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.

Northamptoshire waste management

Waste is a major issue on an individual basis, on a basis in a given area aswell as as country or worldwide. Basically we today need to consider all possible ways necessary and appropriately to find a suitable, clean and sustainable way to change the ways in which we dispose of out waste. We have already started to find ways in which we can reduce the wate produced for example recycling. However recycling alone is not going to change dramatically the waste problems we face at this moment it time or in the future, not on its own at least. We have began using a more indepth way of reducing the waste control in Northamptonshire such as using the "3 R's" and they are as follows;-

1. Reduce,
2. Reuse,
3. Recycle.

However there are further methods and aternative ways in which to reduce the waste that we produce that are much more cont effective and reliable, although we use every means possible to reduce the impacts of the waste we create as much as possible by using all means usable.

in 2002 there was a strategy that had started to consider new ways of sustaining the levels of waste we created and disposed of. This strategy set targets for recycling and composting;-

1. 36% of household waste by 2010/11,
2. 45% of household waste by 2015/16,
3. 50% of household waste by 2020/21.

Since this strategy began it has seen significant progress in the number of years it has been running which offers a good alternative to waste management, however the issue now is, is it enough to dramatically change the levels of waste nowadays or even in the future to create a good enough sustainable environment.

Apendix 1,

http://www.northamptonshire.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/B63E7599-1BCC-42DF-BF9E-8BC330278515/0/NJMWMSStrategyFINAL.pdf

Taken from the Northamptonshre website is an article issuing the problems that it faces in the area of Northampton. On page 17 it shows a table outlining three years and showing significant progress over 6 years from 2001 to 2007, showing an increase of 18% from 18% in 2001 to 28% in 2004 and then in 2006 it reached 39.2%. So this shows that there is hope for a sustainable future.

newspapers and climate change

Newspapers are one of the most commonly used sources of information where people chose to find out about important information about the world and its isses of the day or past events. However the newpapers are not always reliable and accurate as most people tend to believe. They are points of view from the reporter on the subject that they are reporting, and this means that it is a biased view on the report of the event. There are two main types of newpapers that we can buy tabliods and and broadsheets, although the broadsheets tend to be a more reliable source of information as they have a more soffisicated target audience and therefore the information on the topic is less biased and more factual but still contains some element of bias within them.

For example climate change is one of the most commonly talked about topic each year as it is the biggest issue that we face. Some of the articles on climate change are not necessarily biased and false information but can sometimes have a negative influence to attract the audience to read the topic and to show the extent and prove that we need to something about climate change now while we still can befor it is too late. This seems to be the case with more tabliods as they provide a more extreme approach to the issues at hand, whereas the broadsheets offer a more suttle but influencial approach. So sometimes it is not necessarily negative information its is "a wake-up call" to alert the public that it is about time we started to consider new and/or alternative ways of living such as switching from ordinary lightbulbs to energy saving, recycling, switching off our televisions sets off of standby, etc. This was established by a man called Maxwell Boykoff who discovered that the tabiods have a ten times greater effect of climate change over the broadsheets which is why people say that the sources of information are negative and biased.

However the main idea of the newspapers are to deliver the information to the public, where biased and extremely opinionated some articles may be, but it is how the reader portrays the information and how they intend to do something about it and whether they should have the duty to save their home on their planet and their grandchildrens home too in the future, because it may not be affecting them at that moment in time but it does not rule out the fact of future generations standards of living in their world. They need to make this world that they are living as sustainable as they can possibly make it to ensure that the world that our future generations can have a safe and suitable standard of life when it is their turn to do something about their world. Nowadays we are trying to begin a way of life to actually consider sustainable delvelopment for us and those in the future, however to have a suitable sustainable world we can not, once we have reached our perception of sustainablility, just stop we have to keep managing the way we live to keep the world as clean and harmfree as we can keep it.

Although both the tabliods and broadsheet newspapers have the same aims and they are to show and alert the public that they need to consider changing the ways in which they live aswell as how they personally and as a general population can reduce the impacts that they create on the environment.

transport

Where i live in the small village of Maulden, in the last decade I have seen a major increase in the number of cars present on the roads of the M1 motorway and the A6 that offers a direct root between Luton and Bedford. Thia is because of an increase in the availability of cars to young adults especially between the ages of 17 - 24 years of age. This is because the demand for such an item has increase, particularly for those who wish to modify these cars. a reason for such an increase is the trill and enjoyment given to the drive particularly for boys of 17 - 24 for such activities as joy-riding, which can lead to dangerous driving if the drivers do not take care. Most cars can be bought fairly cheaply on the internet using such car search engines for example "Auto Trader". Which is why they are so easily available. However in very recent years there has been a way to attempt to decrease the level of the number of cars seen on our roads. With more police patrol cars on the roads, police performing speed check in their vehicles and speed bumps to record your speed. Also there has been an increase in the number of speed and traffic cameras on the roads too especially on the A6 (4 speed cameras within 2 miles), aswell as speed humps on heavily built-up areas within Luton and Bedford and more available public transport which are cheaper to travel on nowadays such as buses and trains. There has been on the Urban-Rural Fringe of Bedford near the Retail Park a "Park N Ride" scheme that has considered another alternative way to decrease the number of cars on the roads in bedford, along with an increase in the prices of parking. Also with the increase in the prices of petrol and diesel this is another way to decrease the number of cars on the road. Even in schools, colleges and universities are trying to encourage students to find more environmentally friendly and socio-economically friendly ways of getting to school or university. Cars taxes and insurance is also on the increase and the way it is increaing it does not look likely in the recent future that it will decrease.

However this has not decrease the number of cars on the road, or it has not had an effect yet to have a considerable difference. Yet with all these mothods of decreasing the number of cars on the roads there are new ways to encourage the public to buy the cars again, with decreasing the price of petrol and diesel. Aswell as considering new alternative fuels such as bio-diverse fuels such as electric powered cars, H2O powered cars and hydrogen powered cars. BMW have started the Hydrogen Powered 7 Series cars that are alleged to be much faster and much easier to drive whilst being environmentally friendly to the Earth. Also the latest Koenigsegg which has been made to run on boi-diverse materials. Also there has been recent development on dualcarrigeways and motorways including widening on some motorways such as the M1 converting it into a 4 lane motorway instead of 3 lanes, and widening of single carrigeways particularly around the Luton and Bedford area on the A6.