Last blog promt

What do you think are the main threats to securing sustainability in the future in this country?

What defines sustainability in this country? Most would assume sustainability is about making things last; recycling, walking instead of driving, turning the heating down and so on. But can a country’s economy be sustained this way? Can a society be sustained this way?

From the UK Governments Sustainability Strategy the overall impression is that the environment is most important aspect of sustainability (although there are various targets for employment).
From this point of view, the increase in migrant workers in recent years has decreased the availability of housing putting pressures on the need to build more- often on green field sites.
North Northamptonshire has the highest housing growth rate in the country after London. This is due to the Governments plans to have 3 million new homes by 2020. Is this social target threatening the sustainability of our green field sites?

The current recession can be seen as a positive boost to help encourage people to be more sustainable. Such things include walking or cycling to work or school due to the increase in living costs fuel prices. More noticeably, people are buying less in the case of food, mainly things that were wasted any way. Also, more people will be staying in the UK for their summer holiday due to financial restraints.
However the current recession may hinder the Governments plans to reduce such things as carbon emissions due to lack of jobs, such industries will remain open.
The recession will also obviously impact our country’s economy, reducing our market and therefore make it unsustainable.

Peoples enthusiasm to change their lifestyles for the sake of going green is a huge barrier to overcome. Many world leaders have previously chosen to ignore the fact that climate change is happening- and has had an impact on our country's population as a result. People are reluctant to change and therefore preventing sustainable development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szgtIyel2A0

Blog prompt 9- Sustainable community

Blog to what extent your ward/SOA resembles a 'sustainable community' and what extent you don't think it does. Give some evidence from your observations (or your memories) of this judgment.

Image from- www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk

Sustainable communities
According to the ODPM 2003 These communities should;
Be economically prosperous
Have decent homes at a price people can afford
Safeguard the countryside
Enjoy a well-design, accessible and pleasant living and working environment and
Be effectively and fairly governed with a strong sense of community.

According to government statistics Kettering 010D (Lower Layer Super Output Area) population is 984, 837 of which are all economically active. This means that 85% of this super output area’s population is employed making the employment percentage higher than the countries overall 67% employment rate.

According to the 2001 statistics 522 households were recorded in this super outlet area, none of which were; shared dwellings, In an Unshared Dwelling: Caravan or Other Mobile or Temporary Structure, or In an Unshared Dwelling: Flat, Maisonette or Apartment: In a Commercial Building. From these statistics and my knowledge the majority of the homes in this output area are detached making house prices substantially higher than other areas in the town of Kettering.

This super outlet area is on the outskirts of Kettering and close to the a14 and other main roads such a the a6 (Barton Road) making accessibility in and out of the town relatively easy. With regards to working environments, there are very few, if any workplaces within this outlet area apart from local shops as it is on the outskirt of Kettering.

People around this area are often very community proud by having their ‘community watch’ program it enables them to be active within this super outlet area. There is also a small woods in which local people are able to walk through and often clean up any rubbish that there may be around.
Overall I think this super outlet area in Kettering is a fairly sustainable community. There is not much in this area apart from detached housing and therefore with no other traffic apart from locals, makes it a very safe environment in which to live.

Blog promt 8- education for sustainable development is valuable?

To what extent do you think that education for sustainable development is valuable?

Do you agree with Haigh (2005) that Geography is best placed to deliver this curriculum?

What are your feelings about this module?

‘The goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014, DESD), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning.’ -United Nations

As the strain on resources throughout the world continues, the need for education about sustainable development is more of a requirement now than ever. The United Nations has set out a worldwide plan in which individual countries are given their own goals about the teaching of sustainable development. These individual goals for countries are essential as different issues arise regarding a country.
Some views will differ on whether or not sustainable development should be taught in education. Some theorists believe that global population is irrelevant and that technologies will continue to extend enabling us to ‘feed the world’ with what resources we have. Whereas others disregard this and believe that the world is over the optimum population.

Would teaching people about sustainable development actually be worth while? With reference to this course I think that it would be well worth while teaching others about sustainability. Although a lot of the subject taught is prior knowledge for me, it has encouraged me to think about my impact on the world. One person can make a difference if every other one person chose the right options too.
Had I not chosen A Level geography my knowledge about sustainability would be limited, and I’m sure that many children in education currently have no understanding of what sustainability is.
Making people aware of the current issues that surround their futures could make them more willing to change their opinions and others in order to set out better lives for the future.

Although sustainability is linked to many subjects taught in education geography is probably the most relevant to sustainable development. Sustainability is of course about our world, our population, our ability to feed our growing population and simple day to day activities which is geography. But delivering this idea of having to cut back on paper, walk- don’t drive will give people negative impressions of what the subject of geography is all about.

http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=27234&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html -United Nations

Blog Prompt 7- Good Crunch, Bad Crunch

As we face global economic downturn industrial production falls, unemployment rises, we spend less, we travel less, we consume less.
However, in terms of sustainable development goals, isn't this a good thing? Shouldn't we take this opportunity to learn to live within our means?
To what extent do you think that there are good things to come from the current economic recession?

Let me apologise now for the longer than usual ranting blog.

One politician had recently stated that this recent recession could do us good in Britain and people would learn from this- something that was not achieved in the 1980s recession. Would people in fact stop taking things for granted that people in other countries do not even have access to? Will people be smarter and save (or even just being more sensible with money) rather than splurging on unnecessary items such as top of the range cars and expensive handbags?

It is a fact- the credit that was available to people in the western world (especially Britain) in the previous few years was excessive and by the banks curving their lending it will eventually help to stabilise the economy and ‘rebalance the markets’. -Ernst & Young

It’s been splashed over many of the big name newspapers that Britain has been living too good for too long and this is time for a change. However, who is benefiting from our losses?
As with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the rapidly growing economy had been blamed for this sudden drop in the stock market. Is this a similar scenario for the credit crunch and upcoming recessions?
Surely someone had to benefit from the 1929 stock market crash and if not where did all this ‘money’ go?

The main positive topic of discussion regarding the credit crunch in Britain is that a continuing fall in house prices is likely, meaning that first time house buyers, if not all home buyers, will have better opportunities to buy affordable housing for the first time in Britain for several years.
However issues related to this include if this recession continues how are people going to get mortgages (if they still have jobs that is) with the banks still tightening their lending?
Whilst discussing this with someone who works for a home building company, she had said that people were still interested in buying homes however, were unable to get mortgages that they could have gotten a year previously.
It must be argued that house prices were never going to continue increasing and in my opinion; something is only worth as much as what a person is willing to pay for it. With a decrease in spending, and banks tightening their lending this was likely to slow things down quicker.

Within this issue though, are property developers snapping up these bargains? I know in America house repossessions are far more common than in Britain; home auctions are held daily, and driving down the street the word ‘repo’ flashes past at least once on every street. This leaves the market open for people with a bit of money that are willing to take a risk, could very well profit from peoples’ losses. But again- people with a bit of money, who aren’t feeling the strain as much as everyone else are benefiting, not those that are experiencing losses.

Then it comes to what companies and business sectors could possibly benefit from recessions in multiple countries? Well, discount supermarkets for example, such as Aldi and Lidl have seen significant increases in their sales already, and of course Wal-Mart- already a well established supermarket in America. Wal-Mart has already seen sharp increases in its share price from the end of 2007 until mid 2008 which is set to continue rising.
Other sectors that benefit from this is oil companies when they increase their prices, but how much do they really benefit? Their oil is not going to be around for ever and then where will that leave these companies and countries in which they are based? For anyone who didn’t watch ‘Piers Morgan on Dubai’- Dubai has already realised that its oil is running out, and has started establishing its tourist market, and a very unique one at that.

One last point to make- China is of course benefiting from its fast growing economy (growing far more rapidly than any western country ever did). Benefiting from our losses? Needless to say, their economy will slow down eventually one day, hopefully along with their Co2 emissions thats polluting our fresh British air.

Further reading:

http://www.access-accounts.com/news/industry-news/ernst--young-credit-crunch-may-benefit-economy.aspx -Ernst & Young

For those that aren't big Piers Morgan fans:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jan/30/last-nights-tv

http://british-tv.suite101.com/article.cfm/piers_morgan_on_dubai_itv1

Piers Morgan fans:

Didn't have enough time to search for a nice artical about him.

Traffic Survey

Joint blog- Adam and Faye
As a group in class, we planned what was to be included in the survey and how the traffic count data was to be collected.

Our group split up and two of us did the traffic count and the other two asked people the surveys. The two counting the traffic stood by the barriers at the entrance of the main student car park at Park campus. However due to our specific aims- only students’ cars were included in the count and lectures cars were distinguished by white permits. This was fairly difficult to do as the stickers were sometimes unable to be seen.
Some of the results may not be accurate as visitors may have been included in the traffic count and therefore not necessarily students.

The traffic count did not surprise me as not that many people car share- they seemed to travel alone. Also the time of day may have influenced peoples' decisions to arrive about half an hour prior to a lecture. For example someone may decide to arrive earlier to avoid rush hour and allow plenty of time for traffic or any incidents that may occur.

The surveys were quite conclusive about the fact people didn't think that students should have to pay to park during the day or night at Park campus.
However it did surprise me that more people commuted a further distance to the campus than was previously anticipated.

Another surprise from the surveys is that very few people that lived on campus parked cars in the car park- and in fact didn't even have one.
When we asked about the frequency of peoples methods of transport to the campus, car was an unsurprising winner however bus ranked highly among the results. This may be because bus fairs are subsidised when a student shows their student card.