@bcham Image credit: Starkey Comics - https://starkeycomics.com

@bcham
I want to show this to folks not on the Fedi. Would you be willing to post a link?

@bcham
I loved “reading” atlases as a child.😁

@bcham I love anything that effectively illustrates that we live and we're shaped by this planet and our actions actually affect the world around us. It's entirely infuriating when people act like voting is an abstract moral exercise rather than a practical choice that has consequences. Usually because they're privileged enough to be insulated from the worst of those consequences

@bcham
At A Level geology, my teacher was constantly showing us how geology affected all sorts of things we deal with on a day to day basis.

@bcham My wife is an archaeologist, and so much made sense when we were on a backpacking trip in the beautiful areas of New Mexico in Bandolier National Monument and Dome Wilderness, and came across a midden full of pottery sherds. I told her how beautiful this place is and how much I like it here. She told me "given how many cave dwellings I'm seeing around here, I'm sure they did too." The area is rich in water, obsidian, wood and wildlife. We still need most of those resources today.

@bcham I'm constantly arguing for this kind of thinking, especially when I was working as a researcher. This is a really good example 🙌

@bcham I definitely remember a similar set of maps in my Alabama History textbook in the 90s. I don't think it had election results, but it had a few of those maps. Probably the fertile soil, current black population and pre-war slave population. Also if the "Black Belt" referred to the people or the soil. I don't think there was a definitive answer.

@bcham cc @cneff #geography

@bcham

It is scary to see something that really does look like geology is destiny.

@bcham You will love this French classic (1913!) of electoral sociology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tableau_politique_de_la_France_de_l%27Ouest_sous_la_Troisi%C3%A8me_R%C3%A9publique

@bcham I grew up in Lee County. Always assumed because of Auburn University the county voted blue even with the outlying communities being strongly conservative

@bcham there’s are no citations in the original blog post. Could be accurate, or it might not. We don’t know.

@bcham that's amazing

@bcham I believe this association was first observed by a geologist, Steven Dutch, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, following the 2000 election: https://stevedutch.net/research/elec2000/geolelec2000.htm

It was popularised by https://deepseanews.com/2012/06/how-presidential-elections-are-impacted-by-a-100-million-year-old-coastline/

Ryan Starkey's version is at https://starkeycomics.com/2021/06/11/how-a-coastline-100-million-years-ago-influences-modern-election-results-in-alabama/

@bcham

I also love this #infographic. Have seen portions of it before. But without a key or explainer I do not understand the "Average Farm Size" section. The areas corresponding to the other #maps are red, but it is unclear to me if that means large or small farms? Presumably there were large plantations in those areas before the #CivilWar?

Any insight?

@bcham so basically the election results in Alabama have literally been set in stone for millions of years. 😃

@bcham I guess Cretaceous sediments have something to do with agriculture which has to do with slavery?

@bcham This one is old, but same sort of thing

@bcham talk about economic geography! Check out William L Garrison late UCBerkeley emeritus.