Geography Matters

Geography Strikes Back?

In this podcast Klaus Dodds and I go back to a topic we discussed in the first series - how, when and where does geography matter. We start by arguing that everything that happens in the world happens in both time and sp

Oceans

Oceans are very important. They cover 71% of the worlds's surface and, as well as their importance for fishing, trade and transport they play a major role in climatic and environmental stability. They absorb a very high

Trump, Maps and Geography

Regional Inequality

Regional inequality is an important issue in almost every country. There are almost always more prosperous or more developed regions and less prosperous and less developed regions. The reason is simple. Although it is th

Strategic minerals - why are they so important?

Strategic minerals are minerals which countries deem to be particularly important for various reasons - it could be for energy needs, for exports or for defense or high tech industry. What makes a mineral strategic can c

The geography of AI

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has become an increasingly hot issue in the last year or two. There are major debates about its potential impact on the labour market, on society and on human beings themselves. In this ep

America first: Hemispheric dominance?

In this episode we follow up on the implications of the American capture of President Maduro of Venezuela and President Trump's anouncements about the nature and future of American foreign policy. We apologise if it seem

The geopolitics of oil and gas....and that V........... country

This episode looks at the geography and geopolitics of oil and gas - its distribution, its production and consumption. Energy, and particularly oil and gas, are crucial to making the modern world go round and they have b

The urbanization of the world's population.

The world is undergoing a process of rapid urbanization - the movement of population from rural to urban areas. This is very important because it means that an increasing share of the world's population now live in citie

America First: America's New National Security Strategy and its implications

At the end of November 2025 the US government published America's New National Security Strategy. This punchy, hard hitting, document did not mince its words. The basis of America's new security strategy is very clear:Am

Is Geography Destiny?

In this episode we discuss some aspects of how and why geography matters. If we go back a hundred years or so there was an intellectual argument about the extent to which geography determined the future of a country or a

Unfrozen: the fight for the future of the Arctic

This episode has a slightly different format. I discuss with Klaus Dodds, my co-host, and Mia Bennett of the University of Washington, their new book 'Unfrozen: the fight for the future of the Arctic'. It starts by askin

Growing countries and Shrinking countries and population problems

Global population changes are complex but it can be argued that many countries, but not all, fall into one of two groups, each with very different problems. First, there are the relatively poor, low income, developing co

The Geography of global population change 1

Global population change is important and it has a distinct geography. But first its important to note some general changes. Global population has increased dramatically over the last 200 years. In 1800 the global popula

Geopolitics: what is it, and why is it important?

Geopolitics has a long history but it can be defined as how, where, when and why geographical factors, physical, economic and social influence the influence of political power, the shape of international relations and th

The geopolitics of food and fishing

Geopolitics is, as its name suggests, where geography and politics intersect. The geopolitics of food focuses on how food production, trade, and consumption are influenced by and influence political relationships between

The global food system and its problems

This episode follows on from the previous one 'Where does our food come from?' This episode focuses more on food consumption but also touches on food production. Our starting point is the global food supply system from w

Where does our food come from?

The geography of food production is an important topic. We all need to eat, and at some times and in some places many people have not had enough to eat - millions of -people have starved. But there are big global variati

The Geography of Religions

The recent election of Pope Leo, an American, who had worked most of his life in Peru, replacing Pope Benedict from Argentina, raised debates about whether the new Pope might be from black Africa or South East Asia. It h

Conflict in the South China Sea

The South China Sea is a region of growing international importance and growing conflict. It occupies an area of about 3.5 million sq km and it is bounded on the north by Southern China and Taiwan, on the east by the Phi