In Modules 1-4, we learned key concepts that appear throughout the course and in human-environment interactions in general. Module 1 introduced the geographer’s perspective on the world and explained why we would study the natural environment in a social science course. Module 2 introduced systems thinking, which is invaluable for mentally managing the complexity of human-environment systems. Module 3 introduced ethics, which underlies all decisions concerning what we should do about the environment. Module 4 introduced individual and collective action to help us understand how we can successfully make a difference.
In Module 5, we transition from a more abstract discussion of concepts towards a more applied discussion of select human-environment topics by covering the concept of development. We begin by considering what development is. We then examine development around the world both today and throughout history. We then consider some downsides to development and conclude with a discussion of sustainable development.
By the end of Module 5, you should be able to:
There are a few required readings in this module. There is no Written Assignment with this Module; although the Written Assignment in the next module will require you to engage material from this module.
Requirement | Location | Submitting Your Work |
---|---|---|
Reading Assignment: Did the BP Oil Spill Increase US GDP? | What is Development? | No submission |
Health Disparities in Black and White | Development's Downsides | No submission |
If you have any questions, please post them to our Course Q & A discussion forum in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum often to respond. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate. If you have a more specific concern, please send me a message through Inbox in Canvas.
As a geographically literate scholar and citizen, you should be following current events around the world. If you do this, you will undoubtedly hear many discussions of development. You’ll hear discussions of some countries that are “developing” and other countries that are “developed.” You might also hear terms like “First World” and “Third World.” You’ll also hear about how well development in the United States or other countries is going at any given time. Finally, you’ll hear discussions of certain types of development, such as sustainable development. But what does all this mean?
It turns out that “development” does not have one single, simple definition. There are multiple definitions and multiple facets to any one definition. There are also multiple, competing opinions on the various understandings of what “development” is. Often, “development” is viewed as being a good thing, and it is easy to see why. People in “developed” countries tend to have longer lives, more comfortable housing, more options for careers and entertainment, and much more. But whether or not “development” is good is ultimately a question of ethics. Just as there are multiple views on ethics, there are multiple views on whether or not “development” is good. Later in this module, we’ll see some cases in which “development” might not be considered to be good.
The simplest and most common measures for development are those based on monetary statistics like income or gross domestic product (GDP, which measures in monetary terms how much an economy is producing). These monetary statistics are readily available for countries and other types of places across the world and are very convenient to work with. Likewise, it is easy to find a good map of these statistics, such as this one of GDP:
Take a quick glance at the map in Figure 5.1. What do you see? Does anything interesting stand out? We’ll revisit the map later in the module.
But statistics like income and GDP are controversial. One can have a high income or GDP and a low quality of life. Simply put, there’s more to life than money. Furthermore, monetary statistics often overlook important activities that don’t involve money, such as cooking, cleaning, raising children, and even subsistence farming. These activities are often performed by women, so a focus on monetary statistics often brings large underestimates of the contributions of women to society. Finally, high incomes and GDPs are often associated with large environmental degradation. From an ecocentric ethical view, that is a problem.
Another way of looking at development is one based on health statistics such as life expectancy or child mortality. These statistics show another facet of development. In many cases, those with a lot of money also have better health. But this trend does not always hold. Take a look at this life expectancy map:
How does the Life Expectancy map in Figure 5.2 compare to the GDP map (Figure 5.1)? What patterns are similar? Is there anything different? Why might this be?
A third way of looking at development is one based on end uses. End uses are the ultimate purposes of whatever our economies are producing. For example, the end uses of agriculture are proper nutrition, tasty eating experiences, and maybe a few other things like the socializing that occurs during meals. The end uses of the construction of buildings involve things like having places for us to be in that are comfortable, productive, and beautiful. For transportation, end uses are being in the places we want to be.
Take a look at the following undernourishment map: How does this map compare to the GDP and Life Expectancy maps? What patterns are similar? Is there anything different? While most of the world's undernourished live in low-income countries, is there an exception?
Please look at the article “Oil Spill May End Up Lifting GDP Slightly” by Luca Di Leo of the Wall Street Journal.
Unless you have a subscription to the WSJ, you will only be able to read the first couple paragraphs, but that is enough to start thinking about the different understandings of what “development” is, in particular, monetary statistics and end uses. Which understandings are better? Is development a good thing? What is it that society should aim for?
At the core of this discussion of development is one very fundamental question: What is it that we ultimately care about as a society? If we ultimately care about money, then the monetary statistics are good representations of development, and we should be willing to make sacrifices of other things in order to get more money. Or, if end uses are what we ultimately care about, then it is important to look beyond monetary statistics and consider the systems of development that bring us the end uses that we want. Modules 6 and 7 do exactly that.
Before continuing, let’s pause for a brief note on terminology. Though they are often used as such, the terms First World and Third World are actually not intended to be development terms. Instead, they are a legacy of the Cold War. The First World was the group of major capitalist countries, led by the United States. The Second World was the group of major communist countries, led by the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union explains why we don’t hear the term Second World much anymore. Finally, the Third World was everyone else, who were viewed as relatively unimportant to the Cold War. These days, the terms First World and Third World are often used not for the politics of the Cold War but for conversations about development. This use of the terms is inappropriate and should be avoided. Another common set of terms is the developing world and the developed world. These terms fit better, though they’re still not perfect. In particular, no part of the world has stopped developing, so, in some sense, all countries are developing countries. Finally, there are no clear divides between the more-developed countries and the less-developed countries, and there are also multiple ways of defining and measuring development. So, a safer choice is to use terms that precisely describe the type of development you intend, such as "high-income countries" and "low-income countries."
Let’s begin by viewing a video (about 20 minutes) about global demographics.
Hans Rosling is a Swedish demographer and teacher who has gained global fame through lively videos about global demographics, in particular at the TED conferences. If you’re not already familiar, TED is a wonderful resource of entertaining and informative talks from a great variety of people. Here’s a TED talk from Rosling (20:35):
Rosling makes several important points in this video:
All of these points are important for Geography 30.
Now, let's take a look at the map of GDP per capita, of course bearing in mind the limitations of the GDP statistic.
A few points are worth making about this map. First, the map shows GDP per capita, i.e., per person. Per capita statistics are usually more helpful for showing what’s going on in a place. Recall the map of world GDP from the previous page. That map would show, for example, that China has a much larger GDP than, say, Switzerland. But that is because China has a much larger population than Switzerland, not because China has reached a more advanced level of development. Most people would consider Switzerland to be more developed than China.
Second, the wealthier areas are North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and a few countries in the Middle East. These are the countries that are commonly considered to be “developed.” The rest of the countries are commonly considered to be “developing.” But there is no clear divide between “developed” and “developing” visible on this map. Instead, there are countries at all points along the continuum from “developed” to “developing.”
Third, there are a few places on the map that are colored gray. These are places where no data is available. Usually, there is an interesting reason for data as basic as GDP to be unavailable. The map here uses data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), so the gray represents places that the IMF has no data for. Here are probable reasons for why some data is unavailable for this map: Greenland is not an independent country but is a territory of Denmark. French Guiana (in northern South America) is also not an independent country but is a territory of France. Western Sahara is a disputed territory fighting for independence from Morocco. Somalia has dysfunctional government and probably didn’t report data to the IMF. Finally, Cuba and North Korea are not part of the IMF. GDP statistics are available for most of these regions from sources other than the IMF.
Note that Cuba left the IMF when Fidel Castro came to power, claiming that the IMF was too slanted in favor of US capitalism. It is an interesting case worth considering further.
Cuba is an interesting case of development. To illustrate, Cuba's 2015 GDP per capita is $7,602, far behind the United States' 2015 GDP per capita of $56,207. Since Cuba isn’t in the IMF, the data here comes from the World Bank, which is an excellent resource for demographic and other data. Meanwhile, Cuba's life expectancy as of 2015 is 79.55 years, which is significantly higher than the world average of 71.66 years and slightly higher than the United States’ life expectancy of 78.74. Cuba’s high life expectancy can be seen on the life expectancy map on the previous page.
Why is it that Cuba performs so much better in a health statistic like life expectancy than with a monetary statistic like GDP?
The answer is the unusual nature of Cuba’s economy. Cuba has a socialist economy with a high degree of central planning. It is also relatively isolated from the globalized economy, especially now that the Soviet Union no longer exists. Because of this, its government has emphasized healthcare, education, and other social development practices instead of activities that would generate a large GDP. While Cuba lacks the expensive medical facilities found in the United States and other wealthy countries, it has universal healthcare and the most doctors per person of any country in the world.
Recently, there was a fuss in the media to report that diplomatic relations had finally been established between Cuba and United States as of July 20, 2015. This means that up until July 2015, US citizens had not been allowed to even travel to Cuba. The relations between the two countries had been poor ever since the Castro regime tied Cuba to the Soviet Union. Relations remained poor for a long time even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in part because of disagreements about economic issues and in part because of US concern about Cuba’s limited political freedoms. Regardless of what your view of Cuba is, it is important to recognize and learn from its unique approach to development.
There is one more point to consider about the GDP map shown earlier: It only shows one point in time. The map tells us something about development around the world today, but it doesn’t explain how we got here. Even the Rosling video, which shows an animation over time, doesn’t offer much in the way of explanation. This leaves out the important question: Why is it that some countries are more developed – or at least have more money – than others?
Understanding the patterns of development we see today requires understanding the history of development around the world. Historical geography is the study of the historical dimensions of our world and is very important here. It turns out that certain aspects of the environment have played important roles in the history of development on Earth. This is a very old story, and it’s worth starting at the beginning: at the origin of agriculture. Agriculture is an important starting point for development because the increased food supplies enable larger populations and enable some people to devote their time to tasks other than producing food. This labor specialization is necessary for the diverse other human activities required for development.
Agriculture originated independently in several regions around the world. In the map below, the green areas are regions where agriculture originated and the arrows show directions that agriculture spread from its areas of origin.
But all agriculture is not equal. Some agriculture is more productive than others. Likewise, some of these regions where agriculture originated are likely to develop more successfully than others. Key factors include the region’s growing conditions (including temperature, precipitation, latitude, and soils) and the types of plants and animals available for planting and domestication. Many regions had good growing conditions, but of all the regions in the world, one had especially rich plants and animals to use. That region is the Fertile Crescent, which is located in the Middle East as seen on the map above.
Guns, Germs, and Steel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by geographer and physiologist Jared Diamond. In the book, Diamond seeks to answer a question posed to him by a man in Papua New Guinea: Why does Diamond have so much more “cargo” than the Papua New Guineans? “Cargo” here essentially means “stuff,” including advanced stuff like helicopters. Note that Papua New Guinea has had agriculture for a long time – it is the green space located just north of eastern Australia on the map above. Why didn’t Papua New Guinea’s agriculture lead to advanced civilization as it did elsewhere? The explanation that Diamond comes up with is that Papua New Guinea had less “geographic luck:” It had less in the way of resources conducive to successful agriculture, in particular, plants and animals. In contrast, the Fertile Crescent had better resources.
In order to learn more about Diamond’s ideas, please watch part of the National Geographic video made based on Guns, Germs, and Steel. Please begin at Episode 5, at time 4:30. Then watch Episode 6 from the beginning through time 8:25. As you watch the videos, consider this: What are the major parts of Diamond’s arguments? What are critiques that others have made? How does Diamond respond? Is his response successful?
The idea that the outcomes of civilization were determined entirely by environmental factors is known as environmental determinism. This idea has been heavily critiqued. Even though environmental factors like plants and animals for agriculture can help explain some major patterns in development, such as why advanced civilization developed in Eurasia but not in Papua New Guinea, it cannot explain everything. For example, it cannot explain the major differences in development found today between adjacent countries such as the Dominican Republic (richer) and Haiti (poorer) or South Korea (richer) and North Korea (poorer). The distinction between the Dominican Republic and Haiti is even visible from space. Environmental determinism assumes that the environment determines all development and difference, but some patterns, like what we observe between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, are not explainable by environmental factors alone.
In this image, Haiti is on the left and the Dominican Republic is on the right. This part of Haiti is almost completely deforested, as is much of the rest of the country, but the deforestation ends abruptly at the political border. From our systems perspective, this is clearly humanity impacting the environment, not the environment impacting humanity. What is important to understand is that the patterns of development that we see have both environmental and social causes. The environment can explain some of why advanced civilization emerged on Eurasia instead of elsewhere, but only social factors can explain why, for example, the Dominican Republic is richer than Haiti or South Korea is richer than North Korea. In other words, environmental resources can contribute to development trajectories, just like many other geographic factors such as culture, climate, topography, proximity to major waterways, etc. But no single one of those components is ever the determining factor.
Environmental determinism came to prominence in the early twentieth century, but its popularity declined over time. This is partly due to its shortcomings, and also a recognition that it was often used as a justification for colonial conquest and slavery. In contrast to the unidirectional conceptualization of human-environment relationships, environmental possibilism arose as a concept in which environmental constraints are still recognized but the freedom and capability of humans to change and structure the environment are highlighted. Environmental determinism and possibilism represented geographers’ first attempts at generalizing what accounts for the pattern of human occupation of the Earth’s surface in modern times.
Thus far in the module, we've seen several examples in which development has increased health and quality of life. However, development can also reduce health and quality of life. Oftentimes, when development has these downsides, it is for reasons related to the environment. When development impacts the environment in ways that harm certain groups of people, it raises issues of environmental justice.
First, let's consider some connections between economic development, human health, and justice by completing the following reading assignment:
Walker, Bailus Jr. 2007. "Health Disparities in Black and White." Crisis (July/August).
A scanned copy of the article with images can be downloaded as a PDF here: Walker, Health Disparities in Black and White
An easier-to-read text only html version of this article is also available through the Penn State Library system.
Here are some questions to consider as you read this article:
The fact that poor, and often minority, populations are more likely to live within close proximity to facilities that have negative health effects has helped establish the environmental justice movement. Research on environmental justice has shown that political and economic systems structure the conditions that contribute to poor health and help explain variations within societies in the rates of non-communicable chronic diseases such as diabetes or cancer.
Within the United States, the environmental justice movement has worked to show how the byproducts of development, such as chemical factories, waste facilities, and toxic chemicals, create hazardous conditions for people living near them. Here's one example of environmental justice in the United States; watch this video about Fighting for Safe Water in Flint (13:25 minutes):
But environmental justice is not just a domestic American issue. It is also a global issue. The globalized nature of our economy and our environment causes pollution and other environmental harms to become concentrated in certain world regions. Quite often, these regions are made up of the world's poorest and least powerful people. This can be seen in the following video on e-waste (or electronic waste) in Accra, Ghana's capital city (4 minutes):
When you no longer want an electronic device that you own, what do you do with it? Where does it end up? Does it end up causing harm to other people? Who are these people? Do they deserve to be harmed by your e-waste? And what can you do about it? These are all difficult questions raised by our ownership of electronic devices. Similar questions are raised by other items that we own and activities that we pursue.
Finally, it is noteworthy that environmental justice is not only about which populations suffer from the burdens of economic development (also known as environmental bads), but also about who has access to environmental goods that contribute to human health. For example, poor communities and populations of color are often denied access to parks, open space, full service grocery stores, and hospitals. The environmental justice movement, therefore, has expanded to ask critical questions about which human populations suffer the burdens of economic development, and which benefit the most from it.
Scientists, activist organizations, and stakeholders from different arenas have been working together to map out global environmental justice. The Atlas of Environmental Justice, for example, is a platform that visualizes hotspots of environmental justice across a wide range of fields (e.g., coal extraction and processing, landfills, deforestation, etc.). It is also a database of case studies of communities that grapple with and struggle against the disproportionate distribution of environmental “goods” and “bads.”
The ideas behind sustainable development can be traced back to early works of scholars such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons (1968), and Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb (1971). Despite the different focuses of these classic works related to population and environment, all raised public concerns over environmental problems resulting from human activities and highlighted the importance of systems thinking.
In Module 3, we learned that there is no single definition of sustainability or sustainable development. The most famous definition is from the United Nations Brundtland Commission Report Our Common Future (1987):
"Sustainable development is development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
So what progress have we made in the decades since the idea of sustainable development was popularized?
Read the Sustainable Development Timeline authored by IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) and think about your answers to the question.
Note: The timeline was published in 2012. A few more milestones have been reached since then. One salient milestone is the Paris Agreement on climate change, which was signed in 2015 and entered into force in 2016. Among other things, the Paris Agreement requires all signatory parties (regardless of their industrial development status) to commit to a nationally determined goal of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. You will read more about international climate change negotiations in Module 9.
Some tremendous efforts and notable achievements have been made towards sustainable development, but is our contemporary civilization sustainable? It turns out that in many ways, it is not. The basic idea of unsustainable development is that there are some things that we are doing today that we cannot continue doing forever. Much of our development depends on natural resources that either cannot be replaced or are not being replaced as fast as we are depleting them. Some major examples are:
Each of these resources is becoming increasingly scarce. We cannot continue using them as we do today. Either we will need to shift away from them on our own, or shortages will force us to change our ways.
There are other reasons why some aspects of contemporary development may be considered unsustainable. Development is changing the global climate system and affecting biodiversity in ways that could have very perilous consequences. We’ll learn about these topics towards the end of the course, but, for now, just note that if we try to continue with development as we have been, then the ensuing changes to climate and biodiversity could eventually prevent us from maintaining our state of development. Finally, as we saw on the previous page, development even today is not necessarily something to be desired. On the other hand, development involves much of what is important to us and thus is not something we can easily walk away from. Achieving development that is both desirable and sustainable is a major goal for our lives and our society.
In the next two modules, we’ll examine some important aspects of sustainable development in greater detail.
This module was designed to introduce to you the idea of development, including sustainable development, and give an overview of development around the world. Development is a complex and contested concept, lacking a single universally accepted definition. But we can still recognize some general features of development, whether measured via monetary, health, end uses, or other indicators. We can see that today the world is unevenly developed and that this contemporary pattern is not solely determined by the natural environment but the product of both social and environmental factors that have been going on throughout human history. It is this development that enables us to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of our time and place, such as the opportunity to take online courses. But development has its downsides and, for better or worse, these downsides frequently affect the nation's and the world's poorest and least powerful. Finally, our contemporary development depends on certain natural resources that will not last forever, raising questions about the sustainability of our development.