Geog 1001
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- Globalization
- the growth of interregional and worldwide linkages and the changes they are bringing about
- Human well-being
- the ability of people to obtain for themselves a healthy life in a place and community of their choosing
- Cultural homogeneity
- uniformity of ideas, values, technologies, and institutions among culture groups
- Lingua franca
- a language used to communicate by people who don’t speak one another’s native language
- Pangaea hypothesis
- the proposal that about 200 million years ago all continents were joined in a single vast continent, called Pangaea
- Plate tectonics
- a theory proposing that the earth’s surface is composed of large plants that float on top of an underlying layer of molten rock; the movement and interaction of the plates create many of the large features of the earth’s surface, particularly mountains
- Earthquake
- a catastrophic shaking of the landscape, often caused by the shifting and friction of tectonic plates
- Volcanoes
- an area between plates or a weak point in the middle of a plate where gases and molten rock, called magma, can come to the earth’s surface through fissures and holts in the plate
- Ring of Fire
- the tectonic plate junctures around the edges of the Pacific Ocean, characterized by volcanoes and earthquakes
- Orographic rainfall
- rainfall produced when a moving moist air mass encounters a mountain range, rises, cools and releases condensed moisture that falls as rain
- Rain shadow
- the dry side of a mountain range, facing away from the prevailing winds
- Extractive resources
- a resource such as mineral ores, timber, or plants that must be mined from the earth’s surface or grown from its soil
- Extraction
- the acquisition of a material resource through mining, logging, agriculture or other means
- Formal economy
- all aspects of the economy that take place in official channels
- Informal economy
- all aspects of the economy that take place outside of official channels
- Colonies
- a (usually) distant land acquired by a more powerful country for economic gain
- Multinational corporations
- a business organization that operates extraction, production, and/or distribution facilities in multiple countries
- Capital
- wealth in the form of money or property used to produce more wealth
- Laissez Faire or Free trade
- the movement of goods and capital without government restrictions
- Tariffs
- a tax imposed by a country on imported goods, usually intended to protect industries within that country
- World Trade Organization (WTO)-
- a global institution whose stated mission is the lowering of trade barriers and the establishment of ground rules for international trade
- Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs)-
- requirements for economic reorganization toward less government involvement in industry, agriculture, and social services, sometimes made by the World Bank and IMF as conditions for giving loans to borrowing countries
- Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita
- the market value of all goods and services produced by workers and capital within a particular nation’s borders and within a given year; dividing the value by the number of people in the country results in the per capita value
- Purchasing power parity (PPP)-
- the amount of goods or services that U.S. $1 will purchase in a given country
- Demography
- the study of population patterns and changes
- Subsistence lifestyle
- a way of life in which each family group produces its own food, clothing and shelter
- Demographic transition
- the change from high birth and death rates to low birth and death rates that usually accompanies a cluster of other changes such as change from a subsistence to a cash economy, increasing education rates, and urbanization
- Sustainable development
- efforts to improve standards of living in ways that will not jeopardize those of future generations
- Sustainable agriculture
- farming that meets human needs without poisoning the environment or using up water and soil resources
- Global warming
- the predicted warming of the earth’s climate as atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases increase
- Geopolitics
- the use of strategies by countries to ensure that their best interests are served
- Cold war era
- the period from 1946 to the early 1990s, when the United States and its allies in Western Europe faced off against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republicans and its allies in Eastern Europe
- Nation
- a group of people who share a language, culture, political philosophy, and usually a territory
- Nation-state
- a political unit, or country, formed by people who share a language, a culture, and a political philosophy
- International Monetary Fund (IMF)-
- a financial institution funded by the developed nations to help developing countries reorganize, formalize, and develop their economics
- Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
- an association outside the formal institutions of government, in which individuals form widely differing backgrounds and locations share views and activism on political, economic, social or environmental issues