Geography and geospatial thinking
touches on all aspects of our lives from energy to elections, from floods
to foods. Teaching spatial thinking is paramount
to the success of the human experiment. My guest today is one such thinker,
an educator and lifelong student of geography. Dr. Joseph
Kerski is the education manager for ESRI. He holds three degrees in geography
and has served 22 years for leading national agencies,
including NOAA, USGS and the Census Bureau. Our discussion covered geographi
c
education with artificial intelligence, critical thinking and ethics
and geography, and a deep dive into inspirational figures and events
that have shaped spatial thinking forever. My goal with this podcast is to provide
free access to the intelligence within the minds of great thinkers
and doers. And I'm sharing my access to the great people in these communities
with you to think, learn and grow from. Please rate and review this podcast
and subscribe on YouTube. It's free and enables us to co
ntinue to produce
high quality content for your enjoyment. Make sure you check out the links
in the description and enjoy Dr. Joseph Kerski Joseph Kerski Maybe you could give us an introduction
to how you became the education manager at ESRI And greetings all. Joseph here
and I'm happy to chat about that because it's been
a really interesting journey and hopefully encouraging people listening to this
in a couple of ways that I'll explain. But I've had a very blessed variety of experiences in the
geospatial spatial thinking, geography world. I'm at ESRI. As you indicated,
I'm on the education team. So it's it's really focused
on helping schools, libraries, museums, community, technical and tribal colleges
and universities be successful with spatial thinking and geo technologies. It is completely supporting their good work and teaching in research
and also in campus facilities, campus administration, campus
safety, lighting, electricity and so on. Managing the campus.
I'm mostly focused
on the teaching and research side, helping
educators use GIS in a variety of different disciplines
that we can chat about. But the way I got here was I have
had a past in nonprofit organization, so I was president of the National Council
for Geographic Education. I love nonprofits. I'm active
in other nonprofits, AG and others. I've also spent a lot of years in federal agencies, science and mapping agencies,
no Census Bureau, U.S. Geological Survey,
and I also am in academia, so I teach part tim
e as an adjunct in several different
community colleges and universities. That helps me in my role as well.
And I love working with students. So that's the four sectors of society
that I've been involved with. Well, cool. I mean, as the education
manager, there's probably some interesting things going on in terms of the way
technology is exploding right now. I was wondering if maybe you can kind of give me your philosophy on education and the current the current trends of,
you know, large scale
language models and these other awesome A.I. tools kind of taking over what I
what I call are the hard skills, right? The hard skills I think are going to be run by AI and it will be up to people to be creative
and curious to put those things together, really. But what's your philosophy
on educating in that? Well, great question, Nick. I have always advocated several different but core key tenets in education. First of all, it's not about the tools. The tools are important
that the tools enable
us to make smarter, wiser,
more sustainable decisions. But the tools evolve, as you're indicating
right now, they are rapidly evolving, ever more rapidly
evolving in the future. As you're hinting at this tool
right here, I'm pointing at my head. I know this is a podcast
so people can actually see this, but I'm pointing at my head
this tool right here, your brain is the most important tool
of all your spatially thinking, critical thinking brain. So I encourage students of all ages
and faculty and
researchers and others to keep nurturing that tool, primarily your brain, as you're also indicating the human element is still going
to be important in wise decision making. Yes. Will have ever more wonderful data sets and geospatial
tools at our fingertips. But that spatial thinking brain of yours
is the most important. Also, another tenet that I've long
advocated is be critical of the data. Understand what data goes into the models
that you're using, the tools that you're using,
and what scal
e was it created at? Who created it? Why was it created?
How often is it updated? And as again, you're hinting at,
as we go into this big data mob world, AI enabled tools, it's
even more important than ever before that you understand
what goes into that and in part because you're not going to be
in the future using very much of the standard workflows perhaps of the past,
where you've got your own small data set and you've got your model
that you're running on that and you come up with solutions
that that
those are still be important to be sure. But increasingly it's going to be I've
got to figure out how to make the Texas Electrical grid sustainable in the event of a future
freeze. Right. And I'm not going to be just loading
a couple of electric lines. I'm going to have millions of customers
and thousands of lines and thousands of switch boxes and transforming stations. So I'm going to use a probably a model that's AI enabled
that probably someone else created. But I need to understand
what's in that model. So those are a couple of the things
that I have long advocated. But, you know, last one here is as we
as we kind of move forward, you're you're you're hinting at another key thing, and
that is the transformation of education. Now, education has always been evolving
to be relevant and timely in meeting students needs
and meeting societal needs and so on. So no surprise. But in the last three years, many faculty
have been forced, right, to adopt a hybrid model
or to teach on
line. I've been teaching online for 20 years
and I love it. You know, there's so many tools
and data sets available online, but some faculty, it wasn't their fault. They just never had to teach online
before the year 2020, and suddenly they were forced to. And so teaching
something like Geo Technologies, which is rapidly evolving and high tech
inherently and complex now they had to, in addition to that, engage students
in the online or hybrid environment. So for many
that was a very challenging
time. But, you know, faculty are very innovative
and creative and so they did it. Some of them still prefer to teach face
to face, and I get that as well. I love teaching face to face
as well as teaching online, but anyway, there's there's been lots of that going
on, that whole change. And then the last
change of course, is that as we move forward,
there's the demographic changes in society and there's also societal
expectations for education is changing. You know, should I get
do I really need
that traditional degree? Do I need a micro credential,
Do I need a certificate? Do I do I need it just a few classes? And so education is trying to respond
to all those changes as well. And in the geographic information
system space, there are, you know,
legit degrees that you can get in this. But it's also one of those things where,
you know, really skilled technician that just understands the tools could really do
that, really do some great stuff. What are your thoughts on that, that kind of b
alance
between a formal education or just being a master of the tools? You know, I and I guess
I guess you're going to say both, indeed. But but my my my question is, you know,
you just mentioned there's a lot of free stuff out there. You know, you could go to school for four years
or if you could take some of these courses that are online, that are free,
or watch a million YouTube videos, which is what a lot of people are doing
for their own education these days. You know, is is traditional edu
cation really
the right thing for such a technical. Well, there's a couple of thoughts
I have on that. Yes, I think it's good
that we have this conversation. And this is by no means
the final word on this. I'd love to have your listeners. Oh, gosh, the pressure's on it. Right here today. Observer station with folks. They know how to get a hold of me based on the resources
that you're attaching to this podcast. And I'd love to have this
because we need to have this conversation because we're stil
l inventing it as we go. We're
inventing this whole geospatial edge. You know, when you think about it, geospatial technology has been around
since, what, 1965? Tomlinson The Canadian Land inventory. So we're only in the 60th year
ish of geospatial and in education, even newer than that, universities really didn't fully embrace
GIs until right around 19, the late 1980s, early 1990s, when you started
to see those early textbooks and so on. I think, well, there are several things
that are importan
t here. Number one, it depends on what the person wants to do
and where they see themselves working. Sure. In my in my own role, for example, it was actually worthwhile
for me to spend the time and money to get that Advanced Degrees Master's Bachelors Ph.D. because I wanted to work in education,
and so I wanted to be on educational advisory boards
and NSSF panels and things like that. So actually having
those additional letters would help me if I would have gone into just, you know, non educatio
nal space NGO
technology, which is where I was actually at
the Census Bureau and USGS for many years before I got under
the educational focus of my career. But when I was making data, working
with local stakeholders, et cetera, building tiger and digital line
graphs and digital ortho photos and all those other kinds of core data
sets, National hydro data set, I think that the the bachelor's
and perhaps the Masters would have been sufficient. And then in addition to that additional
maybe certific
ation credentials of various kinds
of micro credentials and stuff. So it really depends on where a person
listening to this is feeling that they they want to have
the most positive impact. Where they see their role is
certainly as you're as you're touching on, there are many ways to get to to nurture
that whole lifelong learning, which is what we're all encouraging
the community to do. Right. Nick is be a lifelong learner. There's never going to be,
even when you get your or whatever degree it i
s or a credential,
you're not going to stop learning. You can't stop learning in this space. So that all being said, universities
are trying to figure out and college technical, tribal community
colleges as well have a key role here. How how should they position themselves? It's definitely no longer just the degree for sure,
and it hasn't been for quite some time. Right. And as you're also touching on
now that we've got online learning tools, hey,
I can be in my home office in Colorado and I can
take the Penn State, which I have a lot of respect
for and other programs online. I can enroll in those programs. I can also go to a boot camp gigs and take a series
of courses and get a certification there. And I can also take ESRI MOOCs,
massive open online courses, and I love those and I encourage people
to do those as well. I can I can take learned at our Eskom modules
and the training at ESRI and other organizations. Those are all good things. Obviously you've got a regular job to do
and s
o you've got to balance out, Hey, how much time I'm going to spend
learning actual purposeful learning rather than just learning on the job versus getting what my supervisor
is asking me to do today or this week or, you know, my team goals this month
or my organization's goals this year. I've got to do those too. So how do I navigate the waters where I'm spending time
purposefully learning and walling off? And maybe this is another conversation, walling off my regular duties so I can say
I've go
t to be immersed in this. For example, at this muck for 3 hours. I can't just sort of dip into it
for five or 10 minutes, right? That's
just not conducive to learning this. So how do I position myself? What's the what's the work
learning balance, if you will, to do that? But yes, you're exactly right. There is a I think a very volatile changing environment
that we're in, in education. And, you know, since I do visit
about 40 campuses a year face to face in an online webinars
for probably hundred
s more every year, some of those, especially regional universities,
are really grappling with, you know, how do we maintain not just our geospatial program
but our entire university, how are we going to make sure that it
survives? Now, I you know, being a positive person,
I want all boats to float. I think there's space for everyone. But the reality is you're competing
against all these online programs and all these micro credentials. So one of my pieces of advice for especially those regional s
maller
universities is, okay, what can you focus on
that's already a strength on your campus? Maybe it's agriculture, maybe it's meteorology
and so connect your geospatial program, maybe it's business or, you know,
some aspect of business like supply chain rather than you directly trying to compete
with your big state university. I don't think you're going to win if you're always going to try to compete
with your big. Some students who always want to go
to, you know, Champaign-Urbana, right. Or
or the Ohio State, they're not going to want to go to western
Kentucky or eastern Illinois. So. Okay. What do you focus on there, too? It's not going to be large,
but it could be very viable in something that someone couldn't get anywhere else. Yeah. So you brought up a good
a good question for me anyways. That's, you know, doctors and lawyers,
they all have to take recertification exams and things like that. Should
there be a expiration date on the Ph.D.? You know, if somebody has a PhD in, you
know, geospatial science from 1980,
you know, things have changed a bit. You know, should
there be some type of write up on that Ph.D. or is it. Oh, that's an interesting
that's an interesting question I'd love to get other people's
opinions on as well. My opinion is that everybody in geo enviro geoscience science, they are all extremely keen on learning
as they progress through their career. So I don't know of anybody in this space. And again, you know,
this is admittedly in these spaces. Yeah
, but, you know, I know a few people with advanced degrees in chemistry,
in art history, and there too they are. They're also lifelong learner. So I don't I don't know of anybody
that's just sort of resting on their past laurels or accomplishments
and just kind of coasting along, you know, And maybe I'm working
in sort of rarefied air where the people I'm working with
are are all extremely innovative and and desiring to partner with others. I mean, I tell people myself,
I've been working with ge
ospatial I said this in a community college
not too long ago. Nick and the students eyes got kind of wide
because they realized how old I am. But I worked on Tiger at the Census Bureau
and their eyes were like, Oh, you know,
I've read about that in textbooks. Joseph worked on the Tiger system
at the census Bureau. Oh, my gosh. So I'm not just coasting after that. It's a PowerPoint is I been in this space
and I think I'm just one example of many people that are,
hey, we've got to keep innovating.
We've got to keep moving this forward because we don't want to just use
geospatial technology. What we want to actually forge new ground
with GEO. We want to chart the future
of GEO technologies, right? Nick We want to blaze what it should be,
which is of course, to build this more sustainable,
equitable, resilient world. We don't want to just say,
well, we've got these tools. Now occasionally I get people saying, Joseph,
you know, ESRI and other organizations, they should just kind of slow dow
n on the development of the tools
because there's too much to learn. Okay, first we need each other. We you can't learn it all. And secondly, we can't stop developing it
because people want those tools to make smarter decisions
about water or public safety. Right. Or hazards, resilience, a land use
or some other aspect in society, right? Nick So we can't really say, okay,
this year we're only going to develop a subset of tools. No, people are asking for these. And that's why we but it's
why the
pace of change is so rapid. You mentioned the tools.
I'm always just astonished by Ezra. I mean, it's just there's so many
new tools that come out every year and and I'm one of these people that I want
to play with all of them, right? I think we can use this over here. So I'm always fascinated by that. And if you're unfamiliar with Ezra,
you definitely need to Google Ezra and check out this company. It's they're the world leader
in geographic information systems. And if you're listening to this
podcast,
you probably already know who they are. So that's probably probably a good thing. You mentioned
you go out to a lot of campuses all over the place. Oh, do you think there's any gaps
in either geospatial, remote sensing or GIS
that things that we're just not teaching? Well, great question. I'm just going to cap the S3 note for you that one of the things that I suspect is
happening is you're going to have
some listeners of this that are sort of trying to figure out what organization
they
want to work for. And, you know,
we've got 8000 employees or so and, you know, we're we're humans
and sometimes we get it wrong. But I think the focus has always been and that's why where we got to be large is that we're always trying to listen
to what people want. What do you know? So for example,
the S3 user conference is called the User Conference for a reason,
and that is all about the users. It's not rah rah S3, it's
what are you doing that's innovative in this space
and tell other people a
bout it. And another thing is
I encourage people to find out where what their organization stands for. So in our case, one example is the Jack
and Laura Dangerman Preserve. It is on the elbow of California. So if you if one of your listeners
goes and scrolls down to the area west of Santa Barbara, they'll see
the Jack and Laura Dangerman Preserve. There are founders of S3 and that was the biggest donation
to the Nature Conservancy ever. There's like $225 million. The point is it's there's public
access,
there's beach, there's trails, but it's not going to be paved. And you can study, you know, Panthers
and condors and and 300 year old oak trees and and so having them do that instead of,
you know, jetting around partying. Right. You wouldn't want an an environmental
focused organization like this too, where the CEOs weren't
aligned with the mission. It's quite the converse. It's they are completely dedicated
to giving back to people in the planet. So I just encourage the people
that no
matter what organization you want to work for, do, do,
do your homework and investigate what that organization
actually stands for. And if they're practicing
what they're preaching. So back on your question,
which I think is a really good one, that and you want to rephrase that a little bit. Tell me more. Tell me more about what
you're what you want me to focus on here. So I was asking about the
you know, the fact that you go around to a lot of college
campuses and I'm just curious if there's an
y massive gaps and geospatial
remote sensing or GIS that, well. This is starting to close. But I've always advocated based on,
you know, reading John Pickles book Ground Truth from the 1990s, John Pickles is still active professor at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And that was the first
really set of readings I ever remember about the societal implications of GIS. In other words, it's
not just this objective tool, it's not just positive mystic tool,
but we've got some societal
implications. And now, especially with the advent of web
based GIs and the the whole scenario where everybody is
a map maker, everybody can create content. Now, it's not just the USGS
and the Ordnance Survey, the UK and the United Nations
Environment Program. Everybody can create map content. And so now there's even more of a emphasis
on who we need to be critical of the data. We need to know who created it, why it was created, how it was created,
how often it was updated, etc. Because ArcGIS On
line, for example,
is an open platform. Anybody can contribute data into it. So the data consumer then needs to know how to be a discerning, critical thinker
with regards to data. So I think that and other things
related to societal issues, geo privacy, copyright and other ethical issues,
when you make a map, when you symbolize, when you classify right, when you
when you choose the projection, all these are influencing people's final perception
of the issue, the problem, the scenario that you're
laying out. So the ethical and societal issues involved with mapping and visualizations, you know, more generally,
I think are being looked at more. I would like, you know, to your point,
I would like those to be embedded in all courses, not just, hey, week 15, we're going to talk
about ethics in this course. No, that's there's ways to embed it. And I've actually written about this as well
in in practical ways throughout courses. And I think that's important. So there's still a little gap there
. But I think it's it's it's narrowing. People are starting to be aware of that. Yeah, we need to be
teaching this and here's why. I would say also, you know, you touched on this
in your comments to me leading up to this this podcast, but part of this is we're inventing it,
we're figuring out how to teach it and what to teach it as we go. But I methods machine learning, that's another one. For example,
you've got in ArcGIS Online, you've got AI powered tools in the Living Atlas. The Living Atlas
has a set of like,
I want to extract buildings or cars or trees from a multi band image. Okay, that's that's an AI powered tool that you can just use now
on a set of imagery. Okay. So know what went into that
and so on. How do I teach with those tools I think
is important going forward as well. You know, another thing that's
narrowing sharply because more and more remote sensing programs are incorporating
UAV, drones, that sort of thing. And that's always just that's ever
going to increase in t
he future. In the past,
it was sort of let's fly this. We've got one or two on campus
and let's just fly the campus and use it for promotion of the campus
and make cool videos and things like that. But now it's, hey, we've got an empowering tool that we can look at how much energy is lost
in different buildings with like a thermal band of the image,
or let's make a 3D model to build a sort of an interior versus
exterior space plan in case there's a natural hazard
on our campus. Next week, what a
re we going to do? And so that's that's a fairly new frontier, but closing rapidly
because of people really embracing this as part of their remote sensing program
in their geo technology set of offerings. So that's closing. But there's still a little bit of a gap. And I would say just lastly here, there is still an under teaching. If we can make that a verb of Dakota and programing. Now many people in Geo Technologies
have had some coding courses like me, they've, they've come into this from geo
graphy
or environmental science or planning, and they've had one or two coding courses
and they do a little bit with Arcade and they do a little bit with,
you know, some of the Web APIs and stuff, but we don't do a lot in it. And we need people
that know how to do more than just kind of the basics
is what I'm advocating. And also it's backed up by a survey
that we conducted a while back. But I think it's still relevant
where we surveyed new people, people new in the geospatial technology
career
zone. And we said, hey, what did you not get in
your undergraduate or grad school that you wish you would have had more of? And the only thing that was really higher
than, you know, statistically higher
than the other responses was coding. I didn't get enough coding in my program
and I really needed on the job. So for various reasons, as especially
as we migrate to this fully web enabled platform,
but also as systems integrate. Right. We're a metropolitan organization of MPO, Metropolitan Planni
ng Organization,
the Council of Governments, etc. want to integrate different communities,
cities, counties, GIS systems into a system
that will talk to each other. I don't know how to do that. And most GIs
people don't know how to do that either. We also need those computer science
i.t folks that we need them to understand what geo technology is
and what our community cares about. But, but so some of it's
going to be filled from the geo technology geoscience side of things that I think
more nee
ds to be filled from the people that really wanted to go into computer
science and system engineering. But we want them to know about
some of our concerns and our workflows. So that's that's a gap as well. So it's sort of a cross-fertilization,
I guess, if you will, of in universities and community colleges
of of computer science and geotech. Okay. You talked a lot
there about critical thinking. You talked a lot there about ethics. These are two areas
that I think are vitally important. Maybe ma
ybe we can tackle critical
thinking. First, you mentioned earlier about how understanding the foundation of that data. Right. Like and even talked a little bit about,
you know, this kind of world of open source information
and having to trust sources, how do you think critically
about geospatial data? Like what are those things you're looking for
when you're looking at a map to say, I don't
I don't this doesn't look right. Like,
how do you think through that process? Oh, very good question. It p
robably will mean a bit different
to others. I'm I've come into this
field from geography, so I, I really value
these tools and perspectives because it helps me
and I think others to think holistically, which is what we desperately need
on our planet. It's good to have your specialization,
whether it's soils or population
studies or hazards or energy water. It's better health, It's good to have a specialization, but don't lose the fact that we need
to think holistically about how the lithosphere
is connected to the hydro spheres. Connected to the Anthroposophy right
Nikola, human sphere, the biosphere, etc. We need people that can think holistically
so that they understand, Oh, if we altered this variable over here,
this is going to be affected. I mean, think of all the past
kind of blunders that we've made as as a global society
in where we didn't realize the implications
of which we change this in a in a region. And then this is going to be
our ramifications in health economics. ET c
etera. For decades and sometimes generations
to come, we need to think about that. I mean, the world is full of complex
choices and it's not so black and white. It's there's there's grace,
there's gray areas. And so the part of the, you know, modern world of decision
making is someone's going to be impacted in positive ways and others
are going to be impacted in negative ways. How can we minimize the negative impacts? In other words, most decisions
are not going to be this is good. And if we dec
ide this way,
everything's going to be bad. Rather, it's
if we've got we've got staffing time budgets and and we need to just grapple
with our complex world. So that's all part of critical thinking,
I think is is is is understanding
and being aware of the many sectors of our planet that could be impacted positively
or negatively by our decisions with geospatial technology
and spatial data. Sure. There's other things that that go into. Do I assess that for me
and how do I assess that data? Set th
at map For me,
Part of it is fitness for use is that data set fit for my use? It may not be fit for your use, Nic,
if you're looking at fiber optic cable in a in a in a one square block,
you need highly accurate data. You need a whole lot of layers
on the built infrastructure. For me, looking at a region of watershed,
I don't more is not always better is is another message right
do I need sub centimeter right spatially spatial resolution in my imagery
for a watershed study? Probably not. In fact
, sometimes when we
we have this mindset of oh, we could just grab this data
from a myriad of sources and then use it. Well,
sometimes we're not seeing the big picture if we've got such detailed data
now that we could handle big datasets, we always need those. So that's one thing I like to consider. So is the data set fit for my use and my scale
and my problem that I'm trying to solve? And then another one is the clarity of the metadata. That's not something that's all that
exciting to talk abou
t, perhaps, but I you know, there's there's there's a lot of value in what? Let's do it just oh, my gosh. Deep dive in the marshes starting now. Yeah. The listeners turn off. And. And they have to stop. Instances right
where you and I have had decisions and so do our clients
and our partners and others where, Hey, this looks good,
but there's not much documentation on it. For example, in our case online,
even you've got a layer in there that looks pretty good. But then when you go to the whoever
,
the person that created it and it's got the head and shoulders default image, there's
nothing about that person where they work. They may have metadata there, but there's
nothing about who actually created it. That's another thing that I think
is important to look at now. So I and you and others,
you know, we can start not only following, you know, organizations that create data,
but I tend to follow and and look at data that, you know, trusted colleagues
and partners have created. So, hey, yo
u know,
Jim Harries on our Living Atlas team, I always look
and see what Jim has produced because I know it's going to be sound. I know it's Jim has gone through the
homework and Lisa Berry and others burn. Sokolski You know, so there are certain
individuals that you can also look at, and this is where
if you're producing data, you've got some sort of profile of who you are
and where you work. So I would encourage people
not just to populate the metadata, but also a little bit about
you don't ha
ve to write your, you know, your CV in there, but a little bit about what you do
and why you do it and where you work and so on, so that people can use that
as part of their decision making process. On whether they're going to use the data
sets that you're sharing or not. And I don't know if you know this,
but you just revealed Israel's next billion dollar product. You see a lot of the social media companies
switching to a paid verification system. So there you go, the Azeri
blue check mark veri
fication system. You're welcome, as you will. Interesting once you have that idea. But just make sure you're paying
your royalties to. Oh, I'm not getting any
royalties. Thanks, Nick, but. That's all right. You really said so. So later. I want to ask you a bunch of questions
about your book. So the name of the book is Interpreting
Our World. I know you have a bunch of other things you've written and things like that,
but this book is really interesting. It goes through a bunch of events. People,
things like that that have
impacted geography and geospatial. And I learned a lot from I haven't had a chance
to read the whole thing, but I've gone through a bunch
of the different sections and it's definitely interesting. And I think by the end of our conversation
today, I'm hoping that people will change their mind
on how they view geography, because it's definitely
altered my mind a little bit. So I'm
hoping that we can get there at the end. But first I wanted to you mentioned ethics
and I
wanted to touch on that because it'll go right into our conversation
about your book. What are what are the ethical concerns
inside the gear space? You know, at a previous guests, Richard,
to instruct from the city of Wellington, mentioned
an old book called maps that, you know, lying with maps. That's what
that's what it was called. And you mentioned how how easy it is
to kind of fudge the data to look like something that you want to write,
to fit the storyline in the narrative that you want to
be what are the what are the big ethical concerns in the space and what are some things we might maybe just need to look out for as critical thinkers? Right, Right. Well, okay, I'll just start by saying of
of all the books that I've had the honor to either write or co-write,
the one that you're talking about right now,
which is called Interpreting Our World is is the most for the general public book
that I've written. Most of the other ones have been,
you know, textbooks, spatial mathematics, t
ribal GIs have aimed at it,
you know, certain certain groups of folks. But this one is really aimed at the general public to see exactly
what you're saying, seeing and saying. And that is, you know,
first of all, geography is revolutionary. It's not some boring old thing
about the exports of Peru or the capital of North Carolina
or you know what I mean? It's it's not the blue category
and Trivial Pursuit. I'm going back to the eighties version
and the category in jeopardy. Those are interesting.
And the geography B,
you know, all those facts about our world, it's important to have some facts
in any discipline, right? If you're a chemist, you know, about chemical compounds and isotopes
and so on and so forth. Right? And same with geography,
environmental science, geosciences. It's important to have that sort
of content knowledge about certain things. If I'm figuring if I, if I'm talking about
hurricanes, I need to know some scale. I've got an idea of the scale
or if the earthquake impac
ted. Unfortunately, Turkey and Syria, I have
this this mental map of where that is. I could look up more specifics. Right. But so it's important to have content knowledge about our world. But my goal was really what you're
touching on now. And I'm glad you're you're kind of seeing
that is that this is a revolutionary idea of looking at the whole world
and everything in it and try to figure out how to build this more sustainable world
with, like you said, I've got tools highlighted in their GPS
o
r aerial photographs. I mean, that was revolutionary
for its time in the I've got in there the astrolabe, you know exploration maps
measuring the one degree of latitude. I've got a story in
there as well back in the 1730s so tools people ways of thinking, innovative programs and initiatives
that have come around over the years. It's a revolutionary thing
in several ways. First of all, you're trying to figure out
the whole world and everything in it and how everything connects. And secondly, this
holistic
thinking that I talked about before that is kind of a revolutionary thing. It always has been, but I think ever more
so now in our 21st century world, when there are so many specialties,
so many specialization, is we still need that holistic view of our planet,
as we talked about earlier. So yes, that's the whole goal. That book is to help
people understand that that the geographic way of thinking
is revolutionary and it touches on other disciplines chemistry, biology, city
planning, o
ceanography. That geographic thought is not just
limited to geography as a discipline, and it needs to be in other disciplines
too, because all disciplines deal with the whys of where in some way,
you know, business, supply chain management, economics,
I mean the whys of where change over space and time is, is is important
to every discipline, really. And so that's what I'm also trying
to bring forth in an interesting way. That's not nothing
against, you know, standard textbooks. And I've writte
n some of those as well. But that that you could actually give this
to a family member or a friend. And they would say, you know,
that's really interesting. And I'm going to look at, you know, Zheng
he from China in the 4000s sailing these huge ships with soil and plants on board
to far flung regions in South Asia and even getting all the way over
to Somalia and Kenya. Wow. That's fascinating. So things like that to get them
interested in exploration. And that's another theme of the book actuall
y, is that the exploration didn't
end with the golden age of exploration. It actually continues now
where we're we're we're still exploring new frontiers, mapping the mind,
mapping the brain mapping human organs. That's a frontier, right? Medical mapping, mapping Mars right, Mapping Ganymede
mapping the universe. That's another frontier in mapping
and lots of other things we could talk about. Well, back to ethics. You know, like, what if if we look at, um, you know,
I talked about the maps, you
know, the book on with maps,
and we talked a little bit about A.I. and this explosion of A.I. tools and understanding and trusting
the data that, uh, underneath that, um, you know, those, those ethical concerns to. Look, we've all heard the term
fake news, right? You see, the news likes to use maps all the time, and, um, they're very maps look very authoritative. They look very much trustworthy. You know, if there if the visualizations
done properly, if the symbology is good, you know, if it's c
lean,
you're going to trust that map. You're going to say
that's that looks legit moving forward
into this kind of AI driven, technology focused future. You know, what are those ethical concerns? And give us that. We need to we just need to watch out for. Yes, very good question. And as you're indicating it's not just new today
or this year or last year, Mark Monier was the author of that
How to Live with Maps book. It was required reading for me
as an undergraduate would actually, and for many,
many enviro geo colleagues,
it's still essential reading because it's in
and a couple of other books as well talk about this whole idea of the map
is not an impartial view of the world. It has. It's laden with meaning as all reports
and visualizations are. They they reflect and shape opinion. They reflect the opinion
and the views of the person making it. And so, you know, with all science, there's an increased recognition
that it's all societal in context. It is not what we were sort of led to
believe years ago,
where you are an impartial researcher, you're never an app,
totally impartial researcher. There are things you can do to make it
as little biased as possible. But maps have this air of authenticity,
right? Nick They tend to be believed,
as you're indicating. They I think in part
because they were created by these authoritative science
and mapping agencies for years. Rand McNally You know, USGS Vehicle
Survey, the Ordnance Survey of the UK, the United Nations Environment Progr
am,
that show I mean, these are all sort
of authoritative agencies, not perfect. They're all composed of people
and imperfect technologies and so on and so forth. So they've always been imperfect
representations of reality maps. They are very useful, imperfect representations of reality,
but they are imperfect just the same. I mean, we're trying to understand, again,
our whole world and everything in it with these maps. So to your point, it's not it's not a brand new thing, but I think there's a
n increased recognition
that we need to have a critical eye on mapped and map data of all kinds,
especially because nowadays there's a blurring between maps
and visualizations, infographics. I mean, our world is saturated,
our media is saturated by visualizations. And it's it's, it's a good thing,
I think, in large part because anybody can create maps
and visualizations with certain tools. And hey, I want to map
all of the pizza deliveries in New York City
over the last six months. Cool. I've go
t a big data set.
I can map all that. What kind of patterns do we see? Some of these are very interesting
and I think most maps are interesting in some ways. But to your point,
depending on what your goal is, do you trust it? So, for example, there's a
a series of maps that are kind of intended to be sort of click click bait,
you know, on the online, you know, that that generate clicks,
the favorite foods in every state. Okay. Really? How many people did they survey for that
map? Right, Nick? He
y, I'm making a map on the favorite
foods in every state, and I've got a my officemate. What's your favorite food?
Where are you from? I'll put that on the map. I mean, they're very low. And the end value
the number of people surveyed and you know, I'm not trying to be Mr. Jonny Rain Cloud here. I don't I don't, you know, say that we shouldn't
have any of those kind of fun maps. They are kind of fun, some of them. And but the people you even need
to have a critical eye on that because the more t
hat those maps
get populated, I think the more that people are
are maybe not asking questions about other maps
that are more scientific maybe, or on a really serious problem,
not favorite foods in every state. So even those things
I think we can use as teachable moments to help people understand. Okay It's kind of interesting,
but what if the end value of that favorite food in every state
was basically one person in every state? You know, Can you trust it? Should you trust it? Right. Okay. Maybe
. Maybe I don't need to trust it. Maybe I just want to look at it
for for interest. And that's as far
as I'm going to go with it. I'm not going to base
any sort of scientific study on. Okay. It's a of here in Colorado. I'm going to I'm going to you know, I'm
going to for another purpose. I'm going to have a bit of a more
rigorous set of criteria as to whether I'm actually going to use that map
or data layer in my in my analysis course. So so I do want to start
ask you some questions that I actua
lly pulled from your book. And these are these are really awesome. I think if you're listening, you're
going to enjoy this conversation because there's
there's so many great stories in here. There's so many great stories from things that have happened
that all impact geography. So. So but maybe we could
we could start with the first. And I can't I sent you notes,
but I can't say this name. Eratosthenes Eratosthenes. Anyways, so I briefly skimmed the that section and I'm a production assistant wa
s telling me how,
how cool the story of this was and my first question was
how did he do it? How did he do it? He did so long ago
and maybe you could tell for sure. Well, Eratosthenes was the librarian
at the famous world class Alexandria Library in Egypt
and heard reports of a certain time of year,
the summer solstice. The sun got to the bottom of a well at Syene, Egypt,
which is in the southern part of Egypt. And at the same day Eratosthenes
did a measurement that the water well in Alexandria,
which is some hundreds of kilometers
or hundreds of miles north of Syene, the sun did not reach
to the center of the well. It was as an at an angle,
so it didn't reach to the bottom of the well, so figured out,
okay, we've got to be on a sphere and that arc of the sphere
between Alexandria and Syene, I'm going to calculate that
on the on the sphere. And then I'm also going to measure it
over across land. And then if I do that,
I'll be able to figure out how how big the earth is
based on its cir
cumference. So you can imagine, you know, camels
going south from Alexandria and trying to figure out the distance
from Alexandria set to saying. But all that being said though
calculated the earth it to single digits of precision off
only one or 2% off of its actual 40,000
kilometer circumference. So it's pretty remarkable. And, you know, some argue that, you know,
there were a couple of errors that kind of balanced each other out
in Eratosthenes calculations. But even so, if that number had be
en paid
attention to, rather than being sort of reduced
by Ptolemy and others in the Middle Ages, then for example, Columbus
would have realized that's a long way to Asia from Spain, and there's no way I'm going to be able
to get there by going, right. You know, But. It's thought that the world, as many
people did, was a lot smaller than it is. But again, they didn't they didn't they
weren't using Eratosthenes numbers. But it is fascinating not just the
the measurement and the, you know, the the
difficulty of tracking across
the sands and the calculations. But just the having the having the
the the bigger picture in mind. Let's think deeply about our world
and how big it is. And, you know, it's got to be a sphere. Otherwise it wouldn't have an angle at one well and be a straight down at another
and another well. So just, you know, helping people to realize maybe there's
some preconceived notions about our world that are completely false now that we need
to maybe think thoughtfully abou
t. My old supervisor at the Census Bureau,
for example, would say, Nick, Hey, Joseph, from time to time
you kind of need to sit back in your chair or on your desk, lean back in your stand up desk, I guess
nowadays and and think deeply about, you know, what problems
are you trying to solve, what things in our world
are needed to be addressed and not get so into the day to day. And there's also the Stephen Covey workplace classes that probably many of
your listeners have taken. I took one of them
that talked about
spend time in the Q to space, the quadrant urgent and important
being the axes and the queue to space is important,
but it's not urgent. Nobody is breathing down your neck saying
you need to think deeply about this, but they're important. So I'm trying to, as I go forward
in my career, I encourage your listeners to think about this, to spend time in
what Koby talks about in this Q to space. They're important problems
to think about and grapple with, but they're not necessarily
urgent. So many times the urgent, it supersedes everything else, right? Your boss, your supervisor, your stakeholders,
whoever you're dealing with are saying, you need to do this now. And I get it. You know, I'm a realist.
You need to pay attention to those things. But wall off some time
where you think about these big, which I think is
what Eratosthenes must have been doing, you know, one day in the
in the in the library saying what's the shape of the earth
and how can I calculate it, and so on
. I just I think that's insane for for this person
to be able to figure that out, you know, without the, you know. Just 2200 years. Ago trekking with camels
like this is insane. Yeah, this is this is crazy. I guess the modern day version would be us understanding the size
of our observable universe. I mean, I guess this is the modern day,
modern day problem. And hopefully the James Webb Space
Telescope will help us figure that all out. Something you know, on that note,
another paradigm shifting
moment. Nick was right around 100 years ago. It was between 1920 and 1924
when Andromeda Galaxy was realized to be a galaxy. And because up until then, you know,
people have been observing it, you can see it with the naked eye
in certain places and certain light conditions. But it was thought to be sort of a gas
nebula that rotated around the Milky Way. And then when it was realized that is it
holds different galaxy. Our size, our conception of the universe
multiplied numerous fold. Oh, my gosh,
that's a galaxy. And maybe this other thing
is a galaxy also. And so it was no longer just the Milky
Way, which was big enough right then. But then it was. No, wait a minute. Yep. So to your point, yes, we are. That's the fascinating thing
that we're sort of uncovering here is that there's always new discoveries
to be made and thinking, you know, deeply about problems to solve
helps us to get there. All right. Very cool. The next the next person in your book
I want to talk about was Anaximander
. So hoping you could talk about who Anaximander was
and in a might even say that, right? I don't even know a x. I am A and tr Yes. Anaximander Yeah. A Greek. Another one of those Greek philosophers. And you know,
what I tried to do in the book also is not just talk about
the ancient Greeks and Romans. I mean, sure they were. They were some, you know, again, you know,
thinking about the greater societal things that were going on, you know, a
lot of through much of human history. Right.
People ha
ve been spent trying to survive. And so one of one of the things
I'm keen on is let's build some communities,
some societies where people have the ability
to not just worry about where's the next meal going to come from,
but think about some of these other things going on. And so Anaximander
like some of his contemporaries, and this was a little bit before
eratosthenes as of 600, 500 B.C. ish. But I think what's amazing about Anaximander was one of the earliest proponents of science that that we
can we can understand things by observing,
which is a big deal back then. You know, now
it's kind of taken for granted, Oh, we want to learn about plants or maps or,
you know, hazards. We're going to study phenomena. But back then, you know,
a lot of people were like, Oh, I've it's just what I think about things
I'm not going to observe. I'm just going to be thoughtful or I've got superstitions
or suspicions about things. So I'm largely driven by maybe emotions
or just thinking about it. Anaxim
ander was all about
let's go out and observe plants, animals, etc. And so I think that's to me, that was one of the the big advancements for that particular person. Absolutely. And you know, another another interesting thing
about a lot of those folks, and we've got some
in our own modern times, but you know, Von Humboldt in the 19th century
is another person I have in there. But or at least touch on and that is a lot of these
people were considered to be there was a there's a term called polyma
th
which multiple learned so they they actually had fingers
in lots of different disciplines. Right. They knew plants, they knew animals, they knew landforms,
they understood river systems. And that to me is it's it's the the challenge
and the benefits of geography. Again, not advocating that everybody
listening to this become a geographer, but the geographic perspective
is really a polymath kind of perspective. It really is the let's try to understand
various spheres. We talked about the ecosph
ere,
the lithosphere, the hydro sphere and then systems, the cycles,
the hydrologic cycle, the carbon cycle. I mean, there's a big kind of structures in in our world
and try to understand those. So to me, we need those kind of polymaths in our day
and we could point to some examples. But you know, nothing
against specialization once again. But that's one of the reasons
why I like talking about Anaximander and, and some other people. I mean, you know, there were some things
that they they, they t
hought were core concepts
think I think Anaximander was one of the people as others of his time. We're talking about there are elements
of air, earth, water, fire. I mean, fire is not not a thing, right? It's a it's like we know it's a result
of combustion and so on and so forth. But but, you know, so there were
some things that we've adjusted over time. But I just love the whole,
you know, being inquisitive about many, many aspects of our world and and try to understand
those based on observati
ons, which again, for that time it was pretty amazing. I think it's I think it's really
neat like you talked about is this polymath So you do hear that you definitely hear
that term more in history. But it's really I think anybody that's kind of intelligent
and thinks through things is curious, right? Yeah. That curiosity and you said,
you know, if you might master one subject
that that curiosity will bring up another. The last thing about Anaximander
I know we did to sum up and so on, but I bel
ieve he was the first person
documented to conceive of the Earth
as not supported by some sort of arm of a of a of a Greek god or a structure
that's actually free floating. I mean, I think he had this notion
of the earth as a disk, which is obviously not really correct,
but and floating on maybe like a water watery
sort of substance, as I recall. But, you know,
the idea that the earth was suspended in space, that it was
it was in space that. Right. Okay. Maybe he didn't know it talked about wate
r
instead of, you know, the space as. We know it now. But still, the idea that it wasn't held
by Apollo's wrist, you know, or something is really an interesting concept,
which must have been kind of mind blowing when he was in conversation
with maybe neighbors. Are you nuts? How could it be suspended? What's this got to be supported? Everything we see around us
is supported by a tree trunk, you know? Yeah, it rocks. Of course. My natural. My natural next question would be,
what are you supportin
g? Apollo. Right. What's supporting. It? Anyway, fascinating stuff. And. And now. Now we know better. Appreciate that. And the next one I had, I had listed here
because I think I think it's something interesting to think about these days
is is Vesuvius. As in the volcano in Italy. As in as in the volcano in Italy? I was wonder if you could tell maybe just a brief version of the,
you know, Well, this I. Think there were a couple of things. First, the the idea that there are there are hazards on o
ur planet and and the realization
that if we're going to build a town and we're going to live at the base
of something that's hazardous, maybe that's not such a good idea. So kind of thinking about
where should human habitation be? I mean, some of these lessons
take a long time to gel, right? I mean, we're still living in lots
of hazardous zones in our planet, and we've got 8 billion of us
that we have to figure out where we're going to house everybody. So we're going to be living
in hazardous z
ones. But I think that kind of a horrible, you know, destruction from a live living example of the earth as a dynamic planet made people realize
that this is not a static thing. So it really fostered a lot of scientific
and geographic thought. Another another interesting part about
that was that people could observe, you know, kind of touching on
what we talked about before with Eratosthenes being able to observe
and at the Anaximander because there were studies done during, before and after the
eruption that what are these things
coming out of the earth and therefore what is underneath this
and that sort of thing. Another interesting
and kind of tragic thing as well that I've got in the book is that Pliny was observing and got so interested in it. And I know
we're all really passionate about it. He was so interested and passionate
that he actually died in at the base of the volcano
as a probably a pyroclastic piece of projectile
landed on his head or something like that. So and also t
he noxious gases
and so on, but got so fascinated, but wanted to be right up there
where the action was. And that was the last observation
that he made. But it's still you know, it's interesting,
it's an interesting story. I think he was studying it. But also,
you know, on a humanitarian note, I one of the stories
was that he actually was trying to rescue a friend
and his family from the eruption. I think that was part of it. It was you know, you think about people
going into harm's way nowadays
, you know, you rescue workers and stuff. You really it kind of goes back
to probably before him. But Pliny was, I think, the first person
to not only just studying it, but actually went back into the really hazardous area
to rescue some people, as I recall. I'm not sure I put that
in the book or not, but that was the least from several sources, again,
being critical of the data, but being from several sources,
it was he actually went into the really hazardous area
to rescue some people. So, you
know, it's kind of a touching part of it. So the I think the reason I pointed
this one out was to ask this question,
Are there any current Mount Vesuvius? Is in our world that we really need
to be paying attention to? I was I was recently. Oh, fascinating. Weather on a vacation over the summer. And Iceland's fantastic. It's absolutely one of the most
beautiful countries in the world. And the first night that we were there, we were staying
on the ninth floor of a hotel. And in the middle of the
night, I could feel shaking. I'm from Florida. I grew up in Florida. I don't know what this is. Right. And my but my thought was, well,
I know they have volcanoes here. This must be an earthquake, right? There must be an earthquake. Find out the next day that, yes, in fact,
there was a volcanic eruption and the earthquake was a side effect
from from that eruption. And People just flocked to this eruption. And I remember thinking, well, if it's Mount Vesuvius, you know, what is the
what is the th
ing there? Everybody's flocking to? And thousands of people went out there to take their drone videos
and pictures and research. And the news was out there. And my thought was,
what if what if this things actually worse than what people suspect? You know, did
we learn anything from Mount Vesuvius? And and is there a mount Vesuvius
lurking around our corner today? So we could have a whole
nother block on this? But yeah, Iceland
fascinated right on the plate boundary and Simon Winchester,
whom I r
egard very highly highly as an author,
he has one of his book is actually books. He goes to the mid-Atlantic ridge and then
he ends the book in San Francisco. So it's all about hazards
and hazards, resilience. That's a fascinating book. I have to look up and see that
what that one was. Maybe you could put it in the resources
to accompany this, but I love that book. But yes, well, gosh, if there are all kinds of reports, right,
about what happens if Yellowstone National Park,
you know, is our nex
t Krakatoa or Mount Vesuvius or something like that, where you've got this massive amount of activity in the middle of the plate. Well, gosh, maybe we won't be worried about podcasts
if that happens, right, Nick? But sure, I think right there we are getting smarter. It's sometimes agonizingly slow
how decisions and plans come from investigation. But I mean, think of Gilbert White,
who was a researcher, geography professor,
mid-twentieth century, and would tell the Army
Corps of Engineers, hey, t
hese levees that were building,
for example, on the Mississippi River, that's only a feel good measure.
That's is temporary. Eventually, the river is going to decide
to do what it wants to do, and we can build in the floodplains,
but it's not wise. Let's use a different
kind of land use for floodplains, a You know, Gilbert White was kind of pooh poohed by,
you know, some, some decision makers and but you know, years later
now people are starting to realize, hey, you know, maybe some of these thi
ngs
that we talked about are smart. I mean, John Wesley Powell, right? The whole idea of the West being arid. And we need to be
maybe having communities around watersheds and we need to water
manage the watersheds wisely. That's another of many examples
we could talk about where now, no, we're going to be able
to we're going to be able to, you know, cultivate the West
and we're going to be able to bring rain in because if we plant
things, rain will come. And you know, the old dustbowl idea there
. So I think, you know, over time
we're getting smarter and we're making smarter decisions. But again,
sometimes it's agonizingly slow. But that's again, why we need
the geospatial technology community and the geography thinkers of our day. We absolutely cannot just say, well,
this is a nice thing to embrace in our society, right, Nick? We we absolutely need these tools
and these people making smart decisions to build this better world. I don't see it as a as a nice thing to do. And it's a great
career option
for people, for sure. But it's also critical
that we do this for our planet. Absolutely. For all the reasons you're talking about hazards and water and energy
and all the U.N. SDGs, right?
They're all spatial in nature. And they could be
they can be grappled with and understood. It solved with the application
of geospatial technologies and spatial thinking. So I'm right with you 100% on that. Well, I think I think the the Mount
Vesuvius question kind of leads into the next one. Ma
ybe if you think about a little bit,
at least from the way I understood this, you may talk about
Walter crystal clear and central place. Well, certainly the idea was that studying this sort of a level playing
field of planes, of Deutschland, of planes of Germany,
which is what what's Christoph sort of a laboratory,
if you will, And notice that there are certain towns that evolved
into bigger towns and they're, they're, they're networked, they're, they're surrounded by smaller towns
with a differ
ent trade area. You know, those kinds of ideas
still have their place. In fact, they're probably
even more important now than ever before. When you think about
where does a chain store decide to put like a convenience store,
like cases in Central USA or I'll sups down in West Texas,
in New Mexico or or a pilot, you know, kind of a national or 7-Eleven
or Circle K, you know, national chains. Where do they decide to put these? How many do you decide now? For years, there was a sort of an unwritten
tenet. But if you were 5000 people in Texas, 5000 people in a town,
you've got a Dairy Queen. So the Dairy Queen, you know, HQ. Okay, that's that's the
that's the criteria over which that is a viable market for us. So that those ideas from the, you know,
the 19th century for the central place theory have a lot of implication
in the business decision making sectors of society and beyond business too in other sectors of society as well, that we could
we could chat about. But that whole, you know,
sort of network
communities and hierarchy of things, yeah,
it has a lot of applicable applicability and, and actually some of those things
make their way into geospatial technology tools that we actually use buffer overlay, you know, networking tools
and other things. It's really interesting to see how, how some of those ideas
are actually in our modern GIS toolkit. So just, just so I understand. So the idea behind Central Place theory
is that things tend to develop around a centralized area,
a
network from there. And it's not exactly erratic. It's there's there's a central location where things develop
and then it goes from there. That certainly makes sense
if you look at all. And it's a complex world,
so it's not a perfect I mean he used crystal are used okay Plains of Germany for part of his study area
for most of his study area. And when you look at places
that are like that around the world, there's not
that many of them make their easily influenced by mountain ranges or,
you kno
w, climatic controls or some other, you know, some other political boundaries. I mean, there's all kinds of things
that kind of interfere with that model. But, you know, take a look at data,
some of the layouts of towns, especially like Nebraska, Kansas,
you know, where you sort of have the closest to a level playing field
that you could without the influence of a lot of physical barriers
or or political boundary issues. And you'll see that, yeah, okay. There's there's a North Platte, Nebraska,
and there's not another North Platte
of its size around for a certain distance. And in between there,
there's there's certain other towns. Now, of course, a lot of that
was influenced in our own country, in the Midwest, by the development
of railroads and railroad towns. So that's another influence
on the landscape. But we could talk about. But yeah, it's fascinating. It really is. A wonder with, you know, remote work these days if there's if there's
going to be another theory that could circumv
ent central place theory
based on the Internet, you know, is that people
still want to be near the grocery store. Right. They still want to be near services, doctors, dental dentists, etc.. But I just I'd be curious to know if there's another theory out there
that exists that could replace the idea of this central, centralized
based growth, because, look, it's expensive
to live in San Francisco. It's it's expensive to live in Boston,
New York City, Miami. And why why bother you? You can go work
from the plains of Oklahoma
like you talked about, if you really like. I like it there. I do. I love the Great Plains. But yes,
there are There's a lot of societal changes where, like you're touching on what's it going
to mean for small towns, for example. This is all
this is all geographic questions. If you can work from anywhere,
will there be a resurgence in people living in the panel handle of Nebraska
for cost reasons because of lifestyle, they want to be in a smaller town,
you know, that t
ype of thing. And there has been, you know,
some evidence in the census reports on, you know, the resurgence of some
of these smaller midsize communities. There's other factors
that pull people away from such places. So, yeah, it's it's again,
touching on our dynamic planet for sure. Very good. Okay. The next one I have here is Alfred. Yeah, I think I said that. Right, Right. This is a
this is a German name. I was hoping you could tell me the story. Well, Volker was one of those folks that was a
head of his time or her time,
you know? And then there's other examples
in the book on those kinds of folks. Had the idea. Okay,
you and I, looking at a map, for example, you know, it looks like a jigsaw puzzle
with the sort of the the bulge of South America could kind of
like fit into the the gap bite or the the hollow part of Africa
if they were joined. It looks like they're
the coastlines could almost fit. And then looking further into it, hey,
there's some mountain that have the same kind of
sediments
on either side of the Atlantic and ditto for the Appalachians and some mountain
ranges in Ireland and in Western Europe. So had this idea based on that
and many other things going on, many other observations that we have
this thing called plate tectonics. In his time, it was called
Continental Drift, that the continents are drifting on a other layer somehow. And because it was the somehow
that was unknown, vague, Wagner's theory was sort of again,
pooh poohed by the establishment, say
ing there's no there's no physical way
that those continents could be floating on something else
like the like the mantle there's we don't understand how that could happen. So therefore,
we're going to discount your theory. So again, it was one of those things
where when the mechanism of you're touching on Iceland,
you know, the whole idea of crust being formed at those mid-ocean ridges
and then being subducted on the continental margins
and that subduction zones in those plate boundaries, the m
echanism
was discovered for convection in the mantle and for cars to be created
and then destroyed in other places. So, okay, that was mechanism that enabled continental drift
to become plate tectonics. So in the end, if Wegener was vindicated, I don't believe
it was during his lifetime. However, sadly, you know, just like a lot of forward
thinkers, they didn't actually realize how how much influence they were going to have
until after they passed away. But I love that because it was okay
thinki
ng, looking at maps, taking measurements, coming up with a theory,
and hey, stick to your principles. Even if the community doesn't agree
with you. That's another, I think, good message for us
is that if you truly believe in something strongly and and you've got some evidence
there, don't let people dissuade you from from your good ideas. And I'm starting to sense a pattern of
you know all these all these people
with these historic discoveries and their
interactions with the established ideology
. Right. It seems like they're always
they always run against the obvious, like what the earth is. Look, the land isn't moving.
Get out of here. This is your crazy, right? Can you imagine
going to someone with this idea that, you know,
whenever this was in history and saying, hey, you know, I think I think the
the land we're standing on used to be, you know,
100 million years ago is over there. And I just think it's
I think it's such a great lesson in in history that and I try to about this toda
y
like who are those who are those people with these ideas now
that are kind of laughed out of the room? Right. Those ideas. Those are the ones, right. Those are the ones that that end
up sticking around and being consequential. So if we
look at the current state of geography, us and all that's going on, what are what
are you hopeful about in this field? Well, thanks, Nick. I'm I'm I'm hopeful about a lot of things,
actually. I'm I'm an optimist
and I truly believe that we've got good tools, we'
ve got good data
that we've talked about. We've got great thinkers, far reaching visionaries, energetic thinkers. And so I'm very hopeful
that we can solve these problems. We can solve them. I mean, think about 1854,
John Snow, cholera, when it was demonstrated
through maps, right, that water is the source of the cholera
pathogen, even if we can't see it in the microscope
another 20 years, which I think is the timing there,
you couldn't see it in a microscope. They just had to say, okay,
based o
n the map evidence, cholera is a water borne illness, disease. Oh, then we've got to figure out
how to clean up the water in millions of cities around the world. And there's millions of people
in those cities. Okay. Water is still an issue in our planet,
right? Serious issue. There is a billion people without safe
and accessible drinking water. So it's still an issue. But for many people, that issue has been largely solved. And again, it must have seemed
like a daunting task now. And I just enco
urage the listener
to about, you know, what are the daunting tasks of our 21st century world
that were daunting problems. We think there's no way we're going
to be able to get a handle on this. I'm actually confident that we we will get
a handle on this water, energy, health hazards and other issues. We've got to be smart about this, But I think we do have, again,
good people tools, data to do so. So I'm actually hopeful about us
being able to solve problems, in part because some of the things
w
e've talked about, geo technology in the cloud and so on. I'm also hopeful
because we have a rise of geo awareness, geo awareness, people are aware that,
hey, we've got to we've got to figure out these water issues, these hazards,
these land use issues. We've got to there's an awareness
now is in the past it was sort of you and I and our colleagues, right,
talking about these sorts of things and now the general public
is at least aware of them. They're not always aware that we have this thing ca
lled geo technologies
and geography as a discipline and other things that we can help
that can help solve those problems. But at least they're aware
that they're serious and they increasingly affect
our everyday lives. And we need to we need to solve them. Well, very cool. One of the things I really like about you
is you're definitely passionate about geography, passionate about Jai us. You're very energetic. I definitely think people should check out your your book Interpreting Our World
amongs
t a lot of your other work. Check it out. A Google Google scholar as well. Look up Dr. Joseph Kersey before before we we send off the
What keeps you up at night. Well I don't want to end on a sad note,
but since you asked the slow pace of change still in education and society so okay I'm in Colorado rapidly growing area I think where's the water going to come from
for everybody that wants to move here? And it's a great place. I moved here when I was a kid. I love it here,
but this and other plac
es, Arizona, right? Lots of areas around the world people want to move to. But is there enough
natural resources for those people? And how are we going to figure out
how we can sustain that population, the population
growth ahead of us going forward? So sometimes I wish
we were actually oftentimes let's think about the where
we want to be in 1020. That's not even very long from now right. A couple generations from now and beyond. How are we going to get there? Let's plan now so that we can get t
here. You know, the old saying, you know,
when's the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago, you know,
So it's let's think right forward and not just in terms of like fiscal years
or of this specific problem, but let's let's let's plant the seeds now
so that in generations to come, our kids, grandkids, etc., they're kind of
the benefits of wise planning. So that's that's a bit of what concerns me
is still the sort of short term solutions and also the lack of just awareness of,
okay, this is one
planet. When I see Nick, for example,
people littering, right? It's like this is this is all we have. What goes through their mind?
They're not bad people. They they've never had
an environmental science class, never had a geography class. And we could talk about why that is, or they're just not connecting
their actions to the bigger planet. So that kind of stuff concerns me
that we need to build awareness and then go from
there, make smart decisions. Well, I'm
not going to let you end on a sou
r note. So I will ask you one more question,
which is, you know what? What's maybe a hopeful message
you have for the Geo Geographic community as a whole? And what's what would be your message to them
for people that either want to get ahead in their careers, be successful,
or just they really love this stuff? Well, I would say first, reminding folks what we just talked about
with John Snow and the cholera epidemic of 18 four is a good example of,
yes, we see a problem. We're going to solve it a
nd we're going to people are going to be healthier
and thriving. So think about that. But Also, I would say, you know,
for people going forward in their journey, I would say be curious about the world. First and foremost, ask questions. Ask questions
that your professor's not even asking you. And when you're the workplace, ask questions that your supervisor's
not even asking you. Those are kind of those are the kind of employees
that your organization, Nick My organization, others listening to t
his,
they really value they they value people that can can can ask those questions
that again, there may not be ask asked in their day to day work,
but they're seeing this is a problem and we need to fix it or that's an issue
that we need to fix that. So I encourage people to ask
good questions, be curious about the world,
and also care about the world. The caring is really all about
what we're talking about today, the caring of people and places
and environments. And that's going to drive us fo
rward
into a better future. Well, appreciate it so much. Thank you, Dr.
Joseph Kersey, for being here. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, make sure you leave a five star review. If you're on YouTube,
hit the subscribe button. It's too easy. It's free. Make sure you share this podcast
with your friends. We're going to leave all links to things
we talked about in the description. It'll also be on the website and
make sure you check all those things out. Thank you, Nick. So this is. Yeah, great
, Great to have you. Great conversation. My name's Nick and this is the ends show.
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