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FENTON'S GEOGRAPHY
Welcome to my website for many things geographical. I studied at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Canada, and I'm a member of it's Alumni Association (called "U.T.A.G.A."). Find out what geography as a study, a career, and as a hobby really entails. It's much more than what the lay person would believe. Come on in, check out some links, and tell me what you think.
And, don't forget to check out all of Fenton's other sites, also updated monthly:
http://www.freewebs.com/fentoonspiration - Cartoons & Inspiration
http://fentonlibrary.wetpaint.com - library, news, educational links
http://fentonflavour.weebly.com - food
http://fentonrenorepair.webnode.com - home repair, maintenance
http://fentonring.iwarp.com - jobs, careers
http://fentonfinance.iwannabefamous.net - money
http://www.ourchurch.com/member/f/fentonfaith - religion
http://fenton.chin.googlepages.com- storage depot
http://www.localendar.com/public/califenton - monthly calendar
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November 2009
This month's featured websites:
http://www.handmaps.org/index.php
http://www.forestle.org
http://www.qlocktwo.com, http://www.hitmelater.com --- Nov.1 is the end of Daylight Savings Time in Eastern North America
http://www.bestcountriestolive.com
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If you would like to serve as a volunteer EarthSeeds Ambassador, please contact us at crew@earthseeds.net. We'll send you a sample EarthSeeds Curriculum, 3 inflatable globes, 100 Earth postcards, some Earth stickers and other written info - plus a free EarthSeeds T-shirt.
Note (Disclaimer): Neither Fenton nor Fenton’s websites are responsible for the accuracy of any information obtained from external sources/third-party websites.
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This month's featured article(s):
"Norway is best place to live, China moves up, according to U.N."
Norway takes the number one spot in the annual United Nations human development index released Monday but China has made the biggest strides in improving the well-being of its citizens.
The index compiled by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) ranks 182 countries based on such criteria as life expectancy, literacy, school enrolment and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.
Norway, Australia and Iceland took the first three spots while Niger ranks at the very bottom, just below Afghanistan.
China moved up seven places on the list to rank as the 92nd most developed country due to improvements in education as well as income levels and life expectancy.
Colombia and Peru rose five spaces to rank 77th and 78th while France -- which was not part of the top 10 last year -- returns to the upper echelons by moving up three places to number 8.
The UNDP said the index highlights the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.
A child born in Niger can expect to live to just over 50, which is 30 years less than a child born in Norway. For every dollar a person earns in Niger, 85 dollars are earned in Norway.
This year's index was based on data from 2007 and does not take into account the impact of the global economic crisis.
"Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV and AIDS epidemic," said the UN development report's author Jeni Klugman.
"And this was even before the impact of the current global financial crisis was felt."
Afghanistan, which returns to the list for the first time since 1996, is the only Asian country among the bottom ten which also include Sierra Leone in the 180th spot, just below the Central African Republic.
The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan.
The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.
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"Worried parents can track children with GPS locator watch"
A satellite tracking device that will plot a child's location to within 10ft is being launched by a British firm.
The Nu.M8 digital watch uses GPS satellite technology like car sat nav systems.
The watch can be securely fastened to a child's wrist and will trigger an alert if forcibly removed. Parents can then track their children on a website.
Parents who text 'wru', or click 'where r you' on the secure website, will be able to see the child's location on Google maps and the street address and postcode will also be displayed.
So-called 'safe zones' can also be set up in which children can play safely and an alert will be sent to the parent's mobile phone and computer if the child strays out of that area.
The watch has been launched against a background of increasing fears among parents about the safety of their children.
As a result, youngsters are ferried to school by car, rather than walking or taking the bus, while fewer are allowed out to play in the park.
Recent reports have indicated that one in four children aged eight to ten have never played outside without a parent or guardian present, and one in three parents will not even allow older children, aged eight to 15, to play outside the house or garden unsupervised.
Steve Salmon of the watch's Worcestershire-based developers Lok8u said: 'This product gives parents the reassurance of knowing where their children are, any time, anywhere.
'Hopefully girls and boys can now be given the freedom to play outside that I enjoyed as a child.
'The overriding aim of Nu.M8 is to give children their freedom and parents peace of mind.'
However this comes at a price. The watch costs £149.99 and there is a monthly charge of up to £19.99 depending on level of use.
Michele Elliott, director of children's charity Kidscape, has reservations about using satellites to track youngsters.
She said: 'Anything that makes children safer is a good thing but is the world really that unsafe that parents need to electronically track their children? I don't think so.'
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"At the centre of time"
By Lucy Rodgers
Without it international travel would be in turmoil and calling friends in faraway places at the right time impossible. Exactly 125 years after the Greenwich Meridian line was drawn, how and why did Britain become the centre of time?
At longitude 0° 0' 00", the arbitrary stroke on our maps that passes from pole to pole and bisects the UK, France, Spain, Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana divides the Earth into east and west, just as the Equator splits it into north and south.
This imaginary line now known as the Greenwich Prime Meridian not only allows us to navigate the globe but also keeps the world ticking to the same symbolic 24-hour clock.
But it has not always been so.
Until the 19th Century, many countries and even individual towns kept their own local time based on the sun's passage across the sky and there were no international rules governing when the day would start or finish.
However, with the rapid expansion of the railways and communications networks during the 1850s and 1860s, setting a standard global time soon became essential.
"The world was in a very big mix-up," explains Dr Avraham Ariel, author of Plotting the Globe. "People had lots of prime meridians. Earlier in Europe there were 20 prime meridians. The Russians had two or three, the Spanish had their own and so on."
And so, 125 years ago this week, 41 delegates from 25 nations gathered in Washington in the US for the 1884 International Meridian Conference to decide from where time and space should be measured.
By the end of the difficult summit, which, according to Dr Ariel, dragged on until "smoke came out", Greenwich had won the prize of longitude 0º by a vote of 22 to one, with only San Domingo against and France and Brazil abstaining.
The meeting also agreed Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) would be used as the standard for the world, with the day beginning at midnight at Greenwich and counted on a 24-hour clock.
Political opponents
One of the main reasons for British victory over key rivals Washington, Berlin and Paris, was that 72% of the world's shipping already depended on sea charts that used Greenwich as the Prime Meridian, says Dr Rebekah Higgitt, curator of the history of science and technology at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Greenwich's reputation among seafaring nations and the wide range of maps and charts using Greenwich as the Prime Meridian meant those at the conference "could see that was the way it was going", she says.
Another factor in Britain's favour was that the US had already plumped for Greenwich as the basis for its own national rail time system.
But, as the San Domingo, French and Brazilian votes showed, the choice was not without its opponents.
There remained some desire, particularly among Britain's European competitors, for "something more neutral" - a location that did not have such national ties, Dr Higgitt says.
"France suggested using an older idea of a meridian running through the Canaries - and even after the 1884 conference, Jerusalem was suggested as a site, particularly by Italy."
Opting out
Yet while the conference's Greenwich decision has stood until this day, the ultimate aim of some of those at the conference - a simple centralised system of 24 uniform time zones for 24 hours - never came into being.
LONGITUDE
• All points on the Prime Meridian are at 0° longitude
• All other points on the earth have longitudes ranging from 0° to 180°E or from 0° to 180°W
• The international date line lies along the 180° meridian
• Meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude together form a grid by which any position on the earth's surface can be specified
• Unlike the parallels of latitude, which are defined by the rotational axis of the Earth, the Prime Meridian is arbitrary
Over the years, many countries have opted out of the system to demonstrate national independence, keep in time with neighbours or maintain standard days within their borders.
As recently as 2007, Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez shifted the entire country back half-an-hour, while other countries operate similar fractional zones - half-hour or quarter-hour deviations. Yet more, such as China and India, use single time zones even though their territory extends across many hours.
"These things come up. Sometimes it's popular will or sometimes it is government choice," says Dr Higgitt.
"France and Spain should be on the same time as the UK, but it is more convenient to be in sync with those they are attached to by land."
And while such political and practical considerations have caused time zones to change in relation to Greenwich over the years, scientific and technological advances have also challenged Greenwich's role as the centre of time and space.
Leap seconds
Since the 1960s, atomic clocks rather than astronomy have been keeping the world's time and have forced GMT to adapt.
The combination of atomic clocks' super-accurate measurement and the fact that the rotation of the Earth is irregular and slowing mean atomic time and Earth time - and therefore GMT - slowly drift apart.
To keep them in sync "leap seconds" are added and produce a compromised version of GMT called Coordinated Universal Time, which keeps atomic time tied to the Earth's rotation.
On top of such changes to GMT, the advent of GPS technology and its ability to precisely track location has also had its impact on Greenwich as the zero point of longitude.
GPS's World Geodetic System 1984 system now places the Prime Meridian 100m to the east of Greenwich Observatory - away from the line defined by its large "Transit Circle" telescope and its corresponding brass strips straddled by tourists eager to have one foot in the East and one foot in the West.
Dr Ariel argues this renders the historical Prime Meridian no longer meaningful. But Dr Higgitt believes it simply highlights the fact it is not a scientifically-determined line and simply the result of global agreement.
"People stand on it because people think it is a predestined place," she says. "But it has never been official. It just exists in terms of habits and international usage. It is just something that has happened over a period of time.
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