[breathing earth]

During my presentation yesterday for the Creative Writing & New Media Online Master's students (who met in Leicester f2f for one week) I referred to some interesting narratives that are merging story with geographic information and/or maps. Two projects I referred to were The 21 Steps and a school trip project by Emerson College. In line with my developing interest on the role of geographic information (and the like) in narratives, the following project fits right in - linking cultural narratives (of co2 emissions, births and deaths) with countries. Thanks to a tweet today by @fromthehip aka Ingrid Kopp, I found The Breathing Earth Simulation:


The countries in red (at the time of this screen capture) - US, China and Saudi Arabia - are "currently emmitting 1000 tonnes of CO2." It's also interesting to see how the birth/death rates compare:
Someone dies/is born every:
China: 3.5 seconds/1.8 seconds
Saudi Arabi: 8 minutes/42.7 seconds
US: 12.8 seconds/7.3 seconds

In Canada: 2.1 minutes/1.5 minutes
In the UK: 51.8 seconds/ 48.9 seconds - so in the UK deaths and births seem to be pretty balanced. While Greenland seems to be the country with the slowest death and birth rates: 20 hours/9.8 hours


The project is created by David Bleja.

[dr. julian murton on cbc radio]

Wowee! We know someone famous. Julian (related to the famous jam-making Della) is on CBC radio talking about his speciality: permafrost.

"Siberia's Methane Lakes

In parts of Siberia, small lakes are beginning to form on what used to be dry Arctic tundra.

They're nice to look at, but ultimately deadly for the global environment and everything in it.

They're called "thermokarst" lakes, caused by melting permafrost. And they're belching methane, one of the worst of the greenhouse gases.

Like that's not enough, the melt also threatens to release vast bogs of carbon dioxide. But nobody knows exactly how. Or why. Or when.

That shortage of research troubles Dr. Julian Murton. He's a member of the International Permafrost Association.

He's also Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex in England, and he joined us from Brighton.

Listen to his talk with Rick."

[pas de calais: day 4]

After day 3's excitement, on the final day we were content to finish some sampling and enjoy the sunset:

[pas de calais: day 3 = murder]

On the third day of the geological study-trip we found ourselves in the middle of a crime scene. A body had been found on the beach early that morning and the police were trying to discern whether it was an accident (the tide does come in VERY quickly there) or foul play. I surreptitiously spied:

[pas de calais: day 2]

[pas de calais: day 1]

I've just arrived back from assisting with a geological mission: luminescence dating (a good explanation is here) in the Pas de Calais region to discover *when* the land bridge linking France to England existed (stage 6 or stage 7....the great debate...apparently).

While the geologist scurried about digging, measuring, sampling, and cleaning sections I took in the views:

[dr. steve's ph.d graduation ceremony]

[blogging around the world]

I came across this excellent graphic that puts blogging in geographical perspective:




Interesting but not sure if the stats add up, especially given this recent article suggesting Japan as leading blog readers...