What do you think? Is Christmas sustainable? How would it all work in a changed world?

Christmas is not a sustainable time of the year. With all the waste of electricity, extra food cooked, waste from wrapping presents and all the wrong gifts that have been consumed that will provably be thrown away.  


Christmas is a special time of year and everyone seems to put in the extra effort to make it extra special as it only comes round once a year. I believe that we would be able to have a time of year when you don't have to think of waste and the environment if we had started to look after it earlier, but as we are slow on the uptake on how to look after the environment then I think we should still have to take into account ways to be sustainable over the christmas period. 


We could take in consideration not traveling so far in a car to see others at christmas and look into more environmentally friendly ways of doing this. Maybe travel the day before and stay a few days as traveling by public transport would be more kinder to the environment. Recycling wrapping paper would be good, also not having lights as decorations and using the same decorations each year. Another way would be to give more money instead of consuming more presents a person might not like and never use.


I think its a shame that Christmas cannot be left out of having to worry about the environment but the environment can not stop changing just because its Christmas. 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2007/dec/12/toptipsforagreenchristmas 

To what extent do the best selling UK newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that it is their role to do so? In your opinion does the tabloid media and 'low budget entertainment' (reality shows, soaps) have too much power and influence in this country?

All newspapers cover some serious issues but how they cover the issues is usually the problem. They don’t get an unbiased approach to the information across. The cheaper newspapers seem to appeal to the masses in the UK. These paper are not the best in relaying information to the masses, this is because of the way the articles are written. The article does not let the person decide for themselves how they feel about the serious issue. It will try to influence the person to think in a certain way that the newspaper thinks. Broadsheet papers report the information in a unbiased way that allows the reader to decided for themselves how they feel about situations.

The Sun is a tabloid newspaper which reports more popular stories about celebrities and TV programmes. These seem to sell more paper which is why the price maybe lower than a broadsheet. The Sun etc have such a control over a large population of the country that I think they should take more responsibility for letting people know more about serious issues. All newspapers are businesses but it seems that the Sun has less morals as a business. The Sun is very focused on selling papers and not worrying about reparations they are ruining. The broadsheets know they maybe selling less but they know they are telling information that is correct and letting people have their own ideas.

The ‘low budget entertainment’ shows do seem to have too much of an influence over the population of the UK. All of these programmes are entertainment which is the trend with the newspapers too. People seems to get to the point where they are obsessed with these programmes and can not miss one episode and this is not good. These programmes do not deal with any serious issues. What does it really matter if a character gets married in one of the soaps, it is not really life. Also the X factor does not deal with any serious issues, the producers are all about getting money from having so many people watching the programme. Sometimes the votes from the judges are swayed to get more people to watch and the viewer figures up. We are in desperate need to change the way that Britain is and showing people they need to get on TV to future their career and earn lots of money isn’t really a positive influence. The X factor does not influence people to look into the serious issues of the War or poverty, the people that watch these shows don’t seem to care about these issues. Which is a shame as it is a large amount of the population in the UK.

To what extent do you think that it is your duty as a citizen to be 'informed'? Are you informed? How do you get to be informed about serious issues?

In the UK we are a democratic society and have the choice to vote, but you also have the choice not to vote. As a citizen you can get as deeply informed about subjects related to government as much as you want as long as you’re willing to look for the information. Depending on how seriously you take your citizen duties will depend on what extent you would want to be informed. As you have the choice whether to read the leaflet posted through your door or watch the news determines the amount you decide to be informed.

I believe if a citizen uses their vote, they should keep themselves informed with what is going on around them. If you want to improve your surroundings and to help others around you need to keep yourself informed about what the government is doing. As the government is one of the only groups of people able to change the UK you want to know that you are voting for the political party that are dealing with the serious issues you believe need changing and that also agree with your morals. A person who doesn't vote shouldn’t be able to moan about the government that is in power as they themselves have not taken the time to vote for the political party they believe best to govern.

I try to keep myself inform about issues that effect me and will make a decision of voting I think will better my situation an others around me. For example I would want to be informed on what a political party could do for me a student. To do this I would have to be informed about polices of the different parties. By reading related articles in the newspaper or looking on websites that I might be able to find this information. But to get this information I must search for it or make sure that I turn the TV on for the news

People get much of their information from news sources. This is via the newspaper, the TV news, radio and websites. This is the easiest way to get up to date news. Ofcom regulates the TV and Radio, if these sources are found to be broadcasting information that is biased or untrue that is not someone’s opinion they can be fined. This makes them more reliable source of information than websites or the newspaper. Some websites and newspapers my not be telling the right facts as they want to sway your understanding for a subject, these sources can be unreliable. People may not be informed about serious issues such as climate change because the government does not want to spend money on this so keeps it hush hush. This is unfair, as people have to right to know what is going on in the world, as they may want to help. It is unfair to assume some that people might not understand things due to it being too scientific as they could get help to understand the subject.

This is a good website to keep up to date with the news. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/categories/news

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore (and the IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 (BBC 2007) largely for the production of the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'

The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change".

To what extent do you think this was deserved? Having watched this film in class did you feel that your opinion (or perhaps the opinion of others) to the issue of climate change could be positively influenced? What did you think of this film? Was it effective?

I do believe that Al Gore and the IPCC deserved to win the Noble Peace Prize. I am not the only one that thinks this as Al Gore and the IPCC would of had to be nominated for this prize. The people who are allowed to nominate canidates for this prize are highly respected people in society. Climate change is such an important issue that some countries seem to be choosing to ignore, the task of spreading the awareness of this issue globally would not have been an easy one. For Al Gore and the IPCC to do this must have been a major undertaking. This is why I feel they deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, they were successful in spreading the word of climate change to the masses.

The film did inform me of some points related to climate change which I was not aware of. Although it hasn't changed my opinion as I try to do my best at not adding towards climate change, the opinion of others could be influenced in a positive way because people might not have been aware of what was happening to the world due to climate change. As a result of this people may start to use more environmentally friendly cars and start to recycle more from watching this film.

I thought this film was informative without being boring. Films are usually made for people to be entertained by and making a film that is informing you of a serious issue mainly in the form of a power point presentation and also keeping the attention of the audience is a rare achievement. It all very well that the film is bringing attention to the public but its the governments that need to be the ones that agree to implement the necessary changes to combat this problem, so in that respect I don't think the film was effective.




For more information on the film see this link below

http://www.climatecrisis.net/

What actions could you (in theory) undertake that would improve the 'sustainability' of your lifestyle? What might be preventing you from doing these?

To improve the sustainability of my lifestyle I would need to be less wasteful. For example I need to recycle more, remember to try save as much electricity as possible and trying not to buy products that I won't use.

The options for recycling are not always the most convenient for me, as not all rubbish can be recycled. When throwing away rubbish to find a bin that recycles a can or a plastic bottle is not as easy as finding a bin for all rubbish. As I like convenience in my life this would mean taking more time and thought over what I was disposing and this may put me off.

Similar applies to the other changes to lifestyle I would need to make to save electricity. Its more convenient to leave my laptop on for easy use for the next time I use it, but taking the extra time to turn off would save electricity making my lifestyle more sustainable. Again its the convenience of not having my laptop ready to use when I want to stopping me from doing this.

One major problem that I have that is very unsustainable is buying clothes that I don't wear or only wear a couple of times and throw away. Instead of a quick clothes fix to wear for a night out I should buy clothes that I really like and will wear again. With the clothes that I already have that I don't wear I should give to a charity shop which will sell them on. This can be looked as a form of recycling as I won't be throwing away therefore more sustainable. Taking the time and having to find a way to transport these clothes to the charity shop may discourage me from doing this.

This is useful and informative website that can help you with ideas on how to reduce your waste and energy use.

www.direct.gov.uk/ActonCO2