joe arnold geography blogger

Epidemiological Transition Model

2010-11-29T04:55:00.000-08:00

The epidemiological tranisition model is a model which is similar to the DTM but also takes into account a countries developments in all areas such as health care, education and nutrition. The tranisition model is split into three stages.
The Age of Pestilence and Famine: Where mortality is high and fluctuating, precluding sustained population growth, with low and variable life expectancy, vascillating between 20 and 40 years.

The Age of Receding Pandemics: Where mortality progressively declines, with the rate of decline accelerating as epidemic peaks decrease in frequency. Average life expectancy increases steadily from about 30 to 50 years. Population growth is sustained and begins to be exponential.

The Age of Degenerative and Man-Made Diseases: Mortality continues to decline and eventually approaches stability at a relatively low level. Life expectancy rises and exceeds 50 years, with fertility becoming the crucial factor in population growth

The epidemiological tranistion model shows what happens as a country makes its way from a third world country to an MEDC. It examines how countries go from having high birth rates and suffer from infectious disease's which are fatal due to poor sanitiation, lack of access to water and little or no knowledge of drugs and health alternatives. It shows a tranistion to richer countries where death and fertility rates are low, death from infectious disease is also low, but there is a much higher death rate from non infectious degenerative diseases. The ETM puts more emphasis on the health of a counrty as it shows how it progresses from poorer to richer and the diseases and health risks that are present.

Texaco in the amazon...

2010-02-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

For many years now there has been a political battle raging between the political pressure group the "Plaintiffs" and the US gaint petrolium company Texaco, who are now owned by Chevron. The agrument stems from a cause over 16 years ago, when Texaco used to drill for oil in the Equadorian Amazon. They were in partnership with the local petrolium company Petroequador, but were the consortium leader, which meant that they were responisible for the oil drilling taking place, even though they only actually drilled 40% of the oil. The plaintiff group claim that Texaco poisened parts of the amazon and caused cancer rates to rise greatly in certain highly affected areas of the country, with some areas suffering as many as 8 different strains of cancer. These claims that are made are very immotive and so, i find it hard to produce a fair argument. The main problem that the Plaintiffs are concerned with is the existance of open pits, where the production water is dumped. This production water is often full of many deadly chemicals. Texaco themselves feel that they have dealt with the problem by saying that they dealt with their pits and paid a sum of 40 million dollars. Now that they have paid that, they feel that the responsibility lays with their old partner company Petroequador. Texaco feel that the Plaintiffs are not playing fair, and withholding info from the court in equador and also not producing equal ammounts of data. Futher more the claims that have been made about the remediation costing over $6 billion are ludicrous says Texaco. This sum is to cover cleaning up all areas affected and compensating everyone who has been affected by cancer or any other disease caused by the mal treatment of oil on Texacos front. Texaco disagree that there has been any notable cancer or chronic illness effect on the population, however their data collection methods may be questionable, as they have conducted them in such a way that any cancer cases in isolated areas are diluted by that of the whole region. Texaco claim that any adverse health effects are the cause of bad hygene and nutrition in poorer areas of Equador. This court case is still ongoing, but is set to finish soon at in Equador, both parties will be wishing for their result. I hope from this data you can make a fair desicision on what you feel is right. I personally feel it is very hard to be sympathetic towards Texaco, as although they may not be fully "responsible" i still feel that they act quite heartlessly in the matter.

haiti

2010-01-18T07:14:00.000-08:00

This picture came from the very respectable http://www.petergreenberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/haiti-earthquake.jpg website. it shows very clearly the epicenter of the earthquake and where that is in relation to the capital city and in fact to the rest of the island.
The earthquake in question was only a 7.0 on the richter scale, and according to the USGS (US geographical society) the focus was about 6 miles under the ground although i am unsure if this is insignificant or not? The main problem with hiati is that the much of the building infrastructure is rather basic. I feel that perhaps if the structure had been more prepared for such a disaster then they would have been much better off. Although saying this even some of the more prestigous and expensive buildings were damaged including the royal palace and the national cathederal and the parlimentary buildings.
The poor structure of the buildings was not helped by the fact that there were some 50 aftershocks of 4.2 or greater! nearly 170000 bodies have been found and it has been claimed that 20000 comercial buildings and over 250000 residences have been destroyed or severly damaged. Despite these desperate figures countries all over the world have pulled together and provided aid, among the most notable donations are those from the US $100 million, the EU$ 474000 and Brazil $210 million. If you want to read more accurate and interesting info, here is the link to the wikipedia page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake