Map of Biotech Crop Production Around the World

Reason Magazine links to an International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications report on the worldwide production of biotech crops. The report is full of good news dealing with food production including

As a result of consistent and substantial, crop productivity, economic, environmental and welfare benefits, a record 14 million small and large farmers in 25 countries planted 134 million hectares (330 million acres) in 2009, an increase of 7 percent or 9 million hectares (22 million acres) over 2008….

Record hectarages were reported for all four major biotech crops. For the first time, biotech soybean occupied more than three-quarters of the 90 million hectares of soybean globally, biotech cotton almost half of the 33 million hectares of global cotton, biotech maize over one-quarter of the 158 million hectares of global maize and biotech canola more than one-fifth of the 31 million hectares of global canola….

Notably, almost half (46 percent) of the global hectarage was planted by developing countries, expected to take the lead from industrial countries before 2015,…

Remarkably, of the 14 million beneficiary farmers, 90 percent or 13 million were small resource- poor farmers. These farmers are already benefiting from biotech crops like Bt [pest-resistant] cotton, and have enormous future potential with crops such as biotech rice, to be commercialized in the near term.

Quick notes: Right now the United States grows the plurality of biotech crops with forty-some percent of biotech cropland being in America. Brazil and Argentina are advancing South America's agriculture exports with higher yield biotech crops. Finally, while India's production of biotech crops is still low, it is growing and biotech foods should help with a potential food crisis much like the Green Revolution saved Latin America.

Earthquakes More Deadly Because of People

The news about earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Japan, and now Turkey have caused some in the public to wonder if earthquakes are happening more frequently. Unfortunately, there are those in the media, science, and religion who use these events to be noticed or spread their message.

Luckily, the AP has published an article talking about how earthquakes are more deadly these days. However, the higher death toll is because more population is living in poor housing near earthquake zones and not because the quakes are more powerful. As the article states, people do not die because the earth shakes but instead because things fall on people or other related damaging events like fires.

For those who worry about the divine in such things, they should remember Numbers 16:31-32 where whole groups are consumed by the earth during a quake. Also, earthquakes have been horribly deadly before as the 1556 Shaanxi quake killed over 800,000 people. Biblicaly and even recently things have been much worse. It is just that there are more people, more poor housing, and a global media to spread the news at the speed of light.

The Geography of Saving Soldier X's Life

From Michael Yon. Click to Enlarge.

In July 2009 a British soldier was accidentally shot in the in the abdomen and chest by his fellow countrymen. Losing blood, a lung, and on death's door, all seemed lost as the military bureaucracy of the Coalition forces was stuck and did little. Fortunately for this soldier, journalist Michael Yon was nearby. Yon began a worldwide effort to save the British soldier's life. The effort, shown on the map above, is told rivetingly on Yon's website. Be sure to read how the globalized, internet-connected world came together to save one man's life in this true military-medical adventure story.

Armenian Genocide Fight Once Again Returns to the United States

From the late 1800s to the end of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the Republic of Turkey, Ottoman and Kurdish forces massacred over a million Armenians in a program of ethnic cleansing. There were also genocidal programs against Assyrians, ethnic cleansing, both peaceful and violent, targeting Greeks, and other moments ethnic killings. The genocides were based on Turkish fears of minorities allying with foreigners, Turkish desire for the creation of a pure nation-state, and Islamic extremism. These events were truly tragic and prime examples of the darkside of humanity.

Today Turkey, Turkish-Americans, Armenia, and Armenian-Americans are locked in a battle over House Resolution 252 which is a non-binding resolution calling on President Obama to formally call the mass killings "genocide." Armenian-American groups are campaigning hard with ads and websites denouncing Turkish denial and Turkish-American lobbying efforts. Pro-Turkish responded by saying to call the killings "genocide" would harm relations with Turkey, that the Armenian ads are disrespectful, and by pointing out that there were/are Armenian terrorists.

The debate over "genocide" is one that the Turks have made worse by their repeated denials that anything happened, stating everyone suffered during the time in question, and by some locals oddly saying they have no idea of what happened to the Armenians because they all left on their own accord and did not tell the Turkish authorities where they went. Armenians have gone from "depressed-angry" because of the genocide to "bloodlust" because of Turkish denials. A diaspora group called the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) became the first international terrorist organization that was active in multiple theaters (rather than active in one country while merely fundraising in others like Irish republican groups). Today the ARF in Armenia is a socialist political party in the ruling coalition, the third-largest party and one time militant faction in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic which was involved in ethnic cleansing of Azeri Turks, and a member of the March 7th political alliance with Hezbollah in Lebanon (there have been reports that Hezbollah is intimidated by the ARF and will not enter Armenian villages). Internationally, the ARF is expansionist demanding much of the former ethnic Armenian territory be combined into a Greater Armenia.

Some feel that America needs to recognize the genocide to prevent others and close the sad chapter in history. Others state that America has no business in getting involved in a 100 year old historical battle between foreigners when more pressing issues are at hand. Many presidential candidates, including then Senator Obama, vowed to recognize the killings as genocide but other considerations such as Turkish-American relations have stopped any campaign pledge from becoming reality (though President Ronald Reagan described the killings as genocide in a proclamation). And thus the battle over history goes on and on as Armenian history diehards battle Turkish nationalist diehards while both sides attempt to get the United States, forty-three American states, and other countries involved.

Ukraine and CNN's Mixed-up Geography

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych has been having a very good time being president. He managed to get Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to back down, placated Russia by all but saying that the Black Sea Fleet can stay in Crimea past the 2017 deadline, and showed the West that he is an independent player by first traveling to Brussels and not Moscow.

However, he packed his time in the West with two big geographic errors. First, when discussing Serbia, Yanukovych confused Montenegro with Kosovo and followed it up by confusing North and South Ossetia. Sadly this is not the first time Montenegro and Kosovo have been mismatched by Yanukovych.

Meanwhile, CNN newsman Rick Sanchez thought the Galapagos Islands were actually the Hawaiian Islands... and he was using Google Earth at the time. On the plus side, the clip below proves CNN really does love their maps. Just look at all those maps!

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Geocurrents Takes on Continents

The geographers over at Geocurrents have two good introductory posts on why the generalized theory of "continents" is flawed. The series is started by Nonsense about Continents and finished with How Many Continents Are There? The posts briefly describe a point brought up in blogger Dr. Martin Lewis' book The Myth of Continents.

In my previous post, Where is Asia?, I wrote how Asia was an artificial construct made by the Greeks to describe the lands and people east of them. And how today what we consider Europe, Africa, and Asia actually spill into each other.

Other geographers feel that continents are a flawed way of studying and examining the world. Dr. Harm de Blij uses "geographic realms" in his textbooks books. These realms are lands of similar cultural traits and physical landforms.

Continents are a good starting point for learning about the world but as one advances one quickly realizes that the physical and cultural landscape is so much more interrelated and complex than first imagined.

Best Affordable Suburbs in America 2010

Business Week has released their study of the best affordable suburbs in the United States. One can navigate the report's website by clicking on the map of the states. Each state has a brief profile of the best affordable suburb.

The criteria was chosen by "the selected suburbs were limited to towns within 25 miles of the most populated city in the state, with populations of 5,000 to 60,000, median family incomes of $51,000 to $120,000, and lower-than-average crime rates. We weighted a variety of factors including livability (short commutes, low pollution, green space), education (well-educated residents, high test scores), crime (low personal and property crime), economy (high job growth, low unemployment rate, high family income), and affordability (median household income, cost of expenditures). Affordability was most heavily weighted in our calculations. We penalized places with bad weather, a lack of racial diversity, high divorce rates, and few children."

I understand most of the variables except racial diversity. Who cares if the suburb is overwhelmingly ethnic Vietnamese or practically an enclave of Sweden?