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PODCAST

Geography Matters

Geography Matters explores the importance of geography in shaping and influencing the world we live in: economy, society, politics and environment. Whether looking at world affairs and geopolitics, at global trade, regional inequality or the character of particular places, geography is important. History looks at when and why things happen. Geography looks at where and why. Everything takes place at particular times and in particular places. You can"t escape the importance of geography whether its

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

32:22

Climate change, flooding and water management

Geography Matters ·

2026/09/24

In this episode my guest is Hannah Cloke, Regius professor of Meteorology and climate science at the University of Reading. Her title is rather special as she is one of the few professors in Britain appointed by the King or Queen. Her specialty is hydrology and flooding and she now appears regularly on TV whenever there isa major flooding issue. I started by noting the very hot summer of 2026 and Hannah noted that the global climate is now very clearly warming up quite rapidly. One consequence of

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36:24

Global trade and global supply chains

Geography Matters ·

2026/09/01

In this episode I am delighted to have with me Ed Conway to discuss his new book 'Trade World'. Ed is the economics editor of Sky News and in 2023 he published his first booked 'Material World' which looked at some of the key raw materials - salt, copper, iron, oil etc on which our modern world depends. In his new book he looks at the origins, the structure and organisation of the international trade system which our modern world depends on. Many of the products we consume today are not produced in

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40:35

Geography Strikes Back?

Geography Matters ·

2026/06/01

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 space. In that sense geography is everywhere. But we argue that the role and importance of geography varies over time and across societies. In the Age of Discovery sailors from Western countries were exploring and opening up hitherto unknown parts of the world. Then in the mid- late

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35:31

Oceans

Geography Matters ·

2026/05/19

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 proportion of the C02 we produce and without their absorbtion capacity the world would be heating up much faster. They also transport the heat received from solar radiation from the equatorial belts towards the poles by a series of major currents. This is critical, otherwise there

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36:31

Trump, Maps and Geography

Geography Matters ·

2026/04/13

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36:26

Regional Inequality

Geography Matters ·

2026/03/23

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 theoretically possible to have such things as education and health care distributed relatively equally over space, it is impossible for economic resources to be equally or evenly distributed. Some areas have iron or coal or oil, others have hydro power and some areas on the coast can

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36:32

Strategic minerals - why are they so important?

Geography Matters ·

2026/03/11

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 change over time. Arguably, coal was an important strategic mineral during the industrial revolution and during the steamship era. Before it was replaced by oil, navies had to have coal bunkering facilities to fuel their warships. Today, however, although coal is still very important

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35:52

The geography of AI

Geography Matters ·

2026/02/24

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 episode, our focus on more restricted, looking solely at the geographical distribution and concentration of AI, and its implications for power supply, for cooling and space. We look at two key elements of AI, the increasing number of large data centres and cloud storage facilities

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37:31

America first: Hemispheric dominance?

Geography Matters ·

2026/01/12

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 seems we are paying undue attention to this but it is very important and is radically reshaping the world we live in. President Trump has also announced (again) that the USA needs Greenland for national security, that he will run Venezuela and its oil sales and that he aims to control

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36:37

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

Geography Matters ·

2026/01/03

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 been for well over 100 years. Big US oil companies emerged in the 1920s and BP became a major player in Persia (now Iran). Together they account for just over half of world energy use. But the distribution of oil and gas resources is very uneven, as is production and consumption. The

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36:11

The urbanization of the world's population.

Geography Matters ·

2025/12/22

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 cities The UN estimated in 2007 that half (50%) the world population now lives in cities and maybe 70%+ by the end of this century. This is a dramatic change from the world of our ancestors which was still overwhelmingly rural. The urban population was still only 30% of the world total

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36:20

America First: America's New National Security...

Geography Matters ·

2025/12/16

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:America first. To keep the USA at the forefront of the global economy , technology and defense. It was also clear that the current administration thinks that previous post war American foreign and strategic policy has been misguided and misplaced. It states that America's role is not

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38:34

Is Geography Destiny?

Geography Matters ·

2025/11/30

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 region. Those who argued that it did were 'geographical determinists'. A recent example of this is the fascinating 2022 book by Ian Morris entitled 'Geography is Destiny: Britain and the World, a 10,000 Year History'. Put simply, Morris argues that Britain's position as an island on

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36:27

Unfrozen: the fight for the future of the Arctic

Geography Matters ·

2025/11/09

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 asking both Mia and Klaus how they got interested in the Arctic and how it is defined. As they note, the Arctic is often defined as those areas north of 66 degrees of latitude (the Arctic circle), where the sun never sets in mid summer and never rises in the depth of winter. Some

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36:53

Growing countries and Shrinking countries and...

Geography Matters ·

2025/10/09

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 countries with high birth rates and rapidly growing populations.Most sub Saharan African countries fall into this group. Second, there are richer, developed, countries with low birth rates and a generally slow growing, static or even falling population. Many European countries fall

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30:35

The Geography of global population change 1

Geography Matters ·

2025/09/27

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 population was estimated to be about 1 million. There were high birth rates, no modern medicines or health care, and high death rates. Most people died relatively young if they survived infancy and childhood. Global population then began to increase quite slowly to about 2 billion by 1925,

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37:15

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

Geography Matters ·

2025/09/10

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 the strategic decision making of states and other entities, including both private companies and other non state actors. Where and when to invest is increasingly important globally and companies often want to ensure that investments are in relatively safe/politically stable areas

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35:15

The geopolitics of food and fishing

Geography Matters ·

2025/08/05

Geopolitics is, as its name suggests, where geography and politics intersect. The geopolitics of foodfocuses on how food production, trade, and consumption are influenced by and influence political relationships between nations. Traditionally, geopolitics tended to focus on questions of strategic conflicts between states. but in the modern world issues of food security and sustainability have increasingly moved to the fore. This is highlighted by the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which

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37:36

The global food system and its problems

Geography Matters ·

2025/07/18

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 which most people in the developed world now get their food. The main distribution network are the supermarkets which all have integrated food supply chains. This means that whether we shop at Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, or Asda (Walmart in the US or Carrefour in France,

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34:40

Where does our food come from?

Geography Matters ·

2025/07/12

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 variations in where our food comes from, and how it is produced and distributed. Two of the major influences are soil and climate both of which set limits to what can be grown or produced where. The earths climates are generally classified into a number of major types. Climate in Britain is

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