Threats on sustainability for the future of this country

Defining sustainability

Sustainability covers many aspects of human life of the world of today. It’s a much broader concept then we realise with new ideas thrown into the meaning, some contradictory others following linkages between each other.

Sustainability must govern and balance these characteristics of human life;

· Economy

· Environment

· Culture

· Society

· Religion

Without these five categories sustainability is hard to create and manage.

There are many threats that oppose the possibility of a sustainable future. They can affect it in a number of ways some more influential then others. The types of factors that impact and bring forward the issues facing sustainability are such issues as pollution, increasing crime rates, poor economy that is not balanced and does not consider the consequences of its actions. By this I mean economists that do not consider the problems that their plans may have on the environment. Some plans could be more costly if the wrong action is taken, for example carbon emissions increasing our carbon footprint. In particular carbon emissions from cars and aeroplanes. The wrong policies or plans may results in bad publicity for the country as a whole if it is not seen as attempting to reduce its level of Greenhouse Gas emissions.

There are many reasons for a failure in sustainability that can affect our future and they are categorised into these groups; energy depletion, a collapse in the climate systems, an ecological collapse and a disruption of the economy. They illustrate the factors that can affect the world of today which will also affect the world of the future.

Energy Depletion

One of the biggest threats to sustainable development is oil production shortfall. Some scientists assure us that production will keep up with demand whereas others predict an imminent shortfall.

The debate continues…

Source: http://avbp.net/html/peak_oil.html

Climate system

The main threats to sustainability are mainly due to the impacts of pollution and the effects it is having on the environment and an imbalance of environmental and socio-economic factors that control our way of life.

The climate is changing and on this point very few will argue against it. For sustainable development relating to climate change several question arise:

· To what extent is global climate change due to man’s activity?

· What will be the effects?

· What can we do to mitigate them?

Source: http://avbp.net/html/climate.html

Ecosystem Collapse

To understand the state of the planet’s ecosystems, how far they are threatened by collapse, and to what extent these threaten our well-being? These were the questions considered by “The Millennium Assessment” (MA) which was launched by the U.N. Secretary- General Kofi Annan in June 2001 and was completed in March 2005.

The work was carried out by hundreds of scientists from every corner of the globe. The research assessed the state of the Earth’s ecosystem from the point of view of its ability to provide the world’s population with physical an mental well being.

A quote by the MA stated “The MA synthesises information from the scientific literature, datasets, and scientific models, and includes knowledge held by the private sector, practitioners, local communities and indigenous peoples. All of the MA findings undergo rigorous peer review. More than 1,300 authors from 95 countries have been involved in four expert working groups preparing the global assessment, and hundreds more continue to undertake more than 20 sub-global assessments.”

Source: http://avbp.net/html/services.html

Disruption to the economy

Other threats maybe taking away the safety and security from people within the towns, cities or villages that they live in. One of the biggest threats is our dependency on non renewable energy sources.

A quote “...paints a dystopic view of the United States in the wake of what author James Howard Kunstler dubs the "cheap oil fiesta." It's a future the author insists is not apocalyptic. Calling it the end of the world is too easy. No, Kunstler believes the human race will survive as we slip down the other side of Hubbert's Oil Peak. But the high standard of living we've built by gorging on cheap oil will not. America, as a political entity, will be history too.” - quoted from The Long Emergency (book by James Howard Kunstler)

Source: http://avbp.net/html/economic_collapse.html

However there have been schemes and plans put in place where alternatives have been considered to ensure we protect our sustainable communities, such as the group “Team Green Britain”. Team Green Britain is the organisation that has teamed up with EDF Energy to combat the climate change problem and that Britain will be at the forefront at solving it. Thus reducing the effect noticeably by 2012, which is at the same time that the London Olympics is being held. As the Olympics is watched by millions across the world it will show that Britain is playing its part to combat Climate Change and showing that Britain is a worth country to host the games.

“Get greener together

You can only do so much on your own. Working together as a team, we could help Britain reduce its carbon footprint by 2012. And have a lot of fun doing it.” – Quote from the website below.

Is where I live a sustainable community?

Definition of a sustainable community

Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life. They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.

For communities to be sustainable, they must offer:

· decent homes at prices people can afford

· good public transport

· schools

· hospitals

· shops

· A clean, safe environment.

People also need open public space where they can relax and interact and the ability to have a say on the way their neighbourhood is run.

Maulden

I live in a relatively large village in the located in the Centre of Bedfordshire it is an equal distance between Bedford and Luton. With a population of 3,500 residents and 1,100 homes it holds the title of Bedfordshire’s longest village (2 ½ miles long). Recently there has been a development of a new estate built by Croudace Homes (46 new houses) and it is continuing to grow. Recently, there has been an initiative by the government to look at the communities we live in and try and make them sustainable. They do this by looking at the area in which this wishes to change.

Maulden has one small shop the Co-operative on the western half of the village, a Village Hall also on the western half of the village, a post office in the centre as well as a school and a number of pub/restaurants.

From the 2001 census it shows that the majority of people living in Maulden own two cars per household but in comparison to the total number of cars per household it is less then a quarter.

Of those 1,300 people living within the village 1,017 are living healthy lives.

From the following Maulden is;

· decent homes at prices people can afford

· good public transport

· schools

· hospitals

· shops

· A clean, safe environment.

Using the checklist above the green words are the characteristics Maulden has, the orange text are the characteristic that are satisfactory such as the prices of homes which are not cheap but not too expensive either. Also Maulden does not have a great public transport system as buses do not often come frequently although there is a rail link to London 2 miles away. The red text shows the characteristics that Maulden does not posses It does not have a hospital as Maulden is too small to accommodate it. As you can see the majority of the text from the checklist is green indicating that Maulden is a fairly sustainable community and a clean and safe environment without any street crime, graffiti or vandalism, etc.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=301787&c=MK45+2HL&d=141&e=16&g=422998&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=0&s=1248520062929&enc=1&dsFamilyId=91

From the link above I have chosen the age statistic. It shows that the age group between 0-30 (only 372 of 1345) is relatively small in comparison to the total. These people are the ones who are most likely to commit crimes. The rest are over 31 who are economically active and have families of their own or who are too old and are less likely to attempt things like vandalism. They also are more likely to have better things to with their time or more important things to think about rather then running around the village causing havoc. From my experience having lived in Maulden all of my life for nearly 20 years, I have never been witness or heard of any serious crime.

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadDatasetList.do?a=7&b=301787&c=MK45+2HL&d=141&g=422998&i=1001x1003&m=0&r=0&s=1248389578125&enc=1&domainId=16

The education of sustainable development

Education on its own is valuable to the economy regardless as to whether it is in a sustainable environment or not. Admittedly it is better in a sustainable community and education with regards to a sustainable environment is obviously more beneficial. Education is important and plays a role in everyone’s everyday lives. People would believe that after your younger years of school life people stop learning, however this is not the case. People are always learning new things whether it be a skill in sport or an organisation to carry out tasks, a method for investigation or simple tasks like cooking or using something we use everyday such as learning how to find the time and date on your mobile. School life is just the basics it’s the start to a new open world full of possibilities and opportunities to allow us to develop in a developing and changing world.

Although there are obvious lessons for certain subject area which in my opinion are more important such as the more academic subjects, topics that affect our everyday lives, that we encounter day in day out, all the time no matter how big or small. These types of areas of learning are business, geography and science. These are the subject which I would consider to be useful to ensure a sustainable development for everyone. Other subjects like English and foreign languages are sub-subject areas which could help to improve the relationships with other countries to broaden sustainable development beyond just one particular country to allow the countries e.g. LEDC’s (Less Economically Developed Countries) to adapt so they understand how to avoid such issues as greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, with the opportunity to improve on the areas we failed on.

Each day you learn something new everyday, quoting a very famous saying often spoken in English, “you learn something new everyday”. And people learn from their mistakes too which gives us the sense to avoid it the next time adaptation to our surroundings and we all do this but we do it in different ways to each other.

Education with reference to sustainable development is a key topic. I think we as a population (national, inter-national or global) should consider. It is a subject of high importance and requires everyone to think about what they are doing currently to the environment to realise the damage that just them as an individual is creating, compare it to a population of individuals to compare the problems we are causing and what it could do in the not too distant future and in the distant future for our future generations to show them what problems they face of which is yet to come. Then they should be shown what they can do to avoid this outcome and to improve their standards relating it to sustainability.

This allows us to find a better understanding and widen community awareness and this enables us to teach what we know, understand and have learnt to the next generations of what is going on and to come up with ways to avoid a terrible and avoidable future if we act to change it in the world of today. If we were alive to see what destruction we have caused to the earth in another 100 years we would be disgraced with ourselves at the expense of our arrogance, greed, lack of interest, enthusiasm and motivation to change it for the better. Teaching these issues to a younger child will be beneficial as a child’s brain and memory is more likely to absorb the information it receives, also although a child’s mind is simplistic it is imaginative and could possibly come up with a logical way to avoid or improve a problem. With the combination of sustainable development and the scientific aspects of geography especially the relationship to physical geography applying this to our everyday life styles this interaction is a unique way to better everyone’s lives globally and bringing all countries economically wealthy and poor together to tackle the big issue together as one massive global nation of the human race.

Some people may believe that topics to do with sustainable development and that relate to the world are uninteresting and boring. To prevent these views people must not be presented with a load of figures and numbers relating to data that the presenter has recorded and analysed although perhaps it would offer incite to some background knowledge of the relevant topic. Maybe alternative ways of interesting the audience would be to involve them in tasks, research and experiments for investigations that need to be recorded, this may allow better understanding to the public of how things work, and how other methods are planned to work.

I agree with Haigh in his comment that is quoted below that those at the higher end of the chain of command who teach the issues and consequences of the publics actions and what they can change. However he mentions that they teach this practice to others but they do not listen to their own advice.

“Although lately Western education has been thinking harder about personal responsibility and development, learners find turning the lens of enquiry inward on themselves unusual and are uncomfortable being thus placed in the role of "international learners." Despite such problems, such experiments benefit learners and teachers by encouraging them to question the worldviews and presuppositions that presently underpin Western educational structures.”

He also mentions that despite the problems faced of the world of today there have been improvements that have been noticeable worldwide from relevant teaching and learning skills.

Source: http://jsi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/2/271

Bad crunch, good crunch

As the Global Recession hits the world we are left with an economic crisis. As a population we are consuming less and buying fewer products and throwing away any items and products that we no longer need or want. Where this has perhaps increased the business of waste management and recycling management (economic pressure), however it is not serving well for the other parts of the economy such as the strength of the pound (£) or the shopping industry as there is less demand prices are on the increase and unemployment levels are on the rise also. This also puts a strain on those businesses already with financial problems such as Woolworths that has already closed down and Vauxhall which has always had money problems particularly the manufacturing industry in Luton.

Also in recent months taxes have risen making it more difficult to pay for things we want or even need such as our basic essentials like food, warmth, etc. this puts pressure on the economy to get it to stand on its own two feet again. With Britain becoming more sustainable and greener shouldn’t these advantages and opportunities mean something? Is it really benefiting us? These are the frequently asked questions asked by the general public, they may well be the most important and pressing questions that need answering.

Perhaps we do need to consider living in this way of life to benefit the environment to ensure it is saved, maybe it is better that we sacrifice what we want and focus more on what we need and require living within our means and not exceeding them. To be honest in my opinion we can live with this cut back, perhaps it could benefit us eventually and maybe it could have happened less brutally and the change could have been more subtle but it might be better in the long run.

Recently at the end of 2008, there was a news report in an area not far from where I live talking about how the recyclable waste is being stored in warehouses, as it cannot be recycled fast enough. This got me thinking “how much waste we produce? What is it we are actually recycling? How big the resources are?” Surely we can cope!! At the time I thought it couldn’t be possible when the recession was not so much of an issue. Now the recession has become the bigger issue, in my opinion the view of recycling has altered. Maybe with the manufacturers and shopping/commercial industries struggling to make profits, they should be considering the issue of reducing their waste more forcefully.

Also with people and employment and losing their jobs or only working a few times a week, this means that there are less people on the road which improves the fluidity of traffic and lessens congestion. This also means that with less people being able to afford to buy certain items and less able to travel abroad it means there are less people to ferry across from one country to another reducing the amount of pollution into the atmosphere. So in other worlds it allows the world to have a break, to stop suffering and to breathe cleaner and better quality air to mend itself and to allow it to heal its atmospheric wounds (the hole in the ozone layer over Australia and Antarctica).

More importantly this allows scientists, the government and NGO’s (Non-Governmental Organisations) to stand back and look at what has happened and to address any changes that they can make for the mistakes and correct any wrongs they find with their plans and schemes rather then moving onto the next issue. This way there can be improvement put into action to ensure that one problem has been solved or reduced and then the next problem can receive the attention. For the mean time this is a good thing but I doubt this recession will last as Britain will need to rebuild its economy.

I think that the government should look at taxes on goods that can not be recycled and reduce those on the ones that can. If the government increased VAT on goods that were not recyclable and reduce it on the ones that can be, then this would make the greener ones cheaper and therefore companies would be encouraged to do more in terms of recycling to make their products more competitive.

My Green Travel Plan

The Green Travel Plan was our next assignment for our course for Learning for Sustainable Development. The idea was to asses the ways in which the University of Northampton managed its travel systems around the University’s Park Campus. This included all forms of transport, car, bus, bike and walking. With this information we had to conduct other data that could hinder the results for example the number of cars entering Park Campus’ car park, whether they were university students or staff or if they were visitors, we had to check to see if they were car sharing as well as asking students if we could take up their time to answer our questionnaires.

It was a very interesting topic particularly looking at the results from the questionnaires, specifically people’s opinions of what they thought of the current methods of transport onto the campus premises and their views of general public transport and the usage of cars. Some tasks were much harder to carry out then others. Where half of the group counted the number of cars and the number of people within them indicating the number of people car sharing which was a relatively easy task to carry out, conducting the questionnaires and asking people for a short moment of their time proved difficult, as they did not want to be stopped as it was cold and windy due to the time of year (October), they were probably tired from the time of day and the sun going in or they had a lecture to attend or they were very keen to go home. But eventually we managed to get enough of the results that we required to present our findings to show how green the University is and if not how it could be improved by the suggestions that we had considered.

Below it shows a bird’s eye view of the area of Park Campus.

Our findings we not so surprising, our results had showed us that people much preferred to come to the university by car and not so much by the other means of transport. Also people would have liked the idea to park their cars nearer to the accusation (accommodation parking as this would reduce the congestion in the car park and also make it easier for the students).

The overall views of students appeared to have a fairly keen perspective on greener methods of travel and would happily use public transport if it benefits their pockets and benefits the environment too. For the people that need to park (those with permits) on the campus they would like there to be less hassle in terms of congestion and favour the parking fines for those without permits as they feel that this would make the system fairer.

People liked the idea of the use of their own car as they said it was more practical with the amount of shopping that they purchase, it goes where they need to and is faster then public transport, (i.e. less stops/more direct). Some people may also may feel insecure on the bus as all kinds of people may unsettle others particularly if they are loud or aggressive.

Next time, if I could go back and change anything I would perhaps be more confident and more forceful to ensure that people will answer out questionnaires. I would chose another time of year so it is warmer and people are less likely to avoid you, and the time of day as it was not particularly busy as it was at the end of the day, so I would chose a time where there would be more people and it will be warmer, so people don’t have the excuse to say its cold or that they have to go home.

How individuals make a difference!

Defining sustainability

“Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

This definition was created in 1987 at the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission). It is enshrined in the Swiss federal constitution. It is similar to the "seventh generation" philosophy of the Native American Iroquois Confederacy, mandating that chiefs always consider the effects of their actions on their descendants seven generations in the future.

There are many ways to measure or define sustainability. As described in the book Natural Capitalism, in business, these should include the sustainable development and use of, at least, the following four types of capital:

• Financial Capital
• Manufacturing Capital
• Natural Capital
• Human Capital

About sustainability

The World is changing. This is through human development and human success over the last few centuries illustrating progression and evolution. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution there has been much change with the development of electricity, medicines, technology and so on. This has been mainly due to better understanding of the World though education and exploration, and plain and simply just because we as the human race must know everything about everything. We seek the answers to our existence in the world and exploration of the universe as well quoted by a character in Indiana Jones “what we do not know, we find out.”

In today’s society the ways in which people can make a difference is to firstly achieve something for themselves as an individual, secondly to do something towards others and thirdly to be prepared to accomplish something for their country. Nowadays we face a number of challenges that make it difficult for us to meet our targets and to achieve success, but if we have the will power to succeed then it is our duty to ensure we fully utilise the task at hand that is requested of us.

Only we as “the public” can make a massive difference as an individual we are unable to do this alone but as a group/population or a nation we can achieve this if we all change our styles of living. Some individuals can have a bigger influence and say then others. For example scientists and the government have a much larger say than the public as they are higher on the chain of command and have better awareness and knowledge of the problems they need to address. However as voters we as the public can influence governments. This can be done by voting for the political parties that want to pass more environmental laws and tightening the laws on the economy and society to ensure a better ecosystem for all.

People need to have will power to make this change and to change the lives of them and others. If everyone in the world put their minds to making this change even the smallest change can result in a big difference and have a significant effect to a better quality environment. As it is not just the world of today we are fighting to save but the World for future generations.

The ways in which we live our lives is an important part of how we can make a difference in this world. For example “Climate Change” is a big issue that faces the world today. Through overuse of our natural resources we are damaging our environment and ecosystems and the lives of other species and habitats. We are all responsible to ensure that we correct the wrong we had caused to this world. To do this we can consider alternative sources; cut down on the energy consumption and the use of electricity. To accomplish this we need to think about how we can make our home more energy efficient, e.g. conservatories to store warmth, dual flush toilets, double or even triple glazed windows, insulation, energy saving light bulbs, turning electronic goods off standby, turning off the taps for water when it is not being used, alternative fuelled cars and more. Also we could consider using the three R’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, as well as using alternatives to coal and gas for resources and use wind turbines on wind farms, water mills, hydro-electricity, solar cells and panels, and maybe nuclear if it can be made much, much safer.

Other problems related to sustainability might be the issue of food consumption in that we are either over eating or eating the wrong food, instead of eating healthy home made food with ingredients such as vegetables. Processed food supplemented with high levels of saturated fat and salt particularly those in fast food outlets result in people becoming overweight. Coupled with this issue is the problem of activity such as a lack of fitness and outdoor pursuits leading to an obese society. Ways in which we have tackled this problem has been by printing healthy tab labels on food packaging to allow the customers to see what are put into the food, as well as all the ingredients and the GDA guidance. Perhaps we should also use similar systems on products that we buy to tell us how recyclable the product/packaging is which would give us as consumers the choice of buying “greener”.

Also packaging that we currently use for food to indicate fair trade should be expanded and perhaps used on other items to ensure that sustainability and good relation for all products across the international boarders.

There have been changes to the methods in the way in which we live. Some schemes and actions may have gone more unnoticed then others. For example effects seen on the news to reduce carbon emissions such as the news reports of reducing air travel by enforcing carbon tax on flights. Whereas the more unnoticed methods to reduce emissions may have been through government advertisements on the TV to reduce your carbon footprint.

Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6311603.stm)

United Nations debate

I feel from the debate that we carried out that i had developed a better understanding of each of the countries involved and spoken about in our debate, particularly the country which i was given to study and had to represent on the day of the debate. The country i was given was Ghana, and before the debatei new little if nothing about it, so i was intrigued to find information about this country. As we began to research into our country, we had to look through a considerable amount of information about the background details of the country, the policies it intended to pass to improved the country's economy and any issues that may have arisen within Ghana.

Much of the information was of no use to us, some of it was irrelevant and had nothing to do with what we were intending to find out. However the information that we gathered from the mass amount of detals about Ghana were to do with the general background of the country for example where it is located within Africa, as well as information detailing the current issues of the country itself. These issues were to do with the severity of dessertification and drought. Other issues that we covered were to do with problems such as deforestation, a lack of clean water and a lack in sanitation. Because i new it was a country within Africa i new it faced some issues to do with a lack of its basic needs for it people, however i was shocked to find that it was as severe as it was described in the research we had found.

i was shocked to discover that most if not all small towns and villages had no clean water and that what we take for granted is such a massive challenged faced for the country and charities despite the effort and funding that goes int helping Ghana as it is an LEDC (a Less Economically Developed Country)

I very much enjoyed the debate and was interested to see what issues other countries across the EU (European Union) faced as well as representing Ghana. I was very interested to listen to the other countries put their reasons accross to the EU chairmen to prove why they think they needed the $10 billion to go to their country, particularly to the MEDCs such as the USA which i pondered as to why such a majorly developed country would need more money to fund their country, as it stsnds as one of the most developed countries in the world if not the most developed country in the world.

If i was to do this task again i would put more effort into researching more about the country iteslf and more of an input into the research as i feel i did not help as much as i could have. I also would have revised my speach and made sure i new in my head what i was going to say instead of reading it off of a sheet of paper.

I was pleased with our outcome and felt that we proved that our country was deserving of part of the $10 billion. as it turned out Ghana received a total of $2 billion. We had a good opening introduction about Ghana that provided details of the country and had a clear perception of the current issues Ghana faces and how we need to tackle these problems to ensure a sustainable economy and environment.