Blog 7

The Myrdalsjokull icecap









Blasts of hot lava and ash shot out of a recently active volcano in southern Iceland on Monday, March 22nd, and small tremors rocked the ground, a surge in activity that raised fears of a larger explosion at the nearby Katla volcano. When the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupts, Katla usually follows. But how soon I wonder? And Katla, located under the massive Myrdalsjokull icecap, threatens flooding and flying ice shards. (yes those long strange names are real, Iceland is weird) Saturday's eruption at Eyjafjallajokull which was dormant for almost 200 years, was a surprise for everyone, but some near by farmers had to move away to avoid further danger.
Iceland sits on a large volcanic hot spot in the Atlantic's mountain ridge. Eruptions, common throughout Iceland, are often triggered by seismic activity when the Earth's plates move and when magma from deep underground pushes its way to the surface. Like earthquakes, predicting the timing of volcanic eruptions is an imprecise science. Scientist use a devise called the Rictor Scale to measure how large earthquakes are, but we have no real way of measuring volcanic eruptions.

There are three main places where volcanoes normally occur along faults such as California's San Andreas fault line, along areas where plates overlapping one another such as in the Philippines and the Pacific ocean and in areas like Iceland, where two of the Earth's plates are moving apart from each other in a supposed spreading system.

The Past Katla eruptions have caused floods the size of the Amazon, and sent boulders as big as houses tumbling down valleys and roads. The last major eruption took place in 1918. The last big volcanic eruption in Iceland occurred in 2004 with the Grimsvotn volcano.



Here is a picture of Eyjafjallajokull erupting at night.




Here is a picture of Mt. Katla

A rotating skyscraper is slated to be built in Dubai. The structure, designed by Italian architect David Fisher, has floors that can each rotate independently of one another. Supposedly, the building will be powered entirely by wind and solar energy via outer solar panels and wind turbines between the floors. I'm curious to see how that works out. I'm also curious how you and your neighbors decide who gets the ocean view and when. I'm guessing it involves threats and a good amount of weapon brandishing. Condos are currently going for about $3,000 per square foot, or up words 3 to 32 million a piece.

Hit the Link below for a video including some computer animations of the building and an interview with the architect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq-QUkE1DGM&feature=player_embedded

The most interesting thing about this building will be that it will use the wind to its advantage with wind turbines, capturing power and making the building more than self sufficient. It will even give extra power to the city grid that it doesn't use.

Now its pretty obvious that the riches of Dubai are only going to last for so long, because when their oil runs out, what will be left? Dubai also has to rely heavily on the USA to buy its crude oil, otherwise they would not be quite as rich. So, what is the plan to keep making money later? Why of course all of the crazy buildings and tourist traps that they build with the oil money now. Building a huge modern commercial touristic city in which thousands of people will come visit every year (they hope anyway) and spend lots and lots of money.

What I think the rich oil families should be doing instead with all of that money is to put it to good use, and create jobs and buy food and needs for the people of their country. They should use this opportunity to use this advantage to catch up to developed countries, and build a stronger nation with freedom and opportunity. For Example, a positive education system, better public works, a better military, stronger economic investing, seeking new ways to trade and perform industrial functions. These are ways this Nation could become a world power, not just a tourist slide show. Dubai might be rich, but they are not mature.

Blog 5

This HDI (Human Development Index) is a great big feeding ground of information that measures a country's many achievements in three main parts of human development. These not in any order are health, knowledge, and a standard of living or how much the average joe makes. Health is measured by how long someone lives after birth; knowledge is measured by how many of the adults can read and the max enrollment rate or all students. The website then uses this huge chunk of information to sort out countries into three categories. High, medium, and low Developed Countries. The majority of high developed countries being in the Northern Hampshire, and South America, and almost all the low developed countries are in Africa and Southern Asia. Taking a look back in time to 1980, much of the high developed countries were in the Western Hemisphere, namely North America and South America, but also Europe.




What this means is that Many counties in Asia are just coming to bloom with development and becoming more modern and educated, this also probably goes for wealth gains as well. Another interesting thing I noticed was America and China stayed the same every 5 years from 1980 to 2005. America being a high developed country and China being a medium developed country the whole 25 years. How does China remain stagnant? I think my theory is that China grows so fast in population, a good percentage cannot become schooled or literate. Many of the Chinese are farmers, and that's what they do their entire life. So, it does not surprise me that China remains where it started 25 years ago. Now Africa is probably the slowest developing Continent out there, and it doesn't come at any surprise. A great percentage of Africans did not get schooling, let alone being able to read. They will probably continue to struggle to develop along the same pace of the rest of the world.

Blog 4

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/us/30smuggle.html

The above links titled: "Two Charged in Deaths of Immigrants at Sea"

There were two men tried for the drowning of two illegal immigrants who fell off a overloaded crowded boat, and it capsized throwing everyone overboard. This occurred off of the California coast, and was a rare occurrence for common illegal smugglers. The two men, Fernando and Javier are being fully charged for this, and could end up in prison for life.

The rise in ground border surveillance and technology along the Mexican border is forcing more illegals to pay the fees of boat smuggling. This can get expensive, and the smugglers get a profit of upwards 5,000 dollars per person. The usual method of travel is a small makeshift raft called a panga, it gets usually overcrowded and they smuggle at night and use one motor. They are just asking for something bad to happen. Especially around this time of the year when the water is colder, and the weather makes the waves more choppy. Local authorities have noticed a sharp up rise in water smuggling, and since the boats carry no radios, it can get very dangerous.

I ask myself, what makes people want to risk their lives to get to America, the land you and I take for granted everyday? When you talked about in class the flow of people around the globe to job openings and opportunity, this just goes to show how far people are willing to give up to get a better shot at life. Life in Latin America is not a cozy one, and finding opportunity is a needle in the haystack. Not many people make it down there, but the risk of death is not too great for the truly desperate. If I put myself in the shoes of a Mexican whose life is supported by almost constant physical labor, I would do pretty much anything to get a better life. It is a very sad story, and unfortunately the world is not a free place where one may walk around and live where he or she chooses, it is a world of trials, pain, and hardship.

Blog 3

This map here from world mapper shows which countries consume the most oil in the world. Obviously America is the number one customer of oil, but who was second? It caught me off guard when it was Japan. How does Japan use so much oil for such a small (size-wise) country? I believe that Japan is a developed country similar to the United States, and that most people use or own cars. That would be around 130 million people with cars. The estimated population total of Japan. Also, Japan is considered a wealthy country as well, so they can afford to buy gas for everyday driving use, and not just for emergencies, or for special occasions like other people in other countries. In third place was Germany, another developed country, and like the US they can afford to buy gas too. I was expecting China or Russia to use more gas, but I guess a majority of their populations do not own or use cars. African and South American countries have a very small percentage of gasoline usage, probably because they do not have the wealth of developed countries, and must rely on farming and self sustenance more

This here map to your left is a map displaying Forest Loss per year. I am not surprised at all by these numbers, since in my previous map, these countries did not use oil hardly at all. Instead of oil, it looks like using wood is the main source of fuel. Africa is losing their wood supply due to over grazing and desertification. The forests near the deserts are being cut down for fuel and farmland space, and since their are no roots to hold the fertile land in place, the desert settles in only one or two years later. Many Africans rely on this wood though, and must do it for their very survival, otherwise they might freeze at night, or would not be able to cook their meat. We take such things for granted in America. Now over in South America their problems are similar but still different. They are another expanding population, and they need more farmland to support it, and since their is little natural occurring farmland, they must cut down and clear rain forest to make room for farming. Everyday farmers down there cut down thousands of acres of rain forest to support this trend, and eventually the rain forest will be gone. The basic common trend on this map, is that poor countries must cut and use wood a lot more than a rich developed country would. It is a sad vicious cycle, I cut down trees because I am poor, and my land becomes poor, because I cut down trees.

Google Earth: A differant look into Latin America

This image of Latin America is to take a look at the many shallow plateaus that come out from Florida and Mexico into the Gulf of Mexico. It seems that if all that land was raised just a couple hundred feet higher, we would have many hundreds of square miles to move to or settle in.

Mexico would almost double in size, and Florida would be a lot wider. If this were the case today, wars and political structure would be pretty different. I know that Latin America seems very crowded, but this would allow for an even greater amount of people to live in this sub-tropical climate. I would even say that a new country would have sprung up, and maybe Mexico would have been a stronger world power with more land control and a possibility for greater farming and prosperity. This also means that the Gulf of Mexico would have been a lot smaller, so competition over the smaller sea would have been fierce for fishing and commercial trading purposes. Latin America could have turned out to be very different than how its looks today, and only a thin amount of ocean water covers possible land people could have easily lived on.



This angle portrays the deeply set blue chasms to the left of the Dominican Republic, and above Cuba, below Jamaica in this picture. As I scrolled over the elevation in feet with my mouse over those trenches, I was astonished to how fast they dropped below -10,000 feet elevation. I believe that this has something to do with the plates of the earths crust, and here is probably where they collide, or are breaking apart from another plate. I wonder what kind of marine life lives at the bottom of those trenches, possibly unknown life. I did not know there was such deep chasms so close to the American border. This may also explain why the Caribbean gets frequent earthquakes, such as the one that just happened in Haiti. Understanding these trenches may lead to understanding when and where earthquakes might strike, and could save potentially many lives. Why I pointed this out is because whenever someone talks about the Caribbean, they always mention good weather and vacations, but never what is lying beneath close by, a potential threat.