Correlation: Failed States Index and climate

[Ingenious]

So, I was poking around on Wikipedia and I saw this map of the 2011 Failed States Index.


<span style="font-size:8pt;line-height:100%](click for larger version w/ legend)

I then noticed something really interesting... check out this map of annual average temperature.

(click for larger version w/ legend)


What am I getting at here? The two maps correlate low development with high temperature. The most notable counterexamples are, in decreasing significance: Australia, North Africa, and Russia. I hypothesize that the reason these places have higher or lower development than you would expect is due to how much trading they do with "warmer" or "cooler" countries. For example, North Africa has easy trade routes to the more temperate Europe, and this has the effect of a heat-sink, allowing slightly better development. Australia is an instance of an "ice-cube" dropped in hot water (significant immigration from a "cold" source like Northern Europe), and if there is causation between climate and development, one could project Australia to "melt" and fall behind in development within the next century.

What do you think?

[Jack_Henderson]

Your theory is already known under the label "environmental/climatic/geographic determinism" which basically states that there is a direct correlation between natural factors (climate, soil,...) and development.

The theory has been abandoned largely (at least as a stand-alone one) as it does not take into account the many more factors that exist (e.g. colonialism as a very noteable factor that has changed development levels a lot).

Jack, geography teacher in RL:)

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[Hierophant]

Malaria risk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Malaria_...Y_-_WHO2004.svg

Thats one, and the other is the fact that growing season in aggriculture in limited by temperature in the higher latitudes, while it's limted by rainfall near the equator.

In high latitudes, the rainfall is more or less stable and abundant, sometimes there are droughts, but not very often. The temperature is what limits the length of the growing season most of the time. Temperature is very easy to predict. Cold in winter and hot in summer. Very easy to make plans based on that.

Near the equaor, temperature is always high enough to grow stuff. Whethere is 10 degrees or 40, the plants dont really care. What they care about it water. There is a steady seasonal cycle in rainy/dry season(s). The problem with rainfall is that its much harder to predict, and much more variable. Mean temperature from one year to the next may vary by 2 degrees. THe plants dont care. Mean rainfall, how ever, can be 2 to 5 times more or less what fell last year, espicially when you go down to the local scale (not continental or region scale) which is relevant for a farmer. It's much, much harder to plan your growing season, and relatively small anomalies in rainfall can have disastrous consequences for a farmer.

2 reasons the equatorial countries got it harder: diseases and rainfall variability. One is directly dependant on temperature, one indirectly.

Hierophant, researcher in climate and hydrology IRL:D

[Jansen]

Is it just me or does the term 'Failed state' somehow sound really wrong? I mean how can one state judge if another one is failed? Maybe the state attempting to judge about the other one is failed as well if its trying to do that? :unsure:

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[Benjamin]

Guns, Germs and Steel is always a good read, guys. Touches on this.

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[Zelot]

Nope. This is not a discussion for these forums.

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