centre, where people BG, Swindon can really get up close to past collections and Biographies Foreign Coins appreciate their Thank you to those members who have contributed Coins, old and new, large and small, can tell us a lot books for the RSGS’s biographical library in the about a country, and so we are hoping to build up relevance to what’s Fair Maid’s House. We are still looking for more a collection of foreign coins which visitors can look happening on the biographies and autobiographies of inspirational through to gain a sense of part of the everyday life of people who have received the Society’s prestigious other countries. If you have returned from a holiday planet today.”

ted

Medals, or who have given public talks for the Society, or who have been actively involved in the Society’s affairs, so please get in touch if you can help.

abroad with a pocketful of loose change, please consider sending the coins to us here in Perth.

Prof Iain Stewart, TV presenter

NEWS People • Places • Planet Scotland’s Greenspace Map is an innovative Geographical Information System based map which provides comprehensive information on the location, extent and type of greenspace across all of Scotland’s urban settlements. No other country has mapped its greenspace in this way.

The Map was compiled in 2011 from data provided by all 32 Scottish councils. Greenspaces were categorised into 23 different open space types, including public parks, play areas, allotments, amenity greenspace, and private gardens, as well as multi-functional greenspaces, such as play areas or woodland within larger public parks. See www.greenspacescotland.org.uk for more information.

BBC Scotland Adventurers in Edinburgh

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A free online training resource has been published at www. climatechangeadaptation.info by the Centre for Mountain Studies, Perth College UHI. The resource is a comprehensive guide to climate change adaptation, with online teaching modules which can be accessed and used by students, teachers, professionals and communities to better their understanding of the issues and processes to be considered. The site also contains a unique set of over 30 multimedia case studies from across northern Europe and Greenland, incorporating over 50 podcasts and video clips from a wide range of communities from the northern hemisphere, identifying, considering and dealing with the impacts of climate change.

atmosphere

Climate change adaptation resource

Scotland’s Greenspace Map

In the Footsteps of Antarctic Giants th

October

BBC Scotland presenters Neil Oliver and Mark Beaumont were poles apart this year filming their latest series, The Last Explorers and Rowing the Arctic. But on 27th October, they will be coming together to share their experiences and look deeper into what makes and breaks an explorer! For a preview of BBC Scotland’s latest world adventures, and to hear from the challengers themselves, join an event at The Hub, Castlehill, Royal Mile, Edinburgh, at 6:30pm on Thursday 27th October 2011. The event is free but tickets must be booked in advance by contacting the BBC on 0370 901 1227 or through www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours.

Help Sought

Measuring what matters The RSGS is one of more than 30 civil society organisations to back a briefing prepared by Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF Scotland and Oxfam Scotland, calling for the Scottish Government to go beyond GDP when setting policy and measuring progress. The briefing is a contribution to the current review of Scotland’s National Performance Framework.

The SNP manifesto promised “a broader assessment of national wellbeing and success”; the briefing offers recommendations to make this promise a reality, by putting in place a truly forward-thinking and innovative framework for guiding and evaluating public policy.

Late 1911 saw two of the most celebrated polar expeditions ever, when Captain Scott and Roald Amundsen raced to be the first to the South Pole.

Amundsen arrived on 14th December 1911, Scott on 17th January 1912. Tragically, all five of Scott’s party perished on the return journey.

Now, two teams of three British Army soldiers are retracing the Scott and Amundsen routes, to raise money towards a £25m Royal British Legion project to build four Personnel Recovery Centres (one in Edinburgh), to help rehabilitate wounded servicemen and women.

Starting in mid October 2011 from Cape Evans, and from the Bay of Whales, the two 900 mile journeys will take about 60 days, with the teams man-hauling their food, fuel and equipment. The Scott team will ascend the 120 mile long Beardmore Glacier; the Amundsen team will climb the much shorter but steeper Axel Heiberg Glacier. Both teams will climb onto the Polar Plateau for the final push to the South Pole, with daily windchill temperatures as low as -55°C. Please follow and support this hugely challenging event on www. scottamundsenrace.org.

Henry Worsley will speak about this project and others, to RSGS audiences in Dumfries, Peebles and Ayr, on 26th, 27th and 28th March 2012.

26th-28th March

Durban Climate Talks Between 28th November and 9th December 2011, the United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Durban, South Africa, bringing together representatives of the world’s governments, international organisations and civil society. This represents the penultimate opportunity to agree a replacement to the Kyoto climate deal which runs out in 2012, and to seek to advance implementation of the Bali Action Plan agreed at COP 13 in 2007, and the Cancun Agreements reached at COP 16 in December 2010.

Expectations are not high, with the short term economic concerns of the west and the bathos surrounding the Copenhagen round of discussions in 2009, but as CO2 levels continue to climb (now 394ppm CO2 versus 180288ppm pre-industrially) there is a great deal of concern as to what will happen if a sufficient deal is not struck.

RSGS’s Chief Executive Mike Robinson has been in discussions about a possible role the world’s religious leaders might play in seeking to achieve a successful outcome.

atmosphere

We are seeking assistance in the office with basic tasks, ideally 10.00am to 4.00pm during the week, or similar. Tasks would include answering the door and telephone, assisting with mailings and filing, and other general office duties. Volunteers should be friendly, organised and fond of biscuits. Ideally this would suit one or two regular volunteers. Please contact Fiona Parker on fiona.parker@rsgs.org to register an interest.

Lt Col Henry Worsley

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NEWS People • Places • Planet

Dumfries Excursion 2011 Concert For Trees In this, the UN International Year of Forests, the RSGS is set to benefit from a charity evening of enchanting music, poetry and dance, celebrating the magical world of woods.

The concert will feature Ani Batikian on the ‘Sherlock Violin’, and the St Patrick’s Baroque Ensemble in the first public performance on the ‘Conan Doyle String Quartet’ instruments – all made from the Conan Doyle sycamore tree that stood until recently in the garden of his

Antarctica’s Undersea Volcanoes

Edinburgh childhood home.

Hungarian gypsy fiddler Jani Lang and Band will also perform, and the guest speaker is Owen Dudley Edwards.

The concert, at 7.30pm on Saturday 26th November 2011, in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, is supported by Forestry Commission Scotland, in aid of RSGS, Survival International, TreeAid, and WWF. Further information and tickets are available from the Usher Hall at www.usherhall.

26th co.uk or 0131 228 November 1155.

Bill Henley DSC and Bar The RSGS was sorry to learn of the death in June of Bill Henley.

A Royal Navy pilot during WWII, Bill was later seconded to the Royal Australian Air Force in Melbourne and the US Marine Corps Air Station in North Carolina, before commanding two Naval Air Squadrons in southern England.

During a recent expedition to fill a 90,000km2 gap in existing seabed maps, the British Antarctic Survey discovered a dozen undersea volcanoes, some up to 3km tall, near the South Sandwich Islands. Two of the features rise within 70m of the surface, one in an area where existing charts showed only deep water.

Bill became an active member of the RSGS Glasgow group and a member of RSGS Council. His support for the RSGS was reflected in his Will, and we were gratified in September to receive a kind donation as his bequest to the Society.

Perth City Status Update Dr John Hulbert, Provost of Perth & Kinross Many RSGS members will be aware of Perth’s interest in the competition for city status, part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Some 25 towns have entered, and the result will be announced in early 2012. The Queen, guided by her ministers, will make the decision.

Perth, the only candidate from Scotland, is supported by a wide range of politicians, the judiciary, the press, business, and the mayors of our twin towns. We are encouraging our ‘advocates’ to lobby on our behalf at every opportunity.

We are aware that, under the current regulation of ‘one winner only’, Perth’s prospects against more than 20 large and ancient towns in England are slim. Our strategy, therefore, is to seek a change in the rules to permit winners from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Recently we have been encouraged by a change in the tone of the Cabinet Office’s e-mails. The hard line, ‘one winner only’, has been modified to state that if there are applications of ‘sufficient merit’, more than one new city may be created.

However, we need more supporters from across the UK, and beyond. And so I would encourage RSGS members who believe that Perth is a city to view our entry at www.pkc.gov.uk/citystatus or on Facebook, and to pledge their support for Perth online.

Iain Stewart News Professor Iain Stewart, celebrity scientist and friend of the Society, is recovering from spending two days sealed in an airtight chamber with 150 plants to prove the importance of plants to human survival.

Linked to his upcoming BBC2 series, How Plants Made the World, Iain suffered headaches in the 8m by 2m by 2.5m chamber set up at the Eden Project in St Austell, Cornwall, with oxygen levels the same as at an altitude of 4,500m.

Iain will be discussing his new programme and findings as part of this season’s Inspiring People talks programme on 31st October in Aberdeen and 1st November in Dundee.

atmosphere

The scientists were expecting to find volcanoes, but didn’t expect them to be the size of Mount Fuji. “It was amazing finding them,” said Dr Phil Leat, a geologist volcanologist with the survey. “The technologies that scientists can now use from ships not only give us an opportunity to piece together the story of the evolution of our Earth, but they also help shed new light on the development of natural events that pose hazards for people living in more populated regions on the planet.”

He served on the Ark Royal before work with a survey team took him around Aden and parts of Africa, where he developed a deep interest in geography. After the Navy, he joined Loganair, becoming chief training captain, pioneering the scheduled service to Barra which lands on the beach at low tide, and helping to develop Scotland’s air ambulance service. During his hours on standby, he studied for an Open University master’s degree in Geography and Geology.

In May, the RSGS local group organised a successful walking tour of Dumfries, led by local historian John Gair and RSGS member Tom Russell. The tour started at the site of the original castle at Castledykes, and then moved to Nith Place to view the original town settlement on a ridge above the flood level of the River Nith. The party noted the river crossings, especially the ancient Devorgilla Bridge where three spans have disappeared to make way for a road and settlement, before adjourning to the ancient Globe Inn for refreshments and an unexpected tour of the inn at which Robert Burns was a regular during the last six years of his life.

NEWS People • Places • Planet

The Lighthouse Speaks In this, the 200th anniversary year of the Bell Rock Lighthouse, it is interesting to note the lighthouse’s link with the Fair Maid’s House, through the author who made the latter famous.

On 30th July 1814, Walter Scott and Robert Stevenson visited the Bell Rock Lighthouse, as part of a tour of the northern lighthouses. In his journal, Scott wrote only a short entry about his visit to the Bell Rock, but he was prevailed upon to write something special in the visitor book, and produced the six lines of verse, Pharos loquitur.

See www.bellrock.org.uk for a mine of information about the Bell Rock’s construction and its ‘life’ over the last 200 years.

Inspiring People 2011-12 We are delighted that Scottish Power and Scottish Natural Heritage are generously sponsoring many of the excellent talks in the RSGS’s programme for the 2011-12 winter season. We are grateful to them and to all the sponsors who have so far helped to fund this fantastic programme of events: Airdrie Savings Bank, Brookbank Canoes and Kayaks, Geoghegans, Hillhouse Quarry Group, INEOS, Lloyds Banking Group, Magnox, SAGT, and UHI Millennium Institute. We couldn’t do it without them.

In the first half of the season, we will hear from some truly exceptional people, including outstanding photographer Timothy Allen, highly-regarded academic Professor Andrew Watkinson, and world-class mountaineer Di Gilbert; while, on an atmospheric theme, Professor Iain Stewart will be speaking about the origins of Earth’s atmosphere.

We hope you can join us!

Giant Crabs Reach Antarctic Scientists writing in the Royal Society’s journal, Proceedings B, say that more than a million king crabs up to a metre across are thought to have colonised the Palmer Deep, a basin more than 1.3km down off the Antarctic Peninsula, where they are wiping out species such as sea cucumbers, sea urchins and starfish.

“Our best guess is there was an event, or maybe more than one, where warmer water flushed up across the shelf and carried some of the larvae into the basin”, said project leader Craig Smith from the University of Hawaii.

Melting ice sheets tend to make shallow waters in Antarctica cooler than deep waters, but with waters warming so rapidly, king crabs could spread to regions as shallow as 400m within as little as 20 years, says Smith.

Living longer Maria Lucimar Pereira, of the Kaxinawá tribe in the western Brazilian Amazon, is thought to be the oldest person in the world, having celebrated her 121st birthday on 3rd September 2011. Maria has never lived in a city, and puts her longevity down to a healthy lifestyle. She only eats natural foods from the forest – grilled meat, fish, manioc (a root vegetable), and banana porridge, with no salt, sugar, or processed foods – and she remains healthy and relatively active.

Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry said, “All too often we witness the negative effects forced change can have on indigenous peoples. It is refreshing to see a community that has retained strong links to its ancestral land and enjoyed the undeniable benefits of this.”

In 2006, Swiss pilot Yves ‘Jetman’ Rossy became the first man to fly like a bird, albeit with fibreglass and carbon fibre wings powered by kerosene-fueled engines. He can fly at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour, and to a height of 3,000 meters. He has crossed the English Channel and, most recently, flew over the Grand Canyon (see timetosignoff. com/video/?id=16545).

Marie moves on We’re sorry to report that, after just over two years with the Society, our finance officer Marie Hainey left at the end of September to pursue other interests. We are grateful for all her help, and wish her the very best for the future. We look forward to welcoming her back as a visitor or perhaps a volunteer!

Space Junk The National Research Council has warned NASA that orbital rubbish, or ‘space junk’, “has reached a tipping point, with enough currently in orbit to continually collide and create even more debris, raising the risk of spacecraft failures”.

atmosphere

The British Geological Survey has published a new ‘risk list’ that indicates the relative supply risk of 52 chemical elements or element groups needed to maintain our economy and lifestyle, based on factors such as abundance in the Earth’s crust, and geopolitical location of production and reserves. As demand for metals and minerals increases, competition for resources is growing.

The report says that policy-makers, industry and consumers should be concerned about the need to diversify supply from Earth resources, to recycle more and to do more with less.

Flying Without A Plane

atmosphere

Elements at risk

The amount of orbital debris tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network jumped significantly in recent years, with nearly 20% stemming from the 2007 destruction of a Chinese decommissioned weather satellite, which was shattered into 150,000 pieces. The International Space Station must occasionally dodge some of the junk, which flies around the Earth at speeds of up to 17,500 mph.

Possible solutions to clear the debris range from magnetic ‘nets’ to laser ‘brooms’ that would sweep the material safely towards the Earth’s atmosphere.

Buy an inspiring gift that lasts all year.

RSGS Gift Membership makes an excellent Christmas present for friends or family.

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The

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Autumn 2011

NEWS People • Places • Planet Scotland shifting east

Professor Allan Findlay and Dr David McCollum, Geography, School of the Environment, University of Dundee

Legacy Giving Legacies are a vital form of support for many charities such as the RSGS. Yet although c74% of people in the UK support charities, only c7% leave a charitable bequest.

We can all make a positive difference, large or small, in the world we leave behind. Please consider helping the RSGS into the future by writing a bequest into your Will.

Eight peaks in eight days at 80!

Just days after his 80th birthday, Lorne Brown from North Lanarkshire achieved his ambition to climb eight mountains in eight days, raising money for Guide Dogs for the Blind, also 80.

Climbing in the Italian Dolomites, each day he walked and climbed c900m, the height of a Munro, to get to the start of a via ferrata, a route equipped with fixed cables, stemples, ladders and bridges to assist climbers. Mr Brown began climbing Munros at the age of 75, and planned to celebrate this latest achievement with a tandem paraglide.

Scotland is experiencing a gentle healthy growth in its population, as revealed by the latest mid-year population estimates from the National Records of Scotland (www. gro-scotland.gov.uk). Only a few years ago, there was considerable angst about Scotland becoming a shrinking nation, with population experts raising concerns about the prospect of a downward shift in numbers, perhaps even below the five million mark. This is now far from the case.

The change is largely accounted for by immigration, but natural increase has also played its part.

More important than the short-run contrasts between the 2010 and the 2009 figures, are the long-term trends. Between the 1950s and 1980s, Scotland lost more people than it gained through migration.

However, this trend has now reversed, with net annual gains from migration of more than 20,000 recorded since 2003.

In recent years, the negative rates of natural increase (births minus deaths), which Scotland experienced about the turn of the millennium, have also shown a long-term turnaround, with more people being born than dying every year for the past five years. Some will argue over whether population growth is desirable. More important than the overall numbers is how the trends impact on the composition

of Scotland’s population and on its economy.

The gentle upward trend in births means falling primary school rolls should be of less concern than in the past. At the other end of the age spectrum, people are living longer – good news for all, but undoubtedly this welcome trend is a very pressing policy issue for the health service as it seeks to cater for Scotland’s ageing population. These effects will be felt most acutely in rural areas, which have the highest proportion of pensioners; for example, in Argyll and Bute it is 20% of males and 32% of females.

Arguably the most fascinating aspect of the report is the way in which the population is shifting east. Between 2000 and 2010, population growth of over 8% was seen in East and West Lothian, Edinburgh, Perth & Kinross, and Aberdeenshire. while population losses were in the west, with Inverclyde and East and West Dunbartonshire all declining by 3% or more.

There is little doubt that these figures attest to the rebalancing of the Scottish economy and the consequent long-term eastward trend. This will continue to put pressure on local authorities in terms of the need for services in Scotland’s growth regions, not necessarily easy in an era of financial retrenchment.

Congestion In June, a report commissioned by SatNav manufacturer TomTom claimed that Edinburgh was the second most congested city in Britain after London, and the seventh most congested city in Europe, with 31.7% of its roads ‘congested’, and with the various attendant air quality impacts.

University of Strathclyde – an update At its meeting in May, the University of Strathclyde Court decided to phase out a number of social science subjects, including geography. Despite calls to retain geography at Strathclyde, backed by RSGS and many others, the University declined to explore other options. There will be a last intake of students into the BA degree programme this autumn, and all current students have been given assurances that they will continue to benefit from a high quality teaching environment. A number of new appointments have been made to assist, with Dr Susan Fitzpatrick and Dr James Jeffers having started in September.

The closure of the degree represents short-sightedness for a subject which shows strongly how interdisciplinarity and applied research can benefit society.

Ordering is easy. Email or phone today!

Simply contact us on enquiries@rsgs.org or 01738 455050.

Trick or treat – 7,000,000,000th person to be born in October The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has announced that the world’s human population will hit seven billion this Halloween, 31st October 2011. This will mean one billion more people than in October 1999, and four and a half billion more than in 1950. Human population took until the early 19th century to reach its first billion, but growth since then has been increasingly rapid.

“A world of seven billion is both a challenge and an opportunity,” said UNFPA Executive Director, Dr Babatunde Osotimehin. “Globally, people are living longer, healthier lives and choosing to have smaller families. But reducing inequities and finding ways to ensure the well-being of people alive today – as well as the generations that follow – will require new ways of thinking and unprecedented global co-operation.”

UNFPA is planning a seven-day countdown from 24th October, United Nations Day. Events will culminate in the launch of this year’s The State of World Population report, which will analyse challenges and opportunities presented by a world of seven billion.

Please order by 30th November if possible.

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Expert View: Atmosphere

A Short History of the Atmosphere Professor J R McNeill, Georgetown University, Washington DC

Geography is a difficult subject to constrain and define, hovering as it does like a balloon somewhere between history, sociology, biology, physics and chemistry. This edition of The Geographer is produced in the International Year of Chemistry, and there is no more evident area of geography than the atmosphere, where geography and chemistry coincide.

With this in mind, we have pulled together articles which we hope help reflect the breadth of issues surrounding Earth’s atmosphere.

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive

© NASA

The atmosphere is a thin film blanketing the Earth. It consists of gases, at present mostly nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), held in place

by Earth’s gravity. It extends about 100 kilometers into space.

The atmosphere has both a natural history and a human history. It has never been fully stable.

Some two billion years ago, legions of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) engineered an oxygen revolution, raising the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere from trivial levels, which had the effect of rendering many other life forms extinct and making the planet more hospitable for themselves – and in the long run for all oxygen-loving creatures, including us.

Human beings, like archaic cyanobacteria, have unconsciously altered the chemistry of the atmosphere with a cascade of consequences.

According to one controversial hypothesis, human impact began soon after the dawn of agriculture some 10,000 years ago.

Clearing of forests for farmland raised the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2, familiar today as the main greenhouse gas) in the air, forestalling a return to Ice Age conditions. A corollary to this hypothesis holds that the socalled Little Ice Age

(cooler temperatures that prevailed notably in Europe, c1300-1850) reached its coldest depths due to reforestation that followed in the wake of the Black Death (134752) and the depopulation of the Americas that resulted from introduced diseases after 1492.

These population catastrophes, the hypothesis maintains, allowed forests to overgrow former fields and meadows, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and thus lowering average temperatures.

The human impact on the atmosphere has been most visible (and smellable) in cities. Ancient authors complained of smoke in Rome. In the 12th century, Maimonides complained about the air quality of Cairo (as Egyptians justly do today). Smoke from wood, dung, straw and other fuels hung in the air of almost every city until dispersed by breezes. Coalburning, pioneered in a big way by London in Elizabethan times, made city air much worse. By the 19th century, industrial cities featured dangerously polluted air. London’s famous ‘pea-soupers’ caused a few unfortunates to walk into the Thames and drown. Veteran Glasgow newspaper editors knew to leave extra space for obituaries during smog sieges. The nadir, at least in Britain, came in December 1952, when a coal-smoke fog enveloped London for a week, killing several thousand people.

Undertakers ran out of caskets.

Elevated mortality continued into March 1953, and epidemiologists now figure that the episode killed 12,000 Londoners over four months, roughly twice the rate achieved by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz in 1940-41.

Between 1850 and 2011, urban air pollution killed tens of millions of people around the world, probably more than died in both world wars combined. Today, while London and many cities in richer countries have tamed their air pollution problems, urban air around the world still kills perhaps 500,000 or 800,000 people annually. (For comparison, tobacco kills 5‑6 million and traffic accidents 1.1 million annually.)

Lately, most of the victims of urban

air pollution have been Chinese or Indian. Pollutants generated in China wafting over Korea and Japan kill about 12,000 people annually – which if done by other means would be a casus belli. For every person killed by air pollution, dozens are made sick.

The improvement in urban air since the 1960s in Europe, North America, and Japan, and a few other places besides, is a major shift. It has made cities such as Edinburgh (even known popularly as ‘Auld Reekie’) and London a good deal more agreeable than they were two generations ago.

Concerted citizen agitation about urban air quality in Britain dates to Victorian times. But effective action lagged well behind. While in the US some progress took place in scattered cases from the 1940s, often as a result of activism by women’s leagues, in Britain the key developments came in the 1950s and 1960s. Part of it was legislation and regulation, beginning in 1956. A bigger part resulted from fuel-switching: more natural gas and oil, and less coal.

That process gathered force in the 1960s, and by the 1980s was almost complete. A third reason behind the improvement was the relocation of polluting industries, in some cases to rural sites with cheaper land, but in many cases to other countries with cheaper labour and lower environmental standards.

In continental Europe, North America, and Japan, the history of urban air quality improvement has different chronologies than in Britain. But the main reasons are the same, and in every case the decades 1955-85 were the key ones. Eastern Europe was slower, because, under the communist regimes in place until 1989, citizen agitation did not count for much, and uneconomic coal-based dirty industries survived into the early 1990s. In Japan, little progress took place until citizen activism heated up in the late 1960s, after which very rapid changes followed. As in Britain, some of these ‘improvements’ were merely displacements; firms relocated their polluting industries to other

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countries to avoid regulation and to benefit from cheaper labour.

autumn millions upon millions of

Several cities in the developing world have tackled urban air pollution too. While, in general, urban air has worsened in recent decades in the cities of Latin America, Africa, and Asia, in Mexico City, to take a major example, the reverse is true. There, municipal authorities began to take air pollution seriously in the 1970s, after the city, once renowned for its clear air and beautiful vistas, had become synonymous with choking pollution. Among other measures, they restricted driving, required cleaner vehicle exhaust, and encouraged the relocation of industry. Mexico City in 2011 still has a serious air pollution problem, but it is far less severe than it would be without 35 years of antipollution policies.

smokestacks rebuild the cloud.

Regional and trans-border air pollution captured public attention only in the 1970s, although it existed long before. Roman lead smelting polluted Arctic air, as recorded in Greenland ice cores, as did Song Chinese coalburning ironworks. Plumes of sulphur dioxide, mainly from coal combustion, spread over eastern North America, causing Americans and Canadians to quarrel over who was responsible. British pollution drifted across the North Sea to Scandinavia. Early in the 21st century, the largest regional air pollution issue is the so-called Asian Brown Cloud, christened by an Indian scientist in 2002.

In winter months, it lodges over South Asia and the northern Indian Ocean, bringing respiratory problems and perhaps affecting regional climate. Monsoon rains wash it out of the atmosphere each April and May, but each

home fires, motor vehicles, and Global-scale impacts on the atmosphere may or may not date back 10,000 years, but indubitably existed by 1850. Fossil-fuel burning in Victorian times began the long build-up of atmospheric CO2 that today is at the heart of climate change concern. But CO2 and climate are only part of the story. Emissions of other gases, called chloroflourocarbons (or CFCs, used in refrigeration from 1930), led to the corrosion of the stratospheric ozone shield that kept harmful ultraviolet rays at bay.

Fortunately, when in the 1980s that fact became widely accepted, the political response was swift and effective, so that CFC emissions are in decline and the ozone shield is slowly recovering. By 2080 or so it should be as good as new.

More durable will be the impact of atmospheric nuclear tests, of which there were several hundred between 1945 and 1980. They released radiation equivalent to about 200-250 Chernobyls, raising the average human exposure by some 5%, and that of some people living downwind of tests by far more. The 1963 partial test-ban treaty ended atmospheric testing, except by France and China, which kept it up

The history of the 20th century is most often told through its world wars, the rise and fall of communism, or its economic upheavals. In Something New Under the Sun, J R McNeill gives us our first general account of what may prove to be the most significant dimension of the 20th century: its environmental history. To a degree unprecedented in human history, we have refashioned the Earth’s air, water, and soil, and the biosphere of which we are a part. Based on exhaustive research, McNeill’s story – a compelling blend of anecdotes, data and shrewd analysis – never preaches: it is a definitive account.

until 1980.

In the last 150 years, the atmosphere has had a tumultuous history. The next 150 bear watching too.

“In Mexico City... municipal authorities began to take air pollution seriously in the 1970s, after the city, once renowned for its clear air and beautiful vistas, had become synonymous with choking pollution.”

Expert Views: Atmospheric Pollution

The Hole in the Ozone Layer Jonathan Shanklin, Head of the Meteorology and Ozone Monitoring Unit, British Antarctic Survey Dobson Units (DU) are named after the Oxford professor who designed the first reliable device for measuring ozone in the 1920s, which is still in standard use today.

An average value of 300 DU equates to a layer 3mm thick if all the ozone above the observer was brought down to sea-level.

“In 2011, atmospheric conditions allowed widespread formation of the clouds, and ozone levels dropped by

nearly 40%.”

Just over 25 years ago, three scientists at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge published a paper in Nature, which described a dramatic decline in ozone amounts over their Halley station. This was the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, and one which has many lessons for the present.

Ozone is a gas that occurs naturally in the atmosphere, mostly in a broad zone in the lower stratosphere between about 12 and 40 km, with a peak at around 20 km. It is made when ultraviolet light breaks apart oxygen molecules, mostly high in the atmosphere above the tropics.

The ozone is then transported pole-wards by the ‘Brewer-Dobson’ circulation, at heights between about 20 and 40 km.

During the winter, a strong wind system or ‘polar vortex’ builds up around the winter pole, and this acts as a barrier to further poleward transport, so that a band of high ozone forms around the pole.

Inside the vortex, the stratosphere cools, in places below the condensation temperature of water vapour, resulting in the formation of Stratospheric Clouds, also known as ‘Nacreous’ or ‘Mother of Pearl’ Clouds, which are sometimes seen from Scotland or further south.

Chemical reactions can take place on the surface of such clouds, The Antarctic ozone hole at its largest in September 2009. © NOAA converting chlorine (or bromine) from chloro-fluorocarbons and allied chemicals into a more active form. When sunlight returns in the polar spring, photochemical reactions then destroy ozone at around 1% per day.

The Antarctic ozone hole in September 2011. © NOAA In the Antarctic, this process results in the ozone hole. Eventually, as the atmosphere warms, the clouds evaporate and the vortex breaks

down, allowing the ozone hole to fill in.

In general, the polar vortex around the Arctic is less stable, resulting in transport of ozone-rich air into the Arctic, even through the winter, and the temperature of the winter ozone layer is around 10° warmer than that over the Antarctic. This makes Stratospheric Clouds much less frequent in the north, so ozone depletion is usually less.

In 2011, atmospheric conditions allowed widespread formation of the clouds, and ozone levels dropped by nearly 40%. The ozone measuring station at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands recorded less than 250 Dobson Units towards the end of March, compared to the longterm average of around 380 DU. Curiously, because ozone amounts over the Arctic are generally higher than those over the Antarctic, this substantial depletion could not be described as an ozone hole. This is purely because the limit for an ozone hole over the Antarctic was set at 220 DU, and this has not been crossed in the north.

Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty now signed by all UN Member States, the release of ozone depleting gases into the atmosphere is severely restricted.

It is clear that the Protocol is working, and measurements show a slow decline in these gases near the surface. They are, however, very stable, and it won’t be until around 2075 that the final ozone hole is seen. Today, ozone levels when the ozone hole forms over Antarctica are probably past their minimum, but it will be a few more years yet before we can confidently say that we have seen the worst ever ozone hole. This is because the ‘weather’ of the stratosphere varies just as it does at the surface, so if we get an exceptionally cold winter stratosphere, we may yet see record levels of ozone depletion.

In the space of a decade, the ozone hole grew from being barely detectable to two-thirds of the Antarctic ozone layer disappearing each spring. This shows how fragile our atmosphere is, yet we continue putting additional gases into it, without fully understanding the consequences. In particular, many

Nacreous cloud over Anvers Island, Lemaire Channel, Antarctica. © D White

of those gases which contribute to the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ are effectively unregulated. Already, carbon dioxide levels have reached 394ppm, compared to a baseline of 280ppm during an average interglacial period, and are rising at a faster rate than at any time in thousands of years. Climate predictions clearly indicate that this will warm the surface of our planet (and cool the ozone layer) and, whilst this may benefit some, many people will suffer as a consequence.

Because CFCs and their substitutes are greenhouse gases, a side effect of protecting the ozone layer has been to reduce potential global warming. The Montreal Protocol shows that it is possible to take effective international action, and there is still time for a similar agreement that will cover all substances that may change the environment in which we all share.

Mother of pearl cloud over Lemaire Channel, Antarctica. © D White

Nacreous cloud. © British Antarctic Survey Mother of pearl clouds (also known as stratospheric or nacreous clouds) form at around 20km altitude in the ozone layer, and are instrumental in the process of ozone depletion. Because of their altitude they remain illuminated by the sun, long after sunset on the ground.

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The European Nitrogen Assessment

The challenge of integrating science, policy and societal choice… and what this means for us all Dr Clare Howard, European Nitrogen Assessment Co-ordinator, Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Edinburgh Nitrogen can be both challenging and rewarding. A key constituent of fertiliser (synthetic or organic), it rewards the farmer by increasing yields and feeding our population.

An estimated 50% of us would not be alive today without the use of synthetic fertilisers in the past 100 years. However, the challenging reality is that this nitrogen use comes at a cost: excess nitrogen escapes into our atmosphere, soil and waters, leading to a cascade of environmental effects.

Current policies are sector or pollutant specific, leading to a risk of ‘pollution swapping’; for example, reductions in water pollution can increase air pollution emissions. An integrated, comprehensive assessment of the nitrogen issue across Europe was needed, linking science and policy, taking stock and looking to the future. The European Nitrogen Assessment (ENA), developed by around 200 scientists over five years, has addressed this need. Its completion was a huge challenge in itself, but it is an important reference, outlining the science and identifying possible solutions.

The ENA covered the length and breadth of the nitrogen issue, from key biogeochemical processes, through to integrating science and policy for the future.

Five key threats to society were identified; they impact on our health and ecosystem health, and they have substantial economic consequences. The assessment highlighted that at least ten million people in Europe are potentially exposed to drinking water with nitrate concentrations above recommended levels. Also, nitrogen-based air pollution from agriculture, industry and traffic in urban areas contributes to particulate matter air pollution, which is reducing life expectancy by several months across much of central Europe.

The costs of all this soon mount up, and it is estimated that nitrogen pollution to the European Union causes £60-£280 billion worth of damage to human health,

ecosystems and climate every year.

SOCIETAL CONSUMPTION

This works out at more than double

PATTERNS

the extra income gained from using

Energy and transport saving

nitrogen fertilisers in European

measures (6) would save much

agriculture. Threats from nitrogen also include decreasing terrestrial biodiversity (at least 10% loss of plant diversity over two-thirds of European forests from atmospheric nitrogen deposition), plus toxic algal blooms and dead zones in the North, Adriatic and Baltic seas, and coastal Brittany. Nitrogen also interacts with climate, through the production of Nitrous Oxide (N2O, a greenhouse gas which is 300 times stronger than CO2), especially from livestock farming systems. Nitrogen and carbon cycling are also closely linked; for example, nitrogen deposition on forest ecosystems

of the nitrogen entering our environment in the first place, whilst lowering the human consumption of animal protein (7) would also have a significant effect.

This is due to the large nitrogen burden of raising livestock. During each stage of food production there are nitrogen losses, and meat is at the end of the chain: 85% of fertiliser use in Europe grows crops to feed our livestock, rather than people directly. Reducing meat consumption may be an unpopular message, but reduction to recommended levels for health

helps to increase carbon removal

would already have an impact on

from the atmosphere. The overall

nitrogen use.

net effect is quite complicated to

These are the challenges. And the reward? Enough food to feed

determine, but the assessment has made the first attempt at this, showing that the climate warming and cooling effects of nitrogen roughly balance, and that societal

our growing population – while minimising the impacts to our

The ENA was launched, and the ‘Edinburgh Declaration’ on nitrogen management (www. nitrogen2011. org/edinburgh_ declaration) was agreed, in April 2011. ENA chapters are free to download from www.nine-esf.org/ ENA and hard copies are available from Cambridge University Press.

health and that of our environment.

costs are dominated by threats to human health and ecosystems.

Seven key actions were developed, representing major challenges for

“50% of us would not be alive today without the use of synthetic fertilisers.”

the future: AGRICULTURE Improving nitrogen use efficiency in crop (1) and animal (2) production, as well as improving storage and application of manure processes (3), will go a long way towards improving the situation, when the risk of pollution swapping is considered.

TRANSPORT AND INDUSTRY

Five key threats to society were identified.

Further development and use of low-emission combustion and energy efficient systems (4) will reduce health effects (with clear climate co-benefits).

WASTEWATER TREATMENT We currently waste the reactive nitrogen (and the energy to create it) in our sewage, by converting it back to un-reactive N2. Recycling nitrogen (and phosphorus) from waste water plants (5) is therefore a major future challenge.

© Mike Robinson

On the Map: Scotland

Scotland: Mapping the Nation Christopher Fleet, Senior Map Curator, National Library of Scotland Margaret Wilkes, Chair, RSGS Collections Committee Charles W J Withers, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Edinburgh

Donald Moir (RSGS Secretary, 1949-86) had a great interest in the early maps of Scotland, and his desire to see a full bibliographical listing of these was instrumental in RSGS’s publication in 1973 and 1983 of the two volumes of The Early Maps of Scotland, still a key reference work.

Scotland: Mapping the Nation, though different in concept, builds on this important work by the RSGS.

Professor Withers will speak to an RSGS audience about this new book at a talk in Edinburgh on 23rd November 2011; Christopher Fleet will also give an RSGS talk about the book, in Glasgow on 12th January 2012.

Both talks will be given in the afternoon.

23rd

November

+

12th

January

“I am told there are people who do not care for maps, and I find it hard to believe”.

There will be few readers of this magazine who will not share this view of R L Stevenson about maps.

Maps are commonplace yet fascinating objects – selective pictures of our world, or parts of it; everyday objects, portable paper things and also electronic images. Maps also intrigue: they are deceitful devices – not at all mirrors to the world, but systematic and scaled constructions of it. And because maps are not mirrors to the world, but are made by someone for a purpose, they, their makers and users and audiences have an equally intriguing history.

These issues to do with maps as cultural and historical objects, with map making as the processes by which the world is pictured and made portable, and with map history as the study of the meanings attached to both object and process over time, are the central focus of Scotland: Mapping the Nation, the result of collaboration between Birlinn, the leading Edinburgh-based publisher, and the National Library of Scotland whose Map Division supplied the great majority of the many map images reproduced in the volume. The book is the first full-length systematic study of Scottish maps, map makers and map history for over 30 years.

When first mapped, Scotland was not, properly, Scotland. Ptolemy’s map of about the first century AD not only gets the country’s ‘true’ orientation wrong, with the effect that Scotland is shown skewed through 90°, but the land

in question was not known as ‘Scotland’.

In early medieval maps, too, Scotland is shown (if mapped at all) as peripheral, a marginal fragment to a map world then centred upon Jerusalem and the Mediterranean. Scotland’s national shape first appears as a map subject in the mid 16th century. By the later 16th century, thanks largely to the efforts of the native-born Timothy Pont, Scotland’s contents and dimensions were well known.

With Pont’s maps forming the basis to Joan Blaeu’s 1654 Theatrum Atlas Novus, Scotland’s first ‘atlas’, there is a case to be made that, by the mid 17th century, Scotland was amongst Europe’s best mapped nations.

of the nation in systematic and symbolic ways. Thematic maps have long been current. Military maps are amongst the most important in this context: maps from the 1540s showing defensible sites, for example, or as projected spaces as in several of Cromwell’s ‘Citadells’ in the mid 1650s, and few countries have as rich a military map record as the images produced by the work of the Board of Ordnance from 1683. As Roy mapped Scotland for military purposes, his marine counterpart, the Orcadian Murdoch Mackenzie, established new standards in mapping the country’s seas and coasts: between them, they provided the foundations for Ordnance Survey and the Hydrographic Office.

From that period, Scots became their nation’s map makers (if not always its map publishers): John Adair worked on the nation’s coasts, William Roy oversaw the Military Survey in the wake of the Battle of Culloden, John Ainslie produced maps of Enlightenment Edinburgh. From the mid 18th century, dozens of surveyors were putting town and country to cartographic order. Scotland’s maps were not just topographic, showing the physical dimensions

In the 19th century, maps commonly became documents of social survey, plotting new landscapes of improvement in the countryside, and, in the cities, being used as instruments of political management: for how can any government serve (or even monitor) its people’s needs if they do not know what, and who, is where? Maps were produced for almost every social need: tourist maps, race course maps, fishing maps, cartoon

Ptolemy’s map of Scotland, here reproduced in a mid 17th century copy, was based not on direct survey but upon others’ earlier errors of latitude and longitude. Source: Joan Blaeu, ‘Insulae Albion et Hibernia’, from Atlas Novus (1654).

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Robert Gordon of Straloch’s Scotia Regnum [Scotland the Kingdom] was the principal map of Scotland to appear in Blaeu’s Atlas Novus. Robert Gordon added to several of Pont’s maps and contributed his own to the Blaeu publication.

Source: Robert Gordon, Scotia Regnum (1654).

maps, whisky maps and even ‘dissected maps’ (jigsaws) to instruct the young.

What we understand of Scotland’s geography, then and now, is profoundly a matter of Scotland’s map history. We use maps all the time in one way or another – in our cars, on mountainsides, to teach, to find our way from place to place. We know how to map ‘read’. But few of us know how to map ‘make’, or how the techniques of such making have changed over time, in relation to different audiences and with different ends in view.

Very few of us will ever voyage beyond the Earth’s bounds and look down upon the shapes of continents and seas. Our image

and understanding of the shape of nations, of where things are in relation to one another, comes (usually) not from first-hand encounter, but from maps. Of course, nations too give rise to map makers: Scotland has a rich and distinguished tradition of map makers from Pont, Adair, Roy and Ainslie, and of map making institutions such as the Bartholomew map making firm. This book shows too how maps have profoundly shaped our image of Scotland as a nation. As R L Stevenson also perceptively remarked, “Scotland is undefinable: it has no unity except upon the map”. This book shows how and why Stevenson was right.

This sampler map shows how geography and the shape of the nation could be learnt through needlework and map making.

Source: Margaret Montgomery, A Map of Scotland (on linen as a sampler) (c1800).

Scotland: Mapping the Nation was published in September 2011 and is our Reader Offer this quarter (see back page).

“By the later 16th century, thanks largely to the efforts of the native-born Timothy Pont, Scotland’s contents and dimensions were well known.”

All map images are reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland.

This image, showing the barracks at Bernera near Glenelg, is typical of many produced by the Board of Ordnance, with its topographical survey and military planning as the end in view: note the military engineer in the foreground.

Source: [John Henry Bastide], A Prospect of that Part of the Land and Sea Adjacent to the Barrack (1720).

Expert Views: Atmospheric Pollution

Black Triangle Turns Green

Restoration of mountain ecosystems damaged by acid rain in the Czech Republic Alua Suleimenova, Undergraduate Student, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh

“The problem of acid rain is not limited to the area of the Black Triangle.

Many other countries such as the USA, Russia, China, South Africa and India also experience acid deposition...”

There is a certain region in Central Europe which is called the Black Triangle, where Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic come together. Historically it has been one of the most heavily industrialized, and as a result one of the most polluted, areas in the world. The main source of contamination has been associated with open-cast mining. By the 1960s, most of the historic mining districts had been explored and many of them had been exploited.

Nowadays the primary source of pollution comes from ligniteburning power plants, which annually emit three million tonnes of SO2 and one million tonnes of NO2. In the air, these gases combine with water droplets and precipitate to the ground in the form of wet deposition as rain, fog, hail or snow, or as dry gaseous deposition. As the name implies, acid precipitation has an abnormally high acidity, meaning low pH, usually below 5.0.

the Czech Republic, to examine the effect of restoration on the environment, is supervised by the Czech Technical University in Prague. Over the last 20 years, it has received social and economic support from different international organizations, including the Earthwatch Institute, an environmental charity which involves volunteers on two-week research field projects in the Czech part of the Black Triangle.

Being supported by the University of Edinburgh, I had a chance to participate in this volunteer scheme and become a member of the research team in June 2011. Our field camp was based in the Jizera Mountains, which cover several nature reserves and important headwaters. However, on a higher altitude, that fascinating landscape was combined with the disharmony of tree cemeteries, which represent nothing but dead-looking stems weakened by acid rains and destroyed by bark beetles.

Power stations in the Black Triangle annually burn 80 million tonnes of lignite. Although lignite has a very low calorific value, it is considered a relatively inexpensive and readily available type of soft coal.

However, a lack of green technologies results in various environmental effects, ranging from soil acidification to fish decline and forest damage. After a pollution peak in 1987, the governments of Central European countries established the Black Triangle Regional Programme, which aimed to initiate a restoration project, to bring the levels of gas emissions into compliance with the European standards, and to install state-of-the-art technologies to achieve sustainable energy production.

Our research included surface waters control and precipitation monitoring. Bringing together rain and fog gauges, pH meters and oxygen-measuring devices, our team analysed different hydrological parameters of mountain water reservoirs, rivers and streams. In addition, we performed a comprehensive vegetation survey and forest inventory, to examine the establishment of pioneer species and to track and ensure regeneration success of Norway spruce, beech and mountain ash.

Compared to historic data, our results showed a positive trend towards lower sulphur content in the air. This pattern is reflected in a lower acidity of open waters and atmospheric precipitation. As a result, forest stands tend to retain fewer emissions and demonstrate higher vitality. However, the area of the Black Triangle faces some future challenges, such as increasing nitrogen emissions from industry, agriculture and transportation. In addition,

A monitoring project initiated in

potential global warming may bring a drop in water yield and quality, and extreme weather events.

The problem of acid rain is not limited to the area of the Black Triangle. Many other countries such as the USA, Russia, China, South Africa and India also experience acid deposition from their local sources of contamination. However, there are some other parts of the world which are affected by this problem indirectly due to transboundary air pollution. For instance, Scandinavian countries have a very strict environmental legislation, but every year they have to employ liming strategies to buffer acidity in local rivers and lakes, because most of their acid deposition comes from neighbouring European countries.

Evidently, to resolve this issue globally, it is essential to focus on long-term solutions and take preventive actions instead of developing end-of-the-pipe measures. In 1979, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) was passed at the international level to develop policies and regulations to curb air pollutants through exchanges of information, consultation, research and monitoring. In addition, to combat the problem it is essential to perceive it on a personal level, going beyond a ‘not-in-my-backyard’ approach. After joining the project in the Czech Republic, I realized that the situation in the Black Triangle is a ‘local global’ issue which once again proves the idea of Marshall McLuhan, “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.”

© Dr Josef Krecek, Professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague.

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Ash, Dust and Smoke Regional impacts of air pollution Peter Brimblecombe, School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia

We often think of air pollution as an urban process. However, far beyond the city boundaries, mining, cement and metal production, and even the superficially benign activity of farming, represent sources of pollutants. Dust and combustion products arise from the heavy industries, while agriculture perturbs the nitrogen cycle and disperses pesticides and pollen.

These processes, while important in changing the composition of our atmosphere, can seem less striking than some of the global impacts of geochemical processes seen in recent decades. Volcanic ash has been newsworthy and had an immediate impact, often more apparent than changes to the global atmosphere. The slow yet inexorable addition to our atmosphere of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, changing outgoing radiation and affecting climate, appears subtle in comparison with the drama and clarity of the links between geochemical pollutants and their impact on our society.

The spring of 2010 saw the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull on Iceland. Volcanic eruptions typically create only passing interest within the media, but in this case extensive disruption of air travel across the Atlantic and much of Europe made this event well known. However, the affect on air travel should not have come as a huge surprise.

In 1982, a British Airways 747 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Perth flew through volcanic ash over Indonesia; all four engines shut down. A few years later, a near-new KLM 747 descended into an ash cloud from Mount Redoubt over Alaska, and again all engines failed.

In addition to causing damage to jet engines, volcanic ash can affect instrumentation (for example, by blocking pitot tubes), and can sandblast windscreens and leading edges. The severity of these problems led to

the creation of Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres in the 1990s, to disseminate information on ash events. Even with this forecasting and monitoring, decision making is difficult, as engine manufacturers are uncertain over the threat posed by ash.

Typically, concentrations of between 0.2 and 2.0 milligrams of ash per cubic metre are seen as safe, but this has been raised to 4.0 mg, with airlines frequently arguing that the limits are overcautious.

The problems that ash creates for air travel have remained.

Ash from the Grimsvötn volcano was reported across northern Scotland on 24th May 2011, and deposits were observed on cars in Orkney. Flights into Scottish airspace were cancelled.

A month later, the previously quiet volcano Nabro erupted in Eritrea, disrupting air traffic into Luxor. These disruptions were insignificant compared to the potential for an overdue eruption of Katla, Eyjafjallajökull’s neighbour, which would have an unprecedented impact on transAtlantic air traffic.

The impact of wind-blown desert dust has been less evident in the British Isles. Historically, rain coloured by desert dust (blood rain) was seen as a portent of evil. The last really massive incursion of Saharan dust over the British Isles was in 1903, although smaller falls are not uncommon, and some 30 were reported in the last two decades of the 20th century. Further afield, the consequences are more regular and often serious.

The springtime appearance of dust blown from Central Asian deserts over China, Korea and Japan has caused much worry about health effects. The Korea Meteorological Administration has developed an elaborate forecasting system to predict these events. The year 2011 was feared to be especially bad, as China was facing one of the worst droughts in decades. The yellow

dust arrived in the first days of May and blanketed Korea.

The dust is often coated with pollutants picked up in its long travel over Asian cities, making it more harmful. This means that desert dust remains a serious health issue in many parts of the world.

The air of Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia is comparatively free of desert dust, but here problems arise with the choking smoke and haze from regional forest fires. These fires are frequently the result of forest clearance activities, but are enhanced during droughts that may become more frequent as our climate changes. There is much physiological evidence of respiratory effects of the smoke, and regional hospital admissions increase. There were notable forest fire haze incidents in September 1997 and August 2005, which represented $9 billion in losses to tourism, transportation and agriculture.

Indonesia’s worst air crash, Garuda 152, which killed 234 passengers and crew, was attributed to the haze event of 1997. The components of the haze responsible for the observed health outcomes remain uncertain, yet the concern led Southeast Asian nations to draw up the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002 to tackle the haze problem.

Despite being a major source, Indonesia has failed to ratify this agreement. As the smoke haze from Indonesia continues this year, Singapore fears that it will affect its Formula 1 Grand Prix.

These observations suggest that ash, dust and smoke will continue to cause great concern, despite mitigation efforts.

“Ash from the Grimsvötn volcano was reported across northern Scotland on 24th May 2011, and deposits were observed on cars in Orkney.”

Country in Focus: Somalia

The East African Drought Professor John Briggs, University of Glasgow

“What has changed this time is the erosion of the adaptive capacity of the population to be able to deal with such expected challenges.”

The 2011 drought in East Africa has serious consequences for a number of countries, but especially for southern Somalia. Successive poor rainy seasons have taken their cumulative toll on water availability in the region, and especially in the semi-arid parts of the area, which of course comprises much of southern Somalia, along with southeastern Ethiopia and north-eastern Kenya. We have seen the disturbing images of Somali refugees moving southwards over the border into Kenya, into refugee camps which seem inexorably to increase in size.

However, given the severity of the famine which ensued from the drought, the loss of human life, although still tragically and unacceptably too high, has not been as great as might have been predicted, largely because of the existence now of early warning systems, as well as stockpiles of foodstuffs in strategically placed warehouses around the world.

Such emergency foodstuffs largely comprise foil-packed high-energy biscuits which have a long shelflife, are easy to transport quickly to the affected areas, and provide an immediate response to hunger which buys time before more palatable grain supplies arrive.

Hence, the images from the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, of mass drops of bags of grain to starving people from the rear of Hercules aircraft, are rather less obvious today.

Nonetheless, this does raise the question as to why the present drought in the region should have had such serious consequences for Somalia, not only given the way in which droughts over the last couple of decades in other parts of Africa have been managed so relatively effectively, but also why the drought is not having the same dramatic negative impact elsewhere in East Africa. As ever, the explanation is not simple and involves a number of inter-related factors, but perhaps

a key one is bound up with the political situation in Somalia itself.

Somalia is sadly a classic example of the archetypal failed state. It has lacked anything recognisable as a central government for over two decades, and its national space, if that is what it can be called, is dominated by a patchwork of militias, tribal groups and clan groups whose power ebbs and flows over time. Mogadishu, the erstwhile capital, is run by different warlords in different parts of the city, and, of course, the well-publicised pirates control much of Somalia’s coast. Not only is there no political responsibility shown for the domestic population, which might have provided some mitigation against the famine in the first place, but there is no government with which relief organisations might be able to engage once the famine has set in. Those people affected by the drought and famine have little choice but to go elsewhere, where there will be exactly this kind of support for them. Those who stay in Somalia have to take their chance.

However important this factor might be, though, there are other things going on. Over the last couple of decades, the resilience of pastoralist herders in the region has been steadily eroded. People who live in these areas are welladapted in the long-term to the harshness of the environment and with having to deal with regular drought conditions. This has been part and parcel of the pastoralists’ economy and society over centuries. But with grazing areas becoming less accessible because of political instability (it can be life-threatening for herders to take their livestock to grazing areas which have recently fallen into the hands of a new and particularly

aggressive clan or militia), and with the collapse of the animal health care programme in the region, herd sizes (and quality) have been dwindling steadily, such that when the major pressure from drought comes on, there is no longer the capacity to deal with it.

Previously, one typical strategy at these stress times was to sell off the surplus of cattle built up in the good years, to generate cash to see people over the hard times.

A small breeding herd would be kept and protected, and when the drought conditions ended, the herd would be rebuilt.

However, when the herd has already been weakened over a sustained period, this management system breaks down. The problem has also been exacerbated by the movement into these drier, fragile zones of people displaced from other parts of the region. As the pressure to commercialise farming into bigger farms in the better-watered areas increases, people get pushed out and migrate to drier areas, and, in turn, push out people from there, so that eventually there are groups left who have little choice but to move into areas such as the semi-arid areas which are the current focus, which do not have the capacity to absorb these people even under normal conditions, let alone when extreme conditions develop, as they inevitably will.

Frankly, there is absolutely no surprise about the current drought in East Africa – it is part and parcel of the climatic rhythm of the region in both the mediumand long-terms, regardless of present debates of climate change scenarios. What has changed this time is the erosion of the adaptive capacity of the population to be able to deal with such expected challenges.

The

Geographer

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Autumn 2011

Growing Out of Famine Peter John Meiklem, Oxfam Scotland Abdullah Ahmed Ali is something of an inspiration. The 59 year old and his family have been badly hit by the ongoing food crisis in East Africa; he is one of the hundreds of thousands who have walked the long and often dangerous road to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, the biggest temporary settlement of its kind in the world – with a population of more than 350,000, it shelters roughly the same number of people as Aberdeen and Dundee combined.

those fighting hardship in some of the most testing conditions on the planet. The facts, viewed in isolation, are bleak. Famine has been declared in large chunks of southern Somalia, with a strong likelihood that other regions in that country will soon follow suit; there is food crisis in Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, affecting more than 10 million people; thousands are already dead, many of them children; life-sustaining livestock has been wiped out; thousands of displaced people have walked for days to enter refugee camps which, although basic, offer the promise of food, water, shelter and sanitation.

Ali is more than an inhabitant of this enormous refuge; he is one of those men and women tasked with building and maintaining the camp’s The situation infrastructure, has numerous working not just to causes: the worst support his family drought to hit with the money he the region in 60 earns, but also to years; in-country help the thousands infrastructures of East Africans Abdullah Ahmed Ali © Oxfam weakened by like him who have decades of under-investment; been hit by the worst food crisis poor decision-making by local to impact upon their continent in and international governments; 60 years. and finally the effects of longAli is a participant in one of standing internal conflicts.

Oxfam’s cash-for-work schemes, one of the many ways we have of providing real and lasting support to communities in the affected areas. Ali receives around 500 Kenyan Shillings per day, in return for the essential work he does building latrines. Others like him report on dead livestock so they can be removed before spreading disease, or they clear new land for relocated families, or dispose of the discarded rubbish which litters parts of the camp.

Ali says, “In the camp we don’t get any sugar or vegetables, so the income I gain will be spent on buying more variety of food for my family. Without this job I would just be wandering around looking for any work.”

Although far from a happy story, Ali’s tale is indicative of the bravery and energy shown by

Yet to confuse a dire situation with a hopeless one would be a mistake. Aid is getting through to families in the camps, 47 tonnes of it arriving in an Oxfam flight to Somalian capital Mogadishu in July. Like the cash-for-work programme, this is the kind of aid designed to let people help themselves. There are miles of piping to bring water supplies closer to families; jerry cans, so that water can be moved through the camps; soap, so that people can keep themselves clean and therefore combat the spread of disease. This short-term work is essential in supporting communities to maintain both human life and dignity.

GROW. The campaign is designed to alter the international food system, with the goal of improving food security across the planet. Strengthening the position of small-scale farmers and pastoralists sits at the heart of this new campaign. With the right support, communities such as those currently struggling in East Africa will be better positioned to tackle whatever shocks may occur in the future.

One way to do this is to secure more investment for smallscale farmers and pastoralist communities. It is telling that, between 1983 and 2006, the share of agriculture in Official Development Assistance (ODA – a widely-used measurement for international aid spending) fell from 20.4% to only 3.7%.

Simply put – local, small-scale farmers need more support to feed themselves and their communities. Training, droughtresistant seed, livestock care, and new equipment could improve agricultural yields.

This is one way of turning the commitment and energy of Ali, and the hundreds of thousands of people like him across Africa, into a real and lasting solution to the regrettable, but preventable, problem of food crisis and famine.

In the longer term, there is other work which is equally important.

This summer, Oxfam launched its biggest ever campaign, called Building latrines at Dadaab © Oxfam

“In the camp we don’t get any sugar or vegetables, so the income I gain will be spent on buying more variety of food for my family.

Without this job I would just be wandering around looking for any work.”

Opinions: On the Map Atmospheric Pollution

Fog, smoke and driving mirrors Frank Norris, RSGS Member, Glasgow

“...just when we thought the air pollution problem had been solved, a new type of smog appeared, formed by a photochemical reaction of vehicle exhaust fumes with sunlight.”

Air pollution and smoke have been a problem with us for hundreds of years. Even in Roman times, they posed difficulties to the ordinary citizens of Rome. Seneca the Younger wrote in AD 61 about “the heavy air of Rome and the stink of its smoky chimneys pouring forth pestilential vapours and soot”. In England in 1306, Edward I prohibited the use of coal fires, imposing the threat of the death penalty. Almost nobody stopped burning coal.

Queen Elizabeth I also tried when Parliament was sitting in London, but again this was largely ignored.

With the Industrial Revolution and a burgeoning population, the level of noxious fumes entering the atmosphere reached record heights. With winter conditions, when there was no wind, and cold air was trapped and lay motionless, particles of coal-soot and dirt would attach themselves to the droplets of moisture. This was a lethal mixture and it had a severe effect on the health of the population. London was especially affected, with 1,150 excess deaths in 1873, followed by similar events in 1880, 1882 and 1891. Scottish cities were not exempt, and one episode in 1909 led to the death of 1,063 Glasgow residents.

The word ‘smog’ (the combination of smoke and fog) was attributed to one of the speakers at the Public Health Congress in 1905, Dr Antoine Des Voex, and first appeared in the Daily Graphic on 26th July 1905.

Any of us who have lived through the 1950s will remember the increased number of smog events each year, some so dense that they were given the name ‘pea-soupers’. There were regular tales of people walking into lamp-posts. It caused chaos with traffic and there were many accidents. The most severe smog event occurred in London in December 1952, when it lasted for five days and extended out of

the city by 50 km. Visibility was down to a few yards, and traffic had to be guided through the streets by men carrying torches and lanterns. Excess deaths reached 4,000 in four days, and upwards of 8,000 died from its toxic effects in the weeks following the event.

This episode was so disastrous that it led to the Clean Air Act of 1956. This involved a massive change in the habits of the public as smokeless zones were introduced. Converting everyone to heat their homes using electricity, gas, or smokeless fuel on domestic fires obviously could not just happen overnight, and it took several years before smokeless zones eventually covered the whole of the UK. In December 1962, however, several cities suffered from a thick layer of smog for three days. In Glasgow, the number of pneumonia cases trebled. The Ministry of Health warned those with breathing problems to stay indoors and close their windows, and urged people to cover their mouths with masks or scarves.

In 1968, the Clean Air Act was consequently revised. Industries using coal, gas and other fuels were ordered to use tall chimneys. New power stations were required to be built away from built-up areas. Once the air eventually improved, cities began a programme of cleaning off the sooty grime to reveal some wonderful stone buildings.

Then, just when we thought the air pollution problem had been solved, a new type of smog appeared, formed by a photochemical reaction of vehicle exhaust fumes with sunlight. This type of smog began to increase in proportion to the increased number of vehicles in our city streets. It forms when there is the right combination of heat, still air, sunlight and high use of road vehicles.

Vehicle emissions of nitrogen compounds and hydrocarbons react with sunlight to produce new pollutants such as ozone,

sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide. This new smog, sometimes referred to as ‘Los Angeles smog’ as this was the first city to experience it, is now found in Beijing, London, Mexico City, and most cities in the world today.

It is just as deadly as the old smog, and older people with problems such as asthma, bronchitis and emphysema are particularly vulnerable. The ozone and polluting particles are called PM10s, and the UK government is monitoring the levels in our cities. As reported in the media in August, the UK has failed to reduce these sufficiently to conform to EU guidelines, and has had to ask for more time to come in line with these new regulations.

Hope Street in Glasgow is an example. Due to the density of traffic and the high buildings on each side (at the bottom), it has become known as ‘The Hope Street Canyon’ and is one of the worst polluted sites in UK. So perhaps, next time you are shopping in town on a calm sunny day, spare a thought for the quality of the air.

Air quality monitoring station, Hope Street, Glasgow.

The

Geographer

16-17

Autumn 2011

The arguments for and against the incineration of waste Stan Blackley, Chief Executive, Friends of the Earth Scotland

Across Scotland, more and more local communities are finding themselves placed in the position of having to fight a campaign against a proposed waste incinerator in their area.

The number of proposed waste incinerators has increased significantly in recent years, leading to a resurgence in public anti-incinerator opinion. But if the Scottish Government sees ‘waste-to-energy’ as part of the way forward, then are these communities right to object?

The incineration of waste converts it into ash, flue gases, particulates and heat. Those in favour of incineration state that it considerably reduces the volume of the waste going to landfill, and allows for greater recovery of items such as metals from the waste burned, while those who argue against counter that the waste remaining after incineration, usually ash, contains a concentrated cocktail of poisonous compounds that can contaminate land, water and the food chain when placed into landfill.

In some countries, such as Denmark, waste incineration produces more than 5% of electricity consumption and more than 15% of total domestic heat consumption, through steam-powered turbines and localised combined heat and power facilities supporting district heating schemes. It has been argued that this type of electricity and heat production replaces the need, in part at least, for more polluting coal, oil and gas-fired power plants.

Denmark currently burns more than half of its municipal waste, while, at the other end of the scale, countries such as Ireland and Greece have chosen not to incinerate any waste at all.

Campaigners in these countries have successfully argued that incineration requires a constant source and high level of waste to keep the fires burning, and to meet this demand local authorities will often abandon

recycling and waste reduction plans altogether. Furthermore, they claim that incineration doesn’t actually save energy in the long run because the burnt waste is not recycled, meaning that more raw materials have to be used to replace that burnt material.

None of us wants an incinerator in our local area, and those people living near to an incinerator plant or a proposed site are right to be concerned.

Incinerators can emit toxic gases, nitrogen oxide, heavy metals and fine particulates, even after the filtering and scrubbing of the flue gases, and many of these are pernicious contaminants that pass from the atmosphere into the human system and are known to cause cancers and infertility. Who wants that on their doorstep?

However, proponents of incineration argue that criticism and campaigning activity by organisations such as Friends of the Earth Scotland in the past has successfully led to considerable improvements in the technology, regulation and processes used, and that this has made incineration cleaner, safer and more environmentally friendly.

There are currently proposals for around 20 new waste incinerators in Scotland. If all of these are built, we will burn around two million tonnes of waste every year, adding around 10% to Scotland’s carbon footprint by 2020, at a time when we are trying to reduce our carbon emissions and meet the worldleading targets contained in the Scottish Climate Change Act. If you add in the carbon cost of producing the waste materials in the first place, then it’s clear that there is a double cost to the climate, and this has to be a compelling argument against the incineration of waste.

Friends of the Earth Scotland accepts that there are a growing number of arguments in favour of waste incineration. However,

we reject the view that waste incineration contributes towards a zero waste society, or that it is a renewable source of energy.

Instead of producing and then burning waste, we should be aiming to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place, and reclaiming, reusing and recycling as much of what we produce as possible. Our waste should be treated as a resource, rather than a fuel, and our electricity and heat needs should be produced through a broad mix of clean, safe, renewable technologies instead.

The cost of building and operating waste incinerators or providing and managing landfill sites is significant. If the money we spend on these was diverted at least in part towards waste minimisation, the need for waste disposal could be enormously reduced and there would likely be no need to build waste incinerators in Scotland in the first place.

“There are currently proposals for around 20 new waste incinerators in Scotland.

If all of these are built, we will burn around two million tonnes of waste every year, adding around 10% to Scotland’s carbon footprint by 2020.”

Education

RSGS Honours Horrible Geography Author Anita Ganeri has been presented with the RSGS’s Tivy Education Medal, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to geographical education. Her awardwinning series of Horrible Geography books has sold almost two million copies, and has been translated into more than 20 languages.

Discussing the inspiration behind the series, Anita has said, “Well, geography is about the world around you so I spend a lot of time staring out of my window! In between staring, I get information from books, TV programmes, magazines and the internet. The trouble is, finding out about deserts or poles is so fascinating, I tend to get carried away and do far more research than I can cram into the book.”

Anita Ganeri’s medal presentation was attended by some young fans.

RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson said, “Anita has been aptly praised across the board for her brilliant Horrible Geography series of books. These fact-filled books for kids are not only highly entertaining but great for providing quality explanations for geographical phenomena. This Medal is really our way of saying thank you for the fantastic work she has done in making geography fun and accessible for all ages.”

Great opportunities to help future Scottish school examinations?

Erica Caldwell & Mike Robinson Members may be interested to know that RSGS is working with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to gather views and help influence the direction of the current developments at ‘National 4 and 5’ which will replace the Standard Grade and Intermediate examinations in the 2014 diet, the Higher with new Higher in 2015, and the Advanced Higher with new AH in 2016.

Feedback for all these qualifications is requested by SQA, and it is vital that teachers and academics add their comments online, at www. sqa.org.uk/sqa/34714.html.

These comments will help the design teams gauge reaction to their proposals and shape further changes, and it is to be welcomed that such a level of consultation is being undertaken.

For those familiar with SQA documents, it is important to note that the new ones are rather different, and have a ‘lighter touch’ (that is, they lack the detail normally expected from course documents). This is ostensibly to allow the personalisation of learning and choice, being encouraged through Curriculum for Excellence in earlier years, to continue. However, it does mean that, although Unit Specifications for National 4 and 5 are available

Geographical Style

from the end of August, the document for which teachers are waiting – the Course Assessment Specification – will not appear till the end of November. This should then show the kind of detail needed to help plan courses... rather late, perhaps, but a seemingly immutable timetable for SQA, which seems to be fixed.

The ‘added value’ section of the qualifications has caused much concern, with many teachers fearing a return to the Standard Grade Investigation with all its intrinsic problems of pressure/ workload for pupils and staff and security, among others. However, this is now being replaced with a ‘controlled assessment’, where candidates may prepare for the assessment but the assessment would be under exam conditions in school and not finished at home, and would be examined by SQA. A ‘watch this space’ moment!

There is a lot of development still to be done and much scope for continued input by practitioners.

Please try to take this opportunity, either directly through the SQA website, or by feeding us your thoughts, ideas and concerns, so we can all play a positive part in shaping these far-reaching changes.

This is a major change in Scottish education... it will be with us

DIY, a web-based music site, record label and magazine, has announced that this season it’s time to dress like a geography teacher - a very cool geography teacher that is – in corduroys, tweeds and brogues, heritage and vintage style items which have enjoyed a modern day makeover. See www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/articles/extra/weekly-fashion-fix-dress-like-ageography-teacher to follow the trend...

for many years, and it needs to be right for learners, teachers, universities, further education and employers. Help us to help SQA make the Curriculum for Excellence transition as practical and positive as we can.

Geology With the decision to remove Geology as a subject examinable

by SQA, a cross-curricular group is looking at Earth Science as a possible interdisciplinary route to address this. It is very disappointing that the term ‘geology’ is lost from the qualifications, especially in Scotland where we have the most amazing geology in the world... and where the study of the subject had its great beginnings.

Geography obviously has a huge role to play in ensuring Earth Science pervades the curriculum, but it has to be aware of its impact in terms of delivery time on the other content required in Geography itself.

SQA may need to be persuaded that Earth Science or Geology be reconsidered as a subject in its own right. Geology is a very popular subject at universities and has the big advantage, like Geography, that it creates employable people!

The

Geographer Acoustical greening of cities Noise pollution is a major EU environmental problem, well documented associated health impacts. The €3.9 million ECfunded ‘Hosanna’ project aims to contribute knowledge for obtaining sustainable large-scale and costeffective noise abatement in urban and rural areas.

The ‘Ground treatments’ strand, led by the OU’s Prof Keith Attenborough, is investigating noise control methods based on deploying trees, shrubs, roof gardens, vegetated facades, low barriers using stones, rough or cultivated ground and crops, instead of purpose-built noise fences and road surfaces. The results will inform city planners and engineers, and models for noisemapping software will help them define appropriate ‘action plans’ as required by the EU Directive on Noise.

Noise reduction via natural means has a positive correlation with air pollution, biodiversity, microclimate, water handling, energy efficiency and climate change. Optimising the noise abatement potential of green areas and surfaces will reduce the harmful effects of noise and provide highly cost-effective solutions for sustainable urban development. See www.greenercities.eu.

Town with Nicholas Crane To complement the recent BBC/ OU/Tern TV series, the OU has developed various free resources.

Step into the shoes of a community leader in ‘My Town’, and take action on crucial issues from the opening of a new shopping complex to the closure of a local factory. Read articles that delve further into the stories behind the four towns covered in the series (Perth, Ludlow, Scarborough and Totnes) as well as Athlone, Paisley, Wrexham, Corby and Newry. Order a free booklet, written by Gerry Mooney and Matt Staples, which looks at the topics of connections, migration, diversity and power. See www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/town.

University of Edinburgh Tephra In Quaternary Science Professor Andrew Dugmore, Dr Anthony Newton and Dr Kate Smith hosted the inaugural workshop of a new UK research group, Tephra In

Quaternary Science (TIQS), which aims to bring together individuals and groups with wide-ranging expertise to promote cross-group collaborations for optimizing and advancing tephrochronology. Thirtysix participants from a wide range of disciplines from the UK, Iceland, Hungary, Germany, Switzerland and France, met in Edinburgh, and began by discussing the lessons to be learned from the recent Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Future meetings will be held in London (2012) and Swansea (2013). See www. tephrabase.org/ tiqs2011.

University of the Highlands and Islands Clim-ATIC project comes to a close Since 2007, Clive Bowman of the Centre for Mountain Studies, based at Perth College UHI, has been leading an international collaborative community climate change adaptation project. The project has been extremely successful in engaging with over 30 different community stakeholder groups throughout northern Europe and Greenland, to trial and demonstrate adaptation capacity building, and to deliver some fantastic adaptations at a local level. Local projects include adaptation strategy development, electric cars, river flood management, winter tourism, risk response, dog sledging, woodfuel and biogas. The project has now come to a close, but not without recording all its successes and lessons in a unique set of multimedia case studies and a free online climate change adaptation training resource, available on www. climatechangeadaptation.info.

University of Stirling Homefields and wet meadows research in northern Iceland Stirling’s palaeo-environmental and geoarchaeological researchers have a long-standing interest in the creation, management and use of early homefields in Iceland.

Homefields, land adjacent to farm dwellings, were commonly intensively managed for fodder production from settlement c872 AD, and are one of the most important elements of the cultural landscape. Recent surveys have identified a series of wet meadows associated with homefields in different areas of Iceland. Their significance is now being addressed

by Rebecca Barclay, Huw Smith, Eileen Tisdall and Ian Simpson, with colleagues from Iceland’s Institute of Archaeology and the City University of New York.

This summer’s field season focussed on the meadow resources of two contrasting farms in the Mývatnssveit region of northern Iceland. Gautlönd is a large and successful farm surviving from the early Norse period to the present.

Viðatoft, settled from the Norse period but abandoned possibly as early as the 1100s, is unusual in that the homefield comprised a series of circular enclosures, dams and ditches in a tiered structure, indicating a labour-intensive form of water management to create wet meadow areas. The cultural and environmental record will be examined through pollen analyses and thin section micromorphology, and integrated with historical documentary sources. The researchers anticipate contributing new narratives of the use and management of wet meadows and their contribution to the sustainability of settlement in Iceland.

University News

The Open University in Scotland

18-19

Autumn 2011

Scottish Geographical Journal

The RSGS’s academic journal is available from Taylor & Francis on-line at www.tandf.co.uk/ journals/RSGJ or in hard copy. All RSGS members are entitled to receive the Scottish Geographical Journal for free. If you are not currently receiving the SGJ but would like to, please contact us by emailing enquiries@rsgs. org or phoning 01738 455050.

Making Connections

Treasure island tar sands Liz Murray, Head of Campaigns and Networks in Scotland, World Development Movement Madagascar is well known for its unique plants, invertebrates, fish, reptiles and mammals, an incredible 70% of which are not found anywhere else in the world.

A recent study by WWF described more than 600 new species that have been discovered in the last ten years alone.

Villagers who live in Bemolanga in the Melaky region (western Madagascar), where Total is exploring. © Macdonald Stainsby

Holly Rakotondralambo. © World Development Movement

Natural habitats in Madagascar already face multiple threats from deforestation, the illegal trade in wildlife, and agricultural practices.

But there is a new and direct threat to this biodiversity hotspot, and the livelihoods of people who live there, from the onshore mining of tar sands – the dirtiest of all fossil fuels.

To extract any useful oil from tar sands requires a vast amount of energy and water. The Indigenous First Nations people of Northern Alberta have had their land and water supplies ruined by tar sands mining. Oil companies have clearcut ancient boreal forests and strip-mined the soil across an area the size of Wales, leaving behind enormous toxic lakes that are linked to a variety of major health risks in neighbouring communities.

In Madagascar, French oil company Total is test-mining for tar sands

and heavy oil across a large area in western Madagascar. Extracting tar sands there could divert or pollute already scarce local water sources and land, and require a pipeline to be built across two national parks, risking a catastrophic oil spill.

Holly Rakotondralambo, a member of a coalition of Malagasy civil society organisations, said, “We have seen the devastation that has occurred in the Canadian tar sands mining areas. There is great poverty in Madagascar. Many people in the tar sands areas in Madagascar are small scale subsistence farmers who have had their land passed down through their families. They are afraid that they will lose their land or that it will get poisoned.”

People in Madagascar are the twelfth poorest in the world by GDP per capita, and the Malagasy economy was less than 1% of the UK’s in 2010. There is a strong argument that Madagascar needs to exploit its resources to generate jobs, education and healthcare.

Unfortunately this is not a project designed to lift anyone out of poverty. Jeremy Williams of Make Poverty History wrote, “Madagascar Oil has negotiated a deal that sees them keep 99% of profits for the

first decade, leaving just 1% for the government’s coffers. That increases to an 80/20 split for the second decade, and a 70/30 share for the third. It’s not an easy country to work in, and a hefty profit share is par for the course on a risky venture, but it’s still the most generous deal that’s ever been negotiated by an oil company.

To put that 1% in perspective, consider that Chad charges a 60% tax on profits from its oil, Norway keeps 78%, and Saudi Arabia can demand as much as 85%.”

There are likely to be few jobs for locals and little in it for the Malagasy government. But this is not just a problem for the local people to solve. The Royal Bank of Scotland has provided more than £300,000,000 of corporate finance to Total, which is leading the way in exploiting the Madagascan tar sands. The World Development Movement is calling on the UK government to force RBS to review its lending policies on fossil fuels.

Holly concludes “We urge UK politicians and banks to look at the example of Canadian tar sands mining and its devastating consequences, and to act now to ensure that this does not happen in Madagascar.”

What Geography Means To Me

An insight into the life of a working geographer

I

Philip Taylor

’ve always been fascinated by maps. I remember looking through my parents’ atlases with youthful wonderment, marvelling at the different world drawn on their pages to the one I knew. Shortly after receiving my first atlas, I recall feeling disgruntled that it was already out-of-date due to the shake-up of the Balkans.

In some ways, I was born at the right time to ease this frustration, as by the time I got to university, maps had widely become digital, accessible and regularly updated.

Web Development & GIS, Forest Research’s Centre for Human and Ecological Sciences

After studying an MSc in GIS, I now spend most of my time creating digital maps of the

future, using climate projections to predict conditions for forestry far into this century. I work for Forest Research, and take great pride in our role of using the best available science to map out what the coming decades might bring. We live in an ever-changing world, and these changes are monitored, recorded and modelled like never before, yet somehow I still can’t help romanticising the past.

These yearnings are well aligned with my other geographic passion, that of travel writing. I easily get immersed into the world of the author, particularly when the time and place seem distant to me. I see old maps as a travel book’s pictorial equivalent,

and perhaps that’s why my most-prized possession is not my GPS, nor my smart phone or PC, but an 1831 map of Norfolk – my county of birth – given to me by my parents when I turned 21. It’s no use to me to help me get around; it can’t show me where the nearest pub is, nor give me driving directions, and it definitely won’t help decide which trees to plant in the future.

But when I look across its discoloured detail, it offers something our dynamic, digital world seems not to: a moment in time that seems now to belong only to me – and I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

The

Geographer

Off The Beaten Track

20-21

Autumn 2011

Ballooning ~ on being part of the atmosphere Don Cameron

Ballooning began at Glasgow University, where Joseph Black discovered the first gas that was different from air, and later showed in the 1770s that a bladder full of hydrogen would rise to the ceiling.

But the honour must rest with France, where these ideas were first used on a large scale to allow human flight for the first time. The first hot air balloon was launched by the Montgolfier Brothers on 21st November 1783 and, only ten days later, their rival Professor Charles demonstrated the first gas balloon.

balloon (several times); the latest example was a balloon with a two-storey basket carrying 50 people. Unlike aeroplanes which must be shaped to reduce drag, balloons can be any shape and, over the years, techniques have been developed to produce many different special shapes. It often seems odd to trust one’s life to a frivolously shaped object high in the air, but each one is made to exacting aeronautical standards with stress calculations certified by the Civil Aviation Authority.

Modern hot air ballooning began around 1960. The traditional type of Montgolfier had depended on burning wood and straw in a brazier, and was hopelessly impractical. An American, Ed Yost, while working on a military contract, devised a balloon using modern manmade fabrics and controllable propane burners. There have been many developments over the last 50 years, but these two innovations remain the defining features of the modern hot air balloon. The idea was found to have no military value, but was great fun to fly, and a new sport began to grow.

Back in 1785, less than two years after the first ascent, Pilâtre de Rozier built a combination gas and hot air balloon.

The principle was sound, but flammable hydrogen and fire were not a good combination and it caught fire, killing de Rozier and his passenger. Yet the principle was sound. A gas balloon warms up in the sunshine, its gas expands, it rises and gas must be vented off. In the evening, the gas contracts and ballast must be thrown.

A gas balloon can only fly for three or four days. But if we use de Rozier’s idea, having a means to heat the gas to prevent it from cooling, the balloon will fly for much longer. Of course, we must use inert helium instead of the flammable hydrogen. In his honour, we still call the new balloons of this type ‘Rozieres’.

My own involvement began in the late 1960s. As a young graduate aeronautical engineer from Scotland, I had travelled south to join the Bristol Aeroplane Company.

At the weekends, I flew gliders, and it was in the bar of the Bristol Gliding Club that a group of seven of us decided to look into this American type of balloon. We enquired about buying one, but the American price seemed too dear, so we decided to build our own. The result was The Bristol Belle, in 1967 the first modern hot air balloon in Western Europe.

[It must be admitted that, after building our balloon, we realised that the American price had been reasonable!]

Cameron Balloons Ltd was started in 1970-71. Although ballooning is the oldest form of flight, the technology was new, and rapid development was possible. Burners became more powerful, baskets became more luxurious, and the envelope deflation systems became better. We built the world’s largest

The new Roziere-type balloons have taken all of the long-distance and long duration records awarded by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). They have been used for Atlantic crossings and even a race of balloons across the Atlantic, and for flights to the North Pole, and they have been the first balloons to circumnavigate the globe.

There are balloon championships, both at the world level organised by the FAI and at the national level. The task is usually to achieve precision. Although a balloon is thought of as unsteerable, a great deal can be done by a skillful pilot.

The wind is seldom blowing in the

same direction at every height and, by choosing altitude, the balloon can be steered somewhat.

Sometimes the competition director will set a target about ten miles downwind, and a good pilot will drop a marker within a metre of its centre.

The greatest of the balloon championships is the oldest. The Gordon Bennett race started in 1906 and is the oldest aeronautical event of any kind. Pure gas balloons take off from a common point, and try to fly as far as possible over three or four days. In 2010, the event started in Bristol.

The balloons crossed the Channel and flew to the south of France where many landed, but the more determined turned left and flew over the Mediterranean. The Swiss winners arrived at the shore of the Black Sea. The event is held in the country of the winners of two years before, so the 2012 event will be from Switzerland.

Balloons are flown just for fun around the world, and most flights are not record-breaking or competition flights. A typical flight will last for an hour, and is almost always a journey to an unknown destination – but that adds to its charm. It is always difficult to express the beauty of balloon flight. It is quite unlike being in an aeroplane. One is not charging through the atmosphere, but rather is part of it. Learning to fly a balloon is easier than learning an aeroplane, but knowledge of micrometeorology is something that the best pilots try to improve, and one can go on doing that for a lifetime.

Don Cameron has received the gold, silver and bronze medals of the British Royal Aero Club for his ballooning achievements, which include being the first man to cross the Sahara and the Alps by hot-air balloon, and making the first flight between the UK and what was then the USSR in 1990. In 1971, he established Cameron Balloons Ltd, the world’s largest manufacturer of hot-air balloons; the company has built more than 6,500 hot-air balloons and has been involved in many important world record projects. See www. cameronballoons. co.uk for more information.

Book Club

The Sage Handbook of Geomorphology

Robin Howie

Edited by Kenneth John Gregory and Andrew S Goudie

Hillwalking is a way of life for Robin Howie, hill-walking correspondent for The Scotsman, who is close to completing his tenth round of Munros, with one round completed after a hip replacement. His new collection of shorter, lower-level walks, from hill to glen and riverside, is designed to appeal to the whole family, and to those less sure of venturing to the high tops.

The book is a distillation of a lifetime of highs and lows, enhanced by the artist’s eye and the wordsmith’s descriptive powers.

Geomorphology is the study of the Earth’s diverse physical land-surface features and the dynamic processes that shape these features. Examining natural and anthropogenic processes, this handbook is a comprehensive exposition of the fundamentals of geomorphology that examines form, process, and history in the discipline. The four sections of the handbook cover ‘Foundations and Relevance’, ‘Techniques and Approaches’, ‘Process and Environment’, and ‘Environmental Change’. This will be a much-used and much-cited reference for researchers in Physical Geography and the Environmental Sciences.

The Great Ocean Conveyor Wally Broecker More than two decades ago, Wally Broecker discovered the link between ocean circulation and climate change, in particular how shutdowns of the Great Ocean Conveyor (the vast network of currents that circulate water, heat, and nutrients around the globe) triggered past ice ages. Today, he is among the researchers exploring how our planet’s climate system can abruptly ‘flip-flop’ from one state to another, and weighing the implications for the future.

Broecker provides a vivid account of the development of the science of abrupt climate change. He shows how scientists probe Earth’s distant past, and blend detective work with technological advances to try to predict the future. Rich with personal stories and insights, this book opens a tantalizing window onto how Earth science is practised.

Sunshine State James Miller Mark Burrows is an ‘invisible man’, a British secret agent adept at moving undetected through the most hostile environments. Summoned for one last mission, he must make contact with Charlie Ashe, his fearsome former colleague and brother-in-law.

Ashe has reappeared with a new name and a terrifying new agenda in the Storm Zone, a mysterious region racked by devastating hurricanes and inhabited by cults, criminal gangs and insurgent armies. The mission will force Burrows to question his loyalties and to understand that the greatest danger lies not with his target, but with the forces that seek to control the world around him.

fiction

Discovering the Trigger for Abrupt Climate Change

Scotland: Mapping the Nation Christopher Fleet, Charles W J Withers and Margaret Wilkes This is the first book to take maps seriously as a form of history, from the earliest representations of Scotland by Ptolemy in the second century AD, to the most recent form of Scotland’s mapping and geographical representation in GIS, satellite imagery and SatNav. Compiled by three experts who have spent their lives working with maps, this book offers a fascinating and thought-provoking perspective on Scottish history, beautifully illustrated with complete facsimiles and details of hundreds of the most significant manuscript and printed maps from the National Library of Scotland and other institutions, including those by Timothy Pont, Joan Blaeu and William Roy.

Reader Offer - only £25

including free p&p

Readers of The Geographer can purchase Scotland: Mapping the Nation for only £25 (RRP £30), including FREE p&p in the UK. Call 0845 370 0067 (office hours) and quote the reference ‘TG1011’.

Offer ends 31st December 2011.

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100 Scotsman Walks