Tomas Pueyo Profile picture
Aug 30, 2021 14 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Have you ever heard northern Europeans telling southern Europeans they're lazy?

It's false.
So why are northerners richer?

Small thread 🧵
1. Northerners work substantially LESS than southerners
2. Northerners make substantially MORE money
Here's GDP per capita PPS, indexed at 100=EU average
Which mean Northern Europeans are substantially more productive.

Why? If you ask a Northerner, he might tell you it's because they're better educated, have better institutions, the protestant work ethic, it's colder so ppl work harder...

Suspicious.
Alternative: geography.
This is Europe's topography map.

Look at it and try to figure out the biggest patterns.
Do you see any?

The biggest one: the north is made up of the gigantic Northern European Plain, while the south is mostly mountains.

Why?
Because the African tectonic plate hits the Eurasian plate.
Looking at the details, you can see the formation of Southern Europe due to these tectonic plates.
A bit like the Indian plate forms the Himalayas hitting the Eurasian Plate
But mountains don't create wealth. Plains do. Wherever there's a plain that is well irrigated, there's ppl. Where there's ppl there's wealth.

Why?
Flat :
➡️ you can irrigate. Water doesn't run away.
➡️ build up of sediments from rivers, so +fertile
➡️ Rivers are slower, easier to control. +irrigation
➡️ easy to trade (walk, roads, navigable rivers)
➡️building is much cheaper
Now look back at the map of Europe, this time with navigable rivers. What do you notice?
1. So many mountains in the south, you can't develop agriculture as well, grow a big pop, create much wealth. And everything is + expensive
2. The mountains stop the water from the clouds, which falls quickly into the mediterranean in the south (mountains), but very slowly in the Northern European Plain, creating lots of navigable rivers, amazing for irrigation and trade.
Remember all of this when you hear northern Europeans calling the southern neighbors "lazy".

Many details in my series of articles on geohistory. Eg:
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/geography-is…
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/world-chessb…
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/a-space-craf…
To clarify: I’m not saying geography is the only cause. I’m arguing it’s a big one

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More from @tomaspueyo

Jun 10
What makes Budapest unique?
It wasn't just 2 cities (Buda + Pest) but 3-4!
Why?
And why is it where it is?
Why did it become the capital of Hungary?
It's no coincidence, and it explains the history of the country

Look at this:
Thread 🧵
The Pannonian Basin, this huge plain surrounded by mountains, was going to have a capital. But where would it be? Image
It would probably be on the main artery: the Danube, which splits the plain in half
1. Navigable all the way to Germany—fantastic for trade
2. Drinking water, great for living
3. Water for irrigation ➡️ crops

But early on the Danube had another huge advantage: Image
Read 22 tweets
Jun 6
Why is Hungary so small?
As this map shows, it could be bigger
It used to host one of the world’s most powerful empires—Austria-Hungary

Now it’s tinier & poorer. What happened?

Explaining it also explains Orbán, or why Hungarians hate their borders🧵 Image
You see that big plain surrounded by mountains? That's a perfect region for a single country: well-connected, fertile plains, protected by an easily-defensible wall of mountains.

That is, indeed, where Hungary was for nearly 1000 years!

It's called the Pannonian Basin
All these mountains catch humidity that flows down as rivers, which criss-cross the country, bringing lots of irrigation

The biggest one is the Danube, so big & gentle that it's navigable, connecting it with Germany & creating trade and wealth along its controllable path
Image
Image
Read 18 tweets
May 1
Two shocking events from last week unmasked eco-terrorists disguised as environmentalists:

1. The Philippines banned golden rice, condemning thousands of children to blindness and death
2. German Greens lied to closed nuclear plants

This is what happened and how to reverse it: Image
1. Golden Rice Ban
Golden Rice has added vitamin A over 100,000 children every year and turns blind over 100,000 more

Golden Rice has additional vitamin A, and eliminates that problem Image
But Greenpeace got a Filipino court to ban it. Why?
The court says "there's not enough evidence". But there is, proven by safety tests from countries like the US, Canada, and NZ. It is just like rice, except with more Vit A

So why do they say that?

reason.com/2024/04/25/gre…
Read 13 tweets
Apr 27
You think housing prices will keep going up because you've seen it all your life. But this is a historic anomaly that is likely to reverse soon: Prices might start shrinking in many places.

This thread is the case against investing in housing: Image
Our perception of real estate prices is extremely biased.
Most ppl alive today have only experienced them since WW2, but that's a completely anomalous period!

Prices before did not grow as much. Here are real prices for 14 countries
What happened?

Supply and demand
The last 80 years have seen a growth of housing demand never seen before. At the same time, supply has been shrinking consistently. These trends are all reverting now. Let's look at them in detail:
Read 24 tweets
Apr 23
Why do Jamaicans speak English, when most of its neighboring countries don’t?
Why was the pirate capital there?
Why is it underwater now?
Why did pirates drink rum?
Why are most Jamaicans black?

This map of shipping lanes today gives you a hint:
Jamaica is in the middle of all these shipping lanes, but isn't a major shipping hub today

This is not new: Back in Spanish colonial times, Jamaica was not in the main trade routes either Image
Spain's main goods were silver from Mexico and Peru and luxury goods from China
Spaniards gathered them in Panama, Portobello, Cartagena, and Veracruz
Ships arrived from Spain to Puerto Rico and left via Habana (Cuba)
Jamaica was not a main port
Why? Image
Read 28 tweets
Apr 3
This machine makes fuel from thin air
It's carbon neutral
And it does this at record-low costs
Energy and the environment will look completely different in 10 years
Here's why: 🧵 Image
The problem with fossil fuels today is not that we burn them, it's where they come from: They had been locked in the ground for millions of years and now they're back in the atmosphere. The pbm is the "fossil", not the "fuels"

If we make fuels out of thin air, we can burn them Image
How can we do it?

Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4)
You just need some energy to force some carbon (C) to bing to hydrogen (H)

Carbon can come from air (CO2)
Hydrogen can come from water (H2O)
The energy can come from the sun (solar panels)

That's what @TerraformIndies does Image
Read 11 tweets

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