Blog Number 5

Christmas,


I feel that christmas is definatly not sustainable in any way, there are extra lights put up on every house in the street, wrapping paper is bought, used, ripped up, then thrown away. Vast amounts of money are spent on food we dont need creating more waste and drinks are also bought in large quantities, but who cares. Christmas is a a big event, possibly the biggest holiday of the year, and it only happens once. It a large holiday that most people enjoy and celebrate, it brings the family together and is time to relax and enjoy ourselfs. For many people it is a religious holiday, the birth of jesus, which is something that they would like to celebrate. But christmas is not alone in holidays that celebrated and arent sustainable, there is also easter with all the easter eggs and birthdays also with all the wrapping paper and cards but christmas is definatly the largest.

In a changed world no one would look forward to christmas, there would be no lights on the houses, no one would have christmas trees in there homes, we would eat the food we usually eat and drink what we usually drink, we wouldnt drive to see relatives so family relations would be damaged. We wouldnt have presents or christmas cards, it would just be like a normal week of our normal lifes, and we all need things to look forward to and if this was the case then christmas would not be one of those things.

Although chrisrmas could be more sustainable and still be enjoyable.

Blog Number 4

I feel that the best selling news papers do cover stories relating to serious issues. The five top selling news papers are The Sun, The Mail, The Mirror, The Telegraph and The Star, in that order. I personally that they all cover the main stories relating to serious issue although many of the papers have different styles in which they will present there stories. The Sun is probably the most criticised for not relating to serious issues as it also contains stories on unimportant issues and when it does talk about serious issues the titles are usually funny or play in words and the context is usually in an easy and understandable way to read whereas the The Telegraph on the other hand only contains important information with straight forward, straight to the point headings headings. Also for people who do not read those papers, they will only see what is on the front cover of that paper, The Suns front page is usually about celebrities or similar type stories where as a paper such as The Telegraph will have the main story on the front page. Because of this the general public would think that The Sun does not contain important issues, whereas it does they are just a few pages in. The papers are designed to attract different readers, The Sun is trying to attract the average person, aimed at men with the 3rd page and the women with the celeb gossip on the front page. The Telegraph on the other hand is aimed at older aged people, business people or the generally higher educated people so they require to have important information on the front page that there audience would be interested in.
I feel that it is important for the top newspapers to keep us informed with serious issues as we as the general public need to know and would like to know what serious issues are going on in the world and how we may be affected by these issues. It doesn't matter how these newspapers present this information as long as it is in there. It is up to the reader how they want to read these important issues, either formally or informally.

In my opinion the tabloid media and the 'low budget entertainment' (reality TV shows, soaps) may have a little bit too much influence on this country. An example of this would be how the public believe almost anything that is written in the paper even though many of these stories will just be made up to sell the paper. Most of these stories are about celebrities and are made up on the publishers interpretations. Although i don't feel that soaps or reality TV shows have much influence on the audience. The top four shows are X Factor, Coronation Street, Doc Martin and Emmerdale. I feel these don't have much influence on people as they are not telling stories about real people or real things that are going on in the world they are just made up soaps. The X Factor may have an effect of how people feel about the type of people they see on this shows as it is a reality TV show. People may see this show and stereotype that type of person, or it may even change the previous stereotype that they once had. But the amount of people that watch these shows could be exploited. If they were to try an influence the public they could probably do so quite easily but i at the moment i don't see any of them trying to do this, or even finding the need to carry that out.

Blog Prompt 3

There are two argument wether citizens should be kept informed. On one hand I think that as citizens we have a right to be informed about issues going on in the world, if we are informed then we may be able to contribute something to that certain issue that could be helpful. On the other hand some times we should not be informed because we may know nothing about this subject, as it us hard to understand or we have no interest in this area. For example Science or Politics. This could cause some people to panic or worry about things that need not be worried about.
I dont think we are informed about all issues, there are certain issues that we are informed about, for example climate change, we are informed about this through many different types of media, I.e Television Radio and Posters, we are also informed by our peers, I.e Parents Lectureres, and Friends. Another issue we are informed about are the wars in Afganistan, Again we are informed about this mainly through media, There is a program on sky one called, Ross Kemp In Afganistan, where Ross travels to Afganistan and makes a program on the war that is going on and all the soilders views. This informs us on what is really happening. Some times we are informed about issue that are not important but the media and/or goverment make them seem much worse than they are so we do something about, an example of this could be recycling or even global warming? The main important issues I do get informed about are usually through media, for example television and radio. The most effective and trustworthy information usually comes from the news, ever on the television or on the radio. Issues written about in the papers are not always true and are usually bent in favour of one side, I.e one paper may say that the war we are fighting in Afganistan is pointless and unessecary and try to persuade us to believe that point, Where as another paper may say that we do need to be Afganistan and will try persuade us that, that is correct.
I feel that the complicated decisions should be left to other people as we do not know any thing about them. I feel that we should be informed about these issues as it is our right to know what it going on and to be informed about important issues.

Al Gores' An Inconvenient Truth

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In 2007 Al Gore and the UN panel won the Nobel Peace Prize, Mainly for the production of the double Oscar winning film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. It won 'Academy Award for Documentary Feature' and 'Best Original Song'. Al Gore, 59, won an Oscar for his film on climate change and was stated to be "deeply honoured". Al Gore hoped that his film would bring a "greater awareness and a sense of urgency". His said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the alliance for climate protection. Although it has criticised by a British judge for containing 9 errors and being 'alarmist'.

In 2007-200m the Gallup Polls surveyed 127 countries. And over a third of the world's population were not aware of global warming, the developing countries were much less aware than the developed countries, and the continent of Africa was least aware. Latin America believes that temperature changes are a result of human activities while Africa, parts of Asia and the Middle East, and a few countries from the Former Soviet Union lead in the opposite. In the western world, the concept and the appropriate responses are contested. Nick Pidgeon of Cardiff University finds that "results show the different stages of engagement about global warming on each side of the Atlantic". Where as Europe debates the appropriate responses while the united states were debating whether climate change is actually happening. This shows that Al Gore's video will increase the awareness of the global warming and the effects is is having on Earth. This will definatly influence peoples views.

When I watched this film is class I found that it did increase my awareness of climate change, I felt that it explained climate change and the problems we're are facing in a very easy way to understand I also felt that is was very convincing with all the tables and graphs that showed how things have change so dramatically compared to the past. But i also found that not all the things he was stating were 100% correct, he does not give any room for error. This change is temperature or sea level may have other causes than global warming. For example in the past there has been random temperature increases and decreases, an example of this the the ' Little Ice Age' This was a period of cooling that occurred after a warmer era known as the medieval warm period. Whats to say that this isn't just another one of those event just occurring on a larger scale?

I also found that this movie also had a negative on many people, some people found that they didn't believe what he was saying, or that what he was saying was not necessarily true and even that they generally didn't like Al Gore himself for certain reasons.

I feel this film was fairly successful as it won 2 Oscars and helped promote the problem of climate change although if it turns out that climate change is not due to humans then this film would be possibly one of the worst films even and would be completely unsuccessful.

BlogPrompt 1

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

Definition - sustainable - able to be sustained; able to be sustained for an indefinite period without damaging the environment, or without depleting a resource; renewable en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sustainable.

There are many ways that I could be more sustainable;

I could be more energy efficient by turning all electrical equipment of at the plug rather than leaving it on stand by, i could turn the heating down by just one degree and it would save me money and reduce climate change. Also i could by low energy equipment i.e light bulbs and fridges, or just remembering to turn off the light when I leave the room. The only things stopping me from doing this is laziness.

I could reduce my waste by thinking about stuff that i buy and whether i really need for example buy one get one free, Research found the average UK house hold spends £424 p.a on food that goes in the bin. Also i could reuse stuff for example using plastic boxes for storage and news papers for animal bedding. The main way i could reduce my waste would be by recycling, most stuff can be recycled and is collected from your home.

I could also be more sustainable with shopping; i could look out for the fair trade mark which means the producer has been paid a fair price for his products although this is more expensive for me. I could take a bags with me when i go shopping, so i could reuse them rather than getting new bags and wasting them. The average person collects over 300 bags a year. Also i could grow my own vegetables.

I could also be more travel more sustainably; On short journeys i could either walk or cycle rather than going by car. This is good for the environment and your health. Journeys into town you could go by train and bus. These are often faster and there is no need to worry about traffic or parking., although this can work out more expensive. Buy a more fuel efficient car which could save you money on fuel and tax as well as reducing carbon emissions.

You could also be more sustainable in your community, by joining community project or becoming a volunteer, also providing an example to others by putting out your recycle bin. All this stuff is easy but most of it is not done because of laziness and people find it hard to change there usual routine, but this needs to be changed to combat global warming and climate change.