Blog Prompt 5- To what extent can individuals (i.e. you) make a difference?

There are several ways in which individuals like ourselves can make a difference, this can be as little as recycling a plastic bottle or to more extreme lengths; changing our whole lifestyle.
As previously mentioned in my blogs, recycling is now a regular good habit in my household since the introduction of recycling boxes. Before they were introduced however, we did recycle newspapers and glass bottles at our local supermarket where recycling points were provided. I am pretty sure that if these recycling boxes were not given out we would have continued to do this although, the recycling boxes have made it a lot more convenient. It is arguable that not all people would have recycled before the introduction of recycling schemes however now given a more convenient option people are much more likely to respond.

There are several things we, as individuals can do everyday to be more sustainable. Waking up and having a shower rather than a bath will save water, as will turning the tap off while brushing your teeth. The biggest waste of water is not from burst pipes, dishwashers or washing machines but from leaking, dripping taps. A simple ‘fix it’ would solve the problem with no more wastage of water, a simple task that an individual can probably do within minutes.

More on the subject of water, I am continuously reminded about ‘grey water’ by Nigel Freestone and the fact that we use perfectly good drinking water for uses such as; washing our cars, watering plants, washing our dishes and clothes and of course in our toilets. There is not much we can do as individuals in the case of this except raise the awareness to local water suppliers that the use of two water supplies to a household, one for grey water and one for drinking water, would be much more sustainable.
Many European countries and Australia do in fact reuse bath water to flush their toilets, the bath water is filtered and stored and then pumped through into the toilet.
Although there is not much we can do about this point, we can reuse water for watering our plants and even collect what little rain we receive over the year in water tanks that are sometimes provided by local councils and use this water for similar uses.

Even more about water, other things that can be done is to only boil the water you need in the kettle at a time, and a point that Prime Minister Gordon Brown made when we were approaching these hard times, is when boiling vegetables ensure the water level is just above the vegetables for efficient energy use, a comment that was not received well, or rather laughed at by the public but stands true.

As I sat driving in my car by myself this morning on the way to university, I realised how many other people sit driving in their cars by themselves. Car after car, and all these people driving in the same direction. Of course public transport, when available is not the most comfortable or cheapest way to travel, so people are more likely to use their cars.

In America, whilst driving down the interstates, signs with ‘Ever tried car pooling?’ followed by an 0800 number are a common sight. Carpooling became encouraged during the second World War when fuel was limited and propaganda was even used. We often think of Americans as gas guzzlers but when have you ever seen a ‘car pooling’ sign along any of our motor ways?

The website http://www.carshare.com/ enables people in the UK to find others with the same or similar routes to share a car to work, school or university. However, again the topic of convenience occurs again when you have to rely on a lift, or are relied upon to give someone a lift everyday.

This was the case when a colleague of my Mum was unable to use his car to get from Kettering to Bedford to go to work. Living in Kettering she did not mind giving him a lift for the few days that he needed but as he lived on the other side of Kettering it meant her having to leave and extra 20 minutes early to beat the traffic around town. Also she regularly stayed late to get work done and miss the rush hour traffic on the way home, however she did feel that she was not able to do this as someone was relying on her for a lift home, although I am sure he would not have minded. Such situations like this and changes of work schedules can make car sharing difficult for all people involved and this is possibly the reasons why some people are put off car sharing.

There are still more things we can do as individuals such as turning off unused electrical items, not leaving TV’s on standby, cycling instead of driving, buying local produce, shopping at sustainable shops such as the body shop, and of course there are hundreds of things that we do not even think of doing day to day. But as one individual will it make a difference whether I do these things or not? No probably not, but if all the individuals in the world did this and changed their way of thinking, of course it would.

Blog Prompt 4- UN debate

When researching about South Korea sustainable development strategies were hard to come by at first. South Korea’s government website does not supply any information about such strategies and information that was found about these policies came from non government organisations.
When first thinking about what strategies the country had in place I actually had no idea what they potential could be as I did not know about the country’s economy, population or climate. The first main strategy that was found was about sustainable communities in the country and trying to education the population about the need to sustainable development. Korean houses are mainly made out of wood traditionally unless they were in the city areas then they would be high rise buildings. This is arguably not sustainable as wood, although trees can be replanted is not a sustainable way to build houses.

The other main point was the amount of public transport the country has available to the population and how much It does in fact promote people to use it. This of course encourages people to use public transport instead of their cars to get to either work, school or when going on holiday. Tourists are also encouraged to use these transport systems rather than renting a car.

The main point that we tried to get across was about the ‘hydrogen economy’ that South Korea and the company Hyundai had come up with. The idea is that by 2040 South Koreas high carbon emissions are to be reduced substantially because of this new, more environmentally friendly ‘hydrogen economy’.
Other than these three points there was not much to find about Koreas sustainable development policies. For example I was expecting to find information about recycling when researching about these policies.

I think the approaches of all 14 countries were very good, however, like our presentation, some of the countries should have maybe focused on the main points about sustainable development issues and strategies rather than supplying non-relevant information. I came to the conclusion that less developed countries had more ideas about sustainable development strategies than developed countries that are in fact causing the problems. Is this because less developed countries are affected more by the impacts of climate change and developed countries are affected by having to cut back on things they have previously never needed to and therefore they do not want to?

For example the USA (has the highest carbon emissions in the world) does not seem at all concerned about reducing these emissions because of course its economy relies on polluting the world. Similarly, although China is not officially a developed country its emissions are still the second highest in the world and again the country did not seem concerned about reducing these anytime soon. They were however concerned about preserving their panda population, which of course is a national treasure in China and results in millions of dollars from the tourism industry- just a noted point. Continuing on, Beijing had to clean up its air, but it is questionable would China have reduced its emissions and done this if it were not for the Olympics? These views of course are not at all related to the people presenting these findings.

Completely opposite is the Solomon Islands which currently has no sustainable development plan in place at all due to financial restrictions. However the country does seem to have numbers of ideas that it would be willing to put into place should they have the financial resources. It is a shame to see that the richest countries in the world- including South Korea, do not seem to have any practical plan in place (with the exception of Denmark) that do in fact have the money to make a difference, whereas those countries willing to opt for sustainable development strategies cannot afford to do so.

I think our presentation overall, went well with the exception of ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’. On our handout there could have been more information elaborating in the idea of a ‘hydrogen economy’ so people understood what it was but other than that I think the information that was supplied was all relevant.

I did previously know quite a lot about the idea of sustainability, but by doing this assignment it made me realise that sustainability in practise is quite different from sustainability ideas as a country’s social, economic and environmental issues all need to be taken into account before putting any strategy into place.

Working as a pair did not seem to work as communication was a problem so I did end up doing most of the work, which in this case I did not seem to mind so much as it enabled me to thoroughly understand our country’s policies. However presenting the findings of our country was fine.

On the up, I did enjoy the assignment as it gave us all an opportunity to learn about sustainable strategies in a different way and to gave us experience of standing up in front of a group and speaking, which some, if not all, including myself find it a bit nerve racking.

Blog Prompt 3

Recycling rates have improved in each region from 2001/2 to 2006/7. This is almost certainly because of recycling schemes that have been put in place by both the government and local councils.
Figures for 2001/2 vary quite considerably from 44% of recycled waste from the Daventry District Council (DDC), right down to 3.5% from Corby Borough Council (CBC). The Kettering Borough Council (KBC) districts recycling figure is also substantially lower than the rest, at 4%. Reasons for this could be linked to accessibility to recycling points are both districts are relatively geographically close, or that recycling has not been encouraged in these areas.

Since 2001/2 KBC has had the biggest increase in the percentage of recycling rates up to 2006/7. Living in Kettering myself I have noticed a huge difference in my own household as to the way waste is disposed of and certainly an increase in the amount we recycle. KBC has increased awareness of the importance of recycling by introducing designated recycling bins, issuing information leaflets about what can and cannot be recycled, and making sites where recyclable waste can be taken to should it need to be.
DDC had the highest percentage rate of recycling by far at 44% in the year 2001/2. It is questionable as to how CBC and KBC had such low rates of recycling in comparison to DDC in this same year. Its likely that recycling in the area was encouraged earlier than those districts in the rest of the county.

It is clear to see that throughout Northamptonshire and through knowledge that recycling rates have improved in the past 10 years. However improvements are always welcomed within the idea of sustainability.
Ways in which rates could be improved in a specific district further, is advising local retailers to package their products in recyclable packaging. In the past couple of years, certain large retailers have encouraged this, however when shopping in those stores unnecessary packaging is still used, most of which is unable to be recycled.
CBC does in fact provide residents with compost boxes if they request one and this if helping to increase the recycling rate of the Corby district. However some people are unaware that these are available free from their local councils upon request. If each council gave out compost boxes as they did with recycling boxes, it is likely that people will use them as they did with the recycling boxes.

Bad news sells papers

Newspapers are here to inform people of news local and worldwide, but also they are a business intent on making money. Research has shown that people are more interested in what has gone wrong in either their local community, or worldwide than the things that have gone right. This is likely to encourage British newspapers to publicise more negative reports rather than positive ones in order to sell more copies of their paper.
‘Peoples' interest in news is much more intense when there is a perceived threat to their way of life.’-http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2007/sep/04/thegoodnewsaboutbadnewsi

This may or may not make the content of such reports unreliable. Although negative issues may be further publicised than positive ones it does not mean that their content is over exaggerated or that a newspaper misinforms its readers.

Shown from research, the sort of newspaper will also reflect the type of information it reveals to its readers, for example broadsheets, overall are far more informative than tabloids. However this may in fact be irrelevant as different newspapers attract different types of people, for example those who read tabloids may not even be interested in informative articles surrounding climate change.

When it comes to climate change almost every, (if not every) newspaper article will concentrate on the negative impacts of climate change. It can be argued that for every positive difference made due to climate change there is a counterbalancing negative one and as previously mentioned negative issues are more widely publicised. This gives the impression that all aspects of climate change are bad. However, is the idea of informing people of these changes and ways to prevent them really such and issue?

It is fairly obvious to say that climate change reports are often linked to the idea of ‘sustainable development’. The reason for this opinion is that with negative reports readers are often given information about how to deal with such issues and when it comes to climate change, they are informed on how to reduce their own individual impacts.
In conclusion, negative reports about climate change are likely to be reliable, but the range in information about other issues surrounding climate change are likely to be ill-informed.

Further reading:

‘Brighter sun adds to fears of climate change’ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article696586.ece
‘Wildlife gives early warning of 'deadly dozen' diseases spread by climate change’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4902669.ece
‘Arctic ice 'could melt in five years' as climate change accelerates’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1079064/Arctic-ice-melt-years-climate-change-accelerates.html
‘China urges rich nations to help poor fight climate change’
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200810291522.htm

Private cars

Lack of progress?

Lack of progress in cutting Co2 emissions is possibly due to that fact we'll spend what seems like a lifetime stuck in congestion, which causes excessive emissions. Of course in places such as London where public transport, walking or cycling is seemingly stress free, the rest of us outside of congested city areas still favour the convenience of our vehicles for a short journey or a longer one that could otherwise be shared with another person on a similar route.
Lets face it- the thought of standing waiting for a bus, cycling or walking in the rain doesn't appeal to most, unless you're and 'outdoorsy' sort of person (or you don't drive, which still doesn't mean its appealing).

Another possible reason for lack of progress is that families are likely to now need more than one car for their household because both parents may work as the cost of living has risen.

However, although there has been little progress in the reduction of emissions, people are much more aware of the impacts these emissions empose on peoples health and the environment.
People are now looking in to new ways of reducing emissions such as; better public transport- Sheffield tram system for example has been improved dramatically in the past two years, car sharing is now being publicised more frequently than before and 'cycle or walk to work' days are now planned every year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7363353.stm
Walk to work day in 2008 was 24th April, and aimed to reduce congestion, noise and encourage commuters to find alternative ways of getting to work.

'Private cars' indicator a good choice?

This indicator can provide a good insight to the increasing number of vehicles on Britains roads causing congestion and then inturn vast amounts of emissions.
However, we already know there is an increasing number of cars per household and this is likely to increase more.
What may be an option to consider monitoring is the type of private cars owned by households and their individual Co2 emissions. With global warming as a constant news report, car owners are forced to think about buying environmentaly friendly vehicles if they still insist on using their more convenient form of transport.

In an overview it must be argued that private vehicles as an idividual indicator is not accurate and that there should be other sub-indicators within this topic.