WHAT CAN ‘WE’ DO TO HELP MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

There are a number of things that we can all do to help make a difference, such as recycling, saving energy by turning electric appliances off when they are not needed, washing our clothes on 40 degrees instead of 60 (or maybe not washing them as much as you would normally!) Walking small distances instead of driving, or maybe taking the public transport that is available instead; and not forgetting the all famous compost heap down the bottom of the garden. But is this really enough? I think it is a start, and is better than doing nothing at all....

‘But’.. I hear some people moan...... ‘what’s the point of me doing it if the rest of the world isn’t. On a worldwide scale it will have no effect!’, and you can see their point, when in the The Guardian on Tuesday 9 Dec they printed a nice picture of new figures that confirm that China has overtaken the US as the largest emitter of CO2. (compiled by EIA, the Environmental Information Administration.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/interactive/2008/dec/09/climatechange-carbonemissions

As usual there is always two sides to every story.. and this may be so, but if we do nothing and no other country does anything then the world as we know it won’t be about for much longer..

So I ask myself, is there anything else that we can do to help??

Some people have gone that little bit further to help like the group ‘Plane Stupid’. As much as I admire them and think ‘Yay, go for it!’. I, fortunately wasn’t one of the many people stuck at Stansted airport because my plane had been cancelled!, and in the long run, what has this achieved? Certainly lots of annoyed people that didn’t get to go on holiday that day, 50+ of the group getting arrested, bad publicity.... (or is there such a thing?).

I believe there are many successful protesters that have fought long and hard for what they believe in.

http://articles.mibba.com/People/907/Emily-Pankhurst -

If it wasn’t for Emily Pankhurst, that fought from 1889 – 1928 to get the right for women to vote equally as men. She fought hard and was imprisoned countless times, because she believed in our rights as human beings.

Maybe we should all become super heroes, like ‘Climate Man’?, who this week breached the most heavily guarded power station in Britain and crashed a giant 500MW turbine, leaving a calling card reading ‘no new coal’.

Nobody has a clue who this was, but he singlehandedly cut UK carbon output by 2%... Not bad for a days work.Can’t fault the guy!!). He has also gone that little bit further to help with the current climate issue.

So, I think we should do as much as we can to help in this struggle to save our planet. If we can’t be a super hero, or don’t want to get arrested, just change your life a little and you know that you are doing your bit for our world as it is, to stay like it is a little longer.

Blog 4.. UN debate

Doing this exercise of the ‘UN’ style debate I found out lots of facts on SouthAfrica which I would have had no idea about. I didn’t know a lot about this country at all apart from the fact that people go there on holiday a lot ad they have a good rugny team! I was aware of the fact that there was a massive problem with AIDS/HIV and the basic structure of the whole country, eg the bits you see on the news; appartheid, nelson Mandella etc, but that was all. So when we started researching this country it was easy to find the basic facts, but it took a little while to play with ‘wording’ on the site engines to get any information up about the sustainable Development issues. Once we had sorted that out though we found vast amounts of information.

The end of appartheid in 1990 has completely changed tis country, before this the majority of the population were unaccounted for (so to speak), and now it is having to care for the whole population which has brought on huge changes & difficulties. However, South Africas Constitution is now regarded as one of the most progressive in the world.
Also, we found the South African Energy Policies for Sustainable Development, edited by Harald Winkler from the Energy research Centre, In University of Cape Town, and this showed policies that could happen, how easy they would be to implement, and the cost effectiveness of them. Both these items, I forgot to mention in the presentation!!

I think South Africa are definitely progressing well, but still have a lot to achieve to be on target for their ‘Vision’. Hopefully with the FIFA Wold Cup 2010 being held there, a lot of money will be invested wisely into the country which will give them a helping hand towards some of their targets.

By doing a presentation, we were able to not only find out about our own country through the research we did, but also find out all about the other countries policies and struggles which we had no idea about, (Imagine how long that would have taken us to research on our own!!). Eg, i now know that Denmark is the ‘elite’ in sustainable development, and all I can imagine now is that it looks like something out of the Honda advert..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXf5UUnLzwQ

On the day of the ‘UN’ debate, i know everyone was very nervous. (Iknow I was). I’ve never stared at a table for so long!, but considering this, i think we all did really well. I agree that we all should have looked up more & not just read from our notes, but the fact we all did our presentations without passing out with fear was quite an achievement i thought.

I know the money went to the most deserved countries that needed it, but if it had been different and the money had gone to the contries that gave the best presentations, i think it would have been given to Cambodia & Malawi. I think they were the most confident speakers.

Despite the fact that I felt sick all day knowing I had to stand up and give a presentation I really did enjoy it. It will be good to do it again, and is a great way of learning the differences other countries face. Next time we all have to do this, i am sure everyone will be much more confident and will be far louder and ask more questions... bit more debate-style. I did think the whole group were really supportive of each other though.

Considering the handout was only to be 2 pages long, it was hard to compress all the research we had found into it. If I was to do it again, I would probably just put the main points down, and not describe it so much.
I like working as a team because you get the added bonus of ‘back up’ and Adam was good in the presentation. It was hard for us to meet up and collate findings because of work & other commitments, so we ended up mostly relaying information through e-mails, but seemed to work fine. We only met briefly to discuss what each of us was going to say in the presentation, and I think we should have gone through this in more detail to make our presentation flow better, but on the whole... I think we worked well.

rubbish

After looking at the results of the provisional recycling rates of the NJMWMS (Northampton Joint Municipal Waste Magement Strategy) , I could see that the recycling rates varied greatly in the different districts.

From the highest DDC (47%), to the lowest CBC (28%)... So why the difference?

DDC - although it has the highest recycling rates, at a staggering 47%. Since 2001 when this project started, it has only increased by 3%. Whereas,
CBC - has increased its recycling by an impressive 28% in that time.

If you look at the Main Collection Services offered to these areas:

DDC - has Residual Refuse only collected 2 weekly, but Recyclable weekly
This will encourage people in that district to recycle as much as possible, to get rid of as much 'rubbish' weekly.

CBC - have their Residual Refuse collected 2 weekly, but Recyclable is also only 2 weekly, and there is fewer recyclable items collected than DDC.

You only have to look at ENC to see the difference of the collection and the recycling rates make: ENC have only improved by 10.8% since 2001, but they are still having their black sacks collected every week, and the recycling in this area is so confusing with paper 1 week, cardboard etc. 2 weeks & glass every 4 weeks.

It is understandable to assume that nobody wants their 'rubbish' hanging around for that long, so it just gets 'slung' in with the refuse! Not to mention, having to pay for having your grass cuttings taken away.

If every district was offered the same services as DDC, the recycling rates would rise considerably. It is so much simpler & less time consuming for the average householder. Most people want to do 'their bit' for the environment and recycle, but it is remembering which week is for which collection ( that gets very confusing, trust me!), and then, generally people get bored with worrying about it.. Also putting the wrong rubbish out on the wrong week, (Easily done, I assure you!), and then it doesn't get collected, so they are left with bins full of recycling and household refuse!! Very frustrating!!http://zkonedog.mlblogs.com/01-frustrated.jpg



As a conclusion: the simpler the service is for the householder, the more they will be willing and happy to do it. After all, most people have busy lives.

Improvements to the scheme could include an incentive like a lucky draw. In Milton Keynes, there is a Cash for Trash incentive, where you can win 2 x £100 weekly.
http://www.miltonkeynescouncil.gov.uk/recycling/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=48379

Greenstar is investing million to build an automated recycling facility which can process co-mingled recyclables to high quality standards.
http://www.processingtalk.com/news/grn/grn108.html
The less time recycling takes, the simpler it is...people will welcome it.

Maybe other small incentives such as bringing back the 'deposit & return' on bottles. Bribing people to get them to do something, is always easy. The Scottish government are seeking views on the return of this idea. In Denmark, the return rate for this scheme is around 85%.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2008/07/25132225

I really don't agree with imposing fines & enforcement. I just feels like another threat from the government and another rule that must be obeyed by 'us'. (By 'us', I mean 'we' the people). it makes most of 'us' not want to do it.
http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=14261&channel=0

The best way to get a child to do something you want them to do, is by rewards & praise, not punishment, and we are, after all, all 'kids at heart'.http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/2/6/0/9/6/ar119387780569062.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.illuminateict.org.uk/first-visitor&h=800&w=800&sz=74&hl=en&start=4&um=1&usg=__lyXGepYXha1U8KBE4B4FqJGn7fk=&tbnid=ho5bgcVFvn6nNM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgold%2Bstar%26gbv%3D2%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryUK%257CcountryGB%26sa%3DGhttp://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.johnpottsvending.co.uk/images/refills/chupa/ChupaLolliesL.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.johnpottsvending.co.uk/mach_chupa.html&h=300&w=260&sz=9&hl=en&start=5&um=1&usg=__UdZR4RGDuVpb1sXCnjRcHwLA63o=&tbnid=sVSnxXDSH3N4MM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=101&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchupa%2Bchups%26gbv%3D2%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryUK%257CcountryGB

The newspapers in England, have a broad range of articles and plentiful, when you start to look them up about climate change. I first looked at the sun, because this is the newspaper I like to read. You can always get the main news that is going on in the world, but its not too heavy going.. but its enough to make you feel as though you know, pretty much what is happening. Flicking back to some of the climate change articles that have been published in The sun, they are all quite light-hearted, such as 'Elephant seals to monitor climate change'.

When looking further into articles in the sun, they actually have a big green week with everything relating to climate change and sustainable development, but it is only really, if you are interested about this, that you would find it!http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/special_events/green_week/

It is written with all the underlying factors of climate change as a serious concern, but obviously done in a 'sun kind of way', with the sun girls, and the comedy value, but generally as a whole, I think this probably works for the majority of the suns readers.

The daily telegraph when searching for articles on climate change, have many many more and varied. All are written far more seriously, which does make you take note of them in a harsher way, and 'worry' about what is going to be done about it all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3270430/Climate-change-laws-to-force-companies-to-reveal-pollution-levels.html

I don't think there can be a right or wrong way to print these articles, and the papers differ enormously in how they write each article, but as long as the news is being told, and people are listening and taking note, then surely, this can only be a good thing?