SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

My super output area is Milton Keynes 032c Lower Layer, I am not sure whether this name is suggesting something but from what I have found out I think it is (lower). AS far as sustainable community is concerned I don't think my area gives a good picture or resembles anything to do with sustainable except for one single thing, living environment.



The more red it is the more deprived it is, but if we compare this to education in the area, I am simply horrified that I actually take my daughter to a school in this area.


The overall absence in all schools in my area is given as 9.01% as compared to 5.78% for the whole of Milton Keynes and 6.23 for England. The persistent absentees in all schools in the area is given as 7.5% as compared to 2.8% for Milton Keynes and 3.6% for England (http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/leadTableView.do;jsessionid=).
If education is so low in my area what chances do the children have of becoming active citizens I ask? I think it goes with the territory, if education is low the children do not have the capacity to play an effective role in the society, they are not well informed, they are not thoughtful, not responsible citizens and are not aware of their rights and not conscious of their duties either. I think what you learn from an early age has a ripple effect wherever you go and it is very important to get the education right because it is your future and will have an effect on the people around you. Thank you Greg I now know why my area is so rough, they don't get the education!!. Most of them are not politically, socially or economically literate hence not informed on anything other than what they get on the streets.

Looking at fire and rescue services, fires attended to were 9, Milton Keynes was 674 and England was 131,258 and a total casualties of 3 in my area out of 52 in Milton Keynes.

One of the definitions given on active citizenship is ensuring there are opportunities and mechanisms for all to participate in public life and decision-making, regardless of age, ability, culture, lifestyle or location, I think that definition basically stinks, because if children don't get equal opportunities in education how is this definition achievable? If I compare my previous address with current as far as education is concerned it just tells that the above definition should be replaced with something like where you live has an effect on what kind of citizen you become.


This is education deprivation for Epsom in Surrey.

If we have a look at crime in my area, it is quite high but then again it is not a surprise given the level of education deprivation. In my view education is the key to young people's better future. Most families in the area have about three failed generations from grandparents to parents and their children. None of them knows better than the other one since none of them received the education they deserve and hence have no chance of becoming responsible citizens.



I don't think we can ever achieve sustainable communities in such areas unless we have ways and means of breaking these generation failures in families and communities. As it has been said before, one of the central themes underpinning sustainable development is equality and fairness, from the information available in my super output area, it just shows how far away we are from achieving equality and fairness towards sustainable development. The only thing that is looking up in my area is living environment and barriers to housing and services, and I am guessing it is because not many people want to live there.



Income deprivation is high in the area so I am guessing not many people work as probably not many of them have any skills or are even willing to work.



However, there has been an improvement of local public services especially the collection tipped rubbish so the area is getting cleaner by the day, and there is also an improvement in tackling anti-social behaviour and extremism as there is always the presence of the police in the area even on their bikes. So despite all the failures, something is looking up but more needs to be done if sustainable community is to be achieved in the area.

WHY VOTE?

My constituency is Milton Keynes South West and the local MP is Dr Phyllis Starkey a Labour party MP.Dr Starkey has been an MP for Milton Keynes since 1997 during which time, her website says, Milton Keynes has thrived under her care, there has been a new treatment centre in Milton Keynes hospital, countless new schools and the arrival of MK Dons stadium. Dr Starkey has been elected chair of the communities and local government select committee, covering housing and planning, local and regional government, the fire service and the equalities agenda (www.phyllisstarkey.co.uk).


My local council is Milton Keynes council which is dominated by the Liberal Democrat with 21 seats, followed by the Conservatives with 20 seats and Labour comes third with 10 seats (http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/mkcouncil/)



The council elections have been set for the 6th of May 2010 and there is a general mood around that a lot of people will not come out to vote since they don't know who to vote for that will meet their expectations. This is a pretty bad conclusion to come to because someone will be voted in so I think you might as well use your vote and exercise your right. I think we are very good at sitting back and mourning about something or someone but when it comes to doing something about it we leave it to others even though we have the right and can make a change. We may not get the change we want but a bit of it is better than nothing. I know most politicians have no one else's interest at heart other than theirs, but if we know this and don't vote to get them out, then we are no better than them. We all need to vote in order to leave a better legacy for our kids than we have, surely this should be a driving force if nothing else matters.

I have always voted Labour because I think they represent the common man, and my view on that has not changed. The party has done a lot since coming to power in 1997 especially in regard to social security and child poverty. We now have lone parents deals, tax credits and so on and they have also committed to eradicating child poverty by 2020 and halving it by 2010. Although they have now abandoned the 2010 pledge when the realisation that they are nowhere near meeting the pledge came to light, and have outlined a new poverty bill (http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk). But one of Labour's biggest failure is the Iraq war which they will be remembered for in years to come. My grandmother used to say that if you don,t make mistakes then who is your teacher?. This was a costly mistake that we are still paying for and still losing lives over it but we can't go back and undo what has happened, the best thing we can do is learn from it.

I am not into David Cameron at all and I can't tell you why either because I really don't know. A study done in Bangor University seems to tell us that his body language suggests that he is a better leader than Gordon Brown actually giving him on leadership a 4.34 score over a 3.97 to Gordon. On attractiveness, he got a 4.16 to Gordon's 3.16, anxiety 2.26 to Gordon's 3.84 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/newstopics/politics/7385195/David-Camerrons-body-lang). But seriously I know body language is important, but is this what decides who is a better leader, not going through the manifesto and looking at the policies that affects you and your neighbourhood? What does Cameron's attractiveness have to do with what is happening in my neighbourhood, nothing is the answer and neither is Gordon's non-attractiveness. In my view the politicians have a lot in common and most of them don't know the real issues affecting the people that they represent, but I think this is where we come in, we have to make them listen and we can't do that without voting for sure. My main concern is who of them represents me, Conservatives have been known to connect with the rich, they are anti-immigration and not very good on social security. I was leaning more to the Liberal Democrats because of the abolition of the tuition fees but have now been postponed due to the economic crisis but will wait to see what happens.

So lets all go and vote the best decision you will make in years!!!!.

SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL

There is always a cost to everything that we do be it negative or positive, this will depend on your actions. So I guess the big question is, do the benefits of motorised transport outweigh the cost of it?. I am sure the environmentalists will give you a straight answer NO with capital letters. But on the other hand if you put the same question to developers and others, they will give you a yes answer, and probably go ahead to tell you how far back the world would be without unlimited travel. And rightly so because if you look at the movement of goods and services for example, it has brought tremendous benefits economically and socially to the whole wide world really through creation of jobs etc. For instance fresh vegetables can be gathered from a farm somewhere in Africa and be in a Tesco store in 24 hours time while it is still fresh, brilliant isn't?. There is a whole chain of people that are working within this time frame to make this possible and of course was it not for the advance technology in transport this would not be possible.But if we flip the coin on the other side, there is air and road travel involved here, it is said that CO2 emitted high up in the atmosphere does more damage to the environment, and not forgetting all those tracks on the road to deliver the goods to the stores.

I think public transport can give a lot of answers to a lot of problems with transport but it also has some drawbacks which I think should be addressed to make it more effective and desirable. First of all it is only economically feasible in areas with relatively large populations, as the number of people per square mile decreases, the efficiency of public transport also decreases. This means that the system have to be prepared to run at a loss. In such areas private transport is inevitably more desirable.
Public transport systems are also very expensive to build and to operate which means that consumers have to pay a higher cost to use public transport. Public transport is sometimes also very crowded, uncomfortable, dirty and unreliable and no public transport can provide the convenience of using your own car. And may be this is where we get the link to general lack of fitness in the population at large, we become too comfortable with using our own transport we forget about the side effects and also the unwillingness to change.I also think we live in a motorised culture especially in the UK, because if you look at countries like Holland they have a totally different approach to transport. Their whole transport system is built with green matters in mind for example, they have bicycle lanes and parkings, walk paths etc and sustainable travel is promoted and encouraged actively even their MP's go to work on bikes (www.bbc.co.uk)



Public transport though has it is own advantages especially when it comes to the environment.It is more environmentally friendly in the sense that, for example, a single coach filled with say a hundred people uses only slightly more fuel than does a single private car hence the amount of air pollution per passenger is much less. In addition, it is a more efficient way of transporting people because an underground system operating on two tracks say 36ft wide can transport around 80,000 passengers per hour, whereas an 8-lane motorway around 125ft wide, can only transport20,000 passengers per hour.Public transport is also socially beneficial as it creates jobs, be it the people behind the wheels or the guys maintaining the road works, and it is also a good way of interacting with others (http://science.jrank.org/pages/4169/mass-transportation-)






I think the present transport system needs an overhaul if it is to persuade us to leave our cars behind. First of all, reliability needs to be sorted out, I also think we need to invest more in the system which would improve the number of services operating at one single time. This would mean better road works, better railways etc and probably even better pay for the employees which would help with staff retention. We need to have more bicycle lanes which would encourage people to go on bikes and obviously designated parking areas for the bikes. We also need to encourage car sharing more which might mean that we will need car sharing lanes on motorways and dual carriageways. The government might also want to think about investing in teaching people how to use the bikes at discounted prices to interest people. But I think our biggest problem is the fact that our road works are built with one thing in mind which is vehicles which I think contributes a lot to the motorised culture. The leading figures as well needs to lead from the front rather than the back eg the MP's, they need to dump their big cars and get on the bikes like their counterparts in Holland. There is a transport problem mainly because there is not enough done to combat the problem and there is no way that the benefits can outweigh the costs.

There is a need to invest more on green transport for example the electric cars and things like renewable sources of energy. But I think more emphasis needs to be put on encouraging healthier lifestyles, walking, cycling and probably car sharing and use of public transport to reduce the over reliance on single car use.

IS CHRISTMAS SUSTAINABLE?

When I was little I used to think Christmas was all about Santa Claus bringing me presents through the chimney, and I am sure this is still the thought shared by a lot of children today. At least that's what my 6yr old daughter thinks and it would be so unfair to burst her bubble. So on that thought I am caught in between leaving the word sustainable out of Christmas and contemplating it.That said though, I am sure there is a lot we can do as far as being sustainable is concerned. For example, we can spend less and more importantly spend what we have. This might mean that we buy less presents which most people end up throwing in the bin anyway.I took the trouble of going to my local 'tip' or the waste recyclable sites as they are called this week, just to find out how much waste of good things they get after Christmas, and was amazed at the things that end up there according to the guys. People throw away unopened items something I cannot understand at all, why not even give it to charity? The amount of wrapping paper used is over the board as well, wrapping a present does not mean that someone will not throw it away at your expense, so I am sure this is something we can use less of or none at all if we are brave. Another thing that I never get is all those Christmas lights that some people seem to cover their houses with, I admit it looks smashing, and I am not an expert but I am sure if we flip the coin they do a fair damage to the environment or even economically, the amount of power they use. I know some people will argue that its only for one month in a year and rightly so, but surely we can minimise it.

Over the month of December the UK has spent a staggering 4.67 billion pounds online shopping and the month is not over yet. (www.silicon.com)

This seems to me too excessive given the current economic climate, but I am guessing most people have been over come by the rampant commercialisation that takes place at this period and hence ends up spending money that belongs to banks and credit cards. This is all good (spending I mean) for lifting businesses out of the recession but I think it only deepens the crisis with the national debt.This kind of spending is not socially or economically sustainable because the definition of sustainable living according to UN is meeting your needs without comprising the ability of the future generation to meet their needs (www.un.org/esa/dsd). The future generation has to continue paying the debts that the present generation will leave which is hugely unfair and will limit their capability to meet their needs.

Devoted Christians will tell us that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ even though there is no evidence to suggest that He was born on that day. They will also tell us that the meaning has been taken out of it because of the commercialisation aspect of it. But if Christmas is about the birth of Jesus Christ, and given the fact that He is the Almighty power in Christianity, I think its only fair that we all 'do-gooders' leave everyone to celebrate the way they feel comfortable, and concentrate more on been sustainable and saving the planet the rest of the year. But according to some people Christmas has nothing to do with Christianity but rather was a pagan festival adopted by christian settlers so that they would convert pagan people in the early years and celebrate winter solstice.(www.bbc.co.uk).This seems to me a more credible explanation since no one seems to know when Jesus was born.

I think Christmas should be nothing to do with presents, lights and fireworks, over spending, over eating or even embarrassing self indulgence. It should be, given the changed and groomy world that we live in today, a time for reflection on the whole year, a time for families to get together and share their joys, hope and happiness and a time to do something meaningful eg helping someone in need. This is how it would work in my changed world. It makes no sense having a kind of a firework competition around the world and what nation has the best display and spending millions of pounds on it. How about we use that money to display who has the best renewable energy sources eg windmills, solar power on the first of January instead of fireworks, that would be great!! But I guess I am just going to have to carry on dreaming looking at what is going on in Copenhagen right now. They all need a reality check don't they? And they call themselves leaders, how about leading from the front and not the fence or the back? And all that CO2 emissions that they have contributed to the environment to get to Copenhagen? The whole thing is not economically, socially or environmentally sustainable, very annoying.

THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN SHAPING PEOPLE'S OPINIONS

Lets take for instance the Sun newspaper, their reading age is 9yrs which simply means that the paper is written to be read by anyone from 9yrs old. My question is, what serious issues would a nine year old understand? Would they really grasp the meaning of sustainable development or even the nitty gritty of climate change? I am guessing not but would like to hear otherwise. So I can honestly see where the paper is coming from by not writing serious issues. Having said that though, should the paper not have a moral responsibility to the society as a whole, given the fact that it is the most read newspaper in the country?

Key audience facts

The Sun:

Read by 8 million people Monday to Saturday
Over 3m copies are sold every day
44% of Sun readers are women
Reaches 1.25 million women with kids every day
22% of readers are 16-34 men



Based on the facts above, I am left to wonder what kind of a society we live in because this is a huge chunk of the population that are committed week in week out on reading junk, gossip and things that don't really matter much. Or is it because the majority of the population are not academically equipped to understand serious issues hence the reading age of nine. One thing is for sure though, the Sun newspaper and its likes are out to make money and not to save the planet and they know that once they start going down that route they will loose the market.Or do we all leave serious issues to experts and politicians because after all that's why we vote for them. But if we talk about the experts, they seem to be split in half on whats causing global warming, some think its man made some think its nature taking its course since there is no evidence to explain previous global warming. Politicians as well don't seem to have a stand on it either, a panel of politicians on BBC 1 Question time on 26th Nov 2009 were keen to point out that they accept global warming is happening but were also keen to point out that they were not sure its man made.There was a panel of five people, four politicians and a comedian who was the only one sure that global warming is man made. If the people we trust to tell us whats happening are giving out such signals why should the Tabloids take any role on serious issues?. But on the other hand why should they (politicians) convince us of something they have no evidence of?.

Lets go back to the picture on top of the page, "big opinions every day", what big opinions are the three likely to tell us? I think we can all guess, "Football" right?. The paper's target audience is 16-35yrs mainly men (BBC NEWS WEBSITE), they are quite clever in keeping up with the theme of who they are targeting. But I just wonder what would happen if the three faces were replaced with three scientists or a big picture of a melting glacier in the arctic. Their target audience would dramatically change and sales would fall plus I am guessing their reading age would have to rise. I also wonder why, just why, given the fact that we are told that global warming is a serious issue that we all need to act on, we are not using the tabloids, soaps and reality shows to influence and change people's opinions on living sustainably. Because in my opinion they have too much power and reach out to the younger generation that I think is not quite convinced on the issue. You can read through the whole of Sun newspaper or even the Mirror without the mention of global warming or climate change, or is the whole thing a con really? Because surely the tabloids and entertainment shows should have a moral and an ethical obligation to their audiences, shouldn't they? They should inform them of the dangers that we are facing and the fact that their children and grandchildren might not have a planet to live in if we carry on doing nothing. Or do they know something we don't? I would want to see a message from Green Peace or Friends Of the Earth at the beginning of the X Factor or Coronation street on global warming and even between the breaks. The message may not be consumed by the millions at once but I am sure it will get there slowly but surely. But I am still not convinced that climate change is as serious as we are told it is simply because when I think about it, I don't understand why we are not using the power of media to do something about it. It is there, it is available, it could do wonders, what is the problem then, unless this whole thing is a swindle?.
If you look at the broadsheet newspapers, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Financial Times, you can count the number of times climate change or global warming is mentioned with one hand. And even then the story is very shallow and usually right in the middle of the paper. How about some big headlines on climate change? Will be interesting to see what the headlines will be prior to the Copenhagen meeting, although having said that I have heard a lot already about how the meeting has already failed before it has began. President Obama is supposed to be passing by there when the meeting opens on his way to pick up his Nobel Prize, he has also announced that the US is committing itself to cutting 83% emissions in 40 years, surely they can do better than this can they? But he is not going to be at the meeting to sign the agreement on cutting emissions (BBC NEWS). So if this are the actions that we are getting from the leaders, how can we expect the media to have a role on serious issues? And how many agreements have they signed up before and lived up to them, none, eg Kyoto, Rio De Janiero. I think the leaders and politicians need to get the grip on the issue and promote it actively and I am sure the media will see the seriousness of the issue and follow suit.

Global problems global solutions

I think it is every ones duty to be informed on all issues that affect our day to day living, regardless on whether we all get the drift of the issue or not. Global warming is a global problem and needs a global solution. The problem is, we are all not on the same page when it comes to tackling problems or understanding them or even worse have the same capability. Sustainable development on a global level, will only be achieved, if we can first achieve equality and fairness among all involved. This will in turn create empowered citizens that are armed to make the planet a better place. I somehow agree with Bjorn Lomborg in his book "Cool It" published in 2007, "Climate change is a 100- year problem and we should not try to fix it in 10 years". He argues that "the cost and benefits of the proposed measures against global warming, is the worst way to spend our money".(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%c3%B8rn_Lomborg) There are other immediate problems like poverty, diseases eg malaria, AIDS,etc that could be tackled with some of the money.

This brings me to the great global warming swindle, where it is claimed that global warming is now a big business and lots of jobs. Definitely, there are no jobs in tackling poverty and diseases, which really supports the video. There are no institutions like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that have been created to look into causes of poverty and diseases around the world. This really posses a question on whether global warming is happening as quickly as they are telling us. The video states that there is no evidence to support that human CO2 is causing global warming as Al Gore suggests in his movie "the inconvenient truth". Al Gore says that there is a link between rising temperatures and CO2, the great global warming swindle video, opposes what he is suggesting and says that the link is the other way round- the rise in temperatures is leading the rise in CO2 by 800 years. The video claims that climate has always changed and what the inconvenient truth does not explain is why that none of the major climate change in the last 1000 years can be explained by CO2, or even why temperatures were higher than they are today in the medieval warm period. Am also intrigued by the fact that that during the post war economic boom, when assumably there was a rise in CO2 due to industrial development, temperatures fell for four decades (www.youtube.com). Despite the fact that no one is denying global warming, I can't help wondering whether human CO2 is the main cause and more so when you see the money involved in the global warming industry.

AS for leaving complicated decisions to others, I think each and every decision should be scrutinized by an independent body to make sure that peoples imaginations are not running away with them on the expense of others. Margaret Thatcher commissioned a group to produce a report on global warming simply to make her case on nuclear power strong, and used tax payers money to make funding available (the great global warming swindle video). I think we have to question motives and interests of all involved in making big decisions. If we can step away for a minute from global warming, Tony Blair made a decision to go to war in Iraq even though the experts on weapons of mass destruction had strongly advised against it(www.bbcnews.co.uk). Most recently, the government disagreed with an expert on drugs professor Nutts and even went as far as sucking him as an advisor,(www.bbc.co.uk) which brings me to ask the question, who should make decisions or should we all get involved?.

But I think in the end what we have to do is listen and evaluate the evidence used in big debates like global warming and then do what you think is right from there, because without the knowledge some areas are quite difficult to comprehend and you cannot be an expert on everything.For example Al Gore tells us that human CO2 is the major contributor to high temperatures, while the great global warming swindle tells us that volcanoes and oceans are the major contributors. Volcanoes produce more CO2 than people, cars and industries put together. And the warmer the oceans are the more CO2 they produce and can also be a major reservoir in that the cooler they are the more CO2 they suck in. The video also states that there is a time lag in oceans warming and the effects being seen(www.youtube.com).So may be, just may be, this is the cause of the global warming that we are experiencing. May be the oceans started warming up some time ago and we are only seeing the effects now, has anyone stopped to think about this? It could also be the reason why we see the glaciers in the arctic melting off so fast, right? It would be nice to blame it on the oceans warming up then we don't have to do anything about it, just chill and wait for the rising sea levels to come and drawn us off the face of the planet. When I weigh the two evidences, I honestly have no idea who to believe or whether we need to do anything to slow global warming or leave it to fate. One thing is for sure though, we need to do a lot of research, reading and questioning to be informed.

sustainable development ENV

sustainable development ENV