Blog 5

Christmas is coming!

Cultural festivals, such as Christmas, are undoubtedly enjoyable and an important time for families and friends to relax together. Many have important religious significance. On the other hand, such events are often defined by excess and waste...lights, fireworks, over-packaging, excessive spending, over-eating and embarrassing self indulgence.

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

Or should all the 'do-gooders' leave our festivals alone!!!!



I would like to think that Christmas was a sustainable time of celebration, it brings so much joy to people and seems like the most harmless thing in the world, but unfortunately, it is more than likely to be the most unsustainable time of the year.

There is so much going on at Christmas to promote serious unsustainable development. The most major impact will result from all of the gifts being purchased, many more of the Earth’s resources are being eaten away very rapidly at this time of year, more raw materials are needed to create the gifts and much fuel is needed to transport all of these goods around the world. The other major contribution to this unsustainable movement is that there is so much more food consumption around the world, everybody stuffs themselves at Christmas and there is always loads of food left over every year. This extra consumption makes us use more gas and electric to cook it and the extra animals being bred and slaughtered is bound to have an effect on our planet, mainly through gases such as methane and carbon dioxide.

I have noticed that there is a new gift on sale this year known as “Nothing”, it’s a good-humoured scheme that encourages people to buy absolutely nothing but still get the buzz from the shopping experience, the website is set out to imitate the popular online store, Amazon. From this, it looks like some people are taking steps to create a more sustainable Christmas, the product description even states; “Shop your sustainable heart out and Buy Nothing”.











I think that in the years to come, we are going to see many more sustainable ideas at this time of year. More and more people are turning towards greener living and are realising the impact that humans have on the planet. People are being encouraged and in some cases, rewarded for utilising environmentally-friendly alternatives. I think that if people took a step back and stopped treating Christmas as a time of spending, greed and excessive consumption, we may see a more positive turn towards a sustainable Christmas, but for the time being, Christmas appears to be a highly unsustainable time of the year.

Blog 4

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?


Most newspapers are dominated by celebrities, scandals and sports. There are very few “serious” articles out there. The vast majority of people like to be entertained and kept informed about things they care about such as football, horoscopes and their favourite stars. Looking at the list of the six most popular papers, I know that I would not buy them to read about climate change, astronomy or wildlife concerns. Two newspapers that I believe are very informative when it comes down to serious issues are the Guardian and the Independent; they are the most geographical papers and seem to have the best knowledge about the environment.




















Having looked at some newspapers this week, it is easy to see that there are two different sides to the views of serious issues. The Sun has been mainly looking at celebrities in their top stories; I have seen very large write-ups about Tiger Woods’ fling and articles about Jordan being reunited with Peter for their sons’ nativity. This is very alarming for me to see that this is considered as relevant for top stories and front page news. On the other hand, looking at the Independent, I can see a vast difference in the calibre of the news. The first article I read is titled “Climate change special: 12 days to save the world”, I am very pleased to see that this paper is covering world issues that matter. That’s what we need to be informed about, things that will affect the human race, things that are threatening to us. Indy writer Johann Hari has given the opening statement “We face a threat as terrible as the rise of fascism”, it seems ludicrous that there are not many more people reading such articles. Perhaps people are afraid of the truth? Or maybe they are just naive?




















It is shocking to see that so many people in the nation live their lives around reality TV and soaps. I don’t believe that these shows have any positive role in society apart from the fact that they make people happy. People dedicate their lives to these programmes and sacrifice other, sometimes more important things just to catch 30 minutes of their favourite show. They do not give any guidance on life issues, etiquette or world issues. I’m not saying that everyone should be forced to watch documentaries on poverty, development and resource depletion but there should be more dedication to serious world issues, we cannot strive for a sustainable future if millions of people have their heads in the sand.

Blog 3

One of the central themes underpinning sustainable development is equality and fairness. This is reflected in the concept of 'empowered citizenship'- in that we can all make a contribution to making our community (our local area, our region, our country, our planet) a better place now and in the future.

Some important areas are quite difficult to understand. Science, economics, politics are often quite difficult to comprehend and yet are central to decisions that are made by others about our lives.

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? To what extent do you think that you should leave the complicated decisions up to others ?

















As a citizen, I believe that I have the right to be informed about global issues and the methods and implications of modern development. I am well informed but maybe that’s because I have a particular interest in the issues and topics surrounding the sustainable development discipline, I myself search for the information, if I did not have an interest in the subject I could easily switch off and ignore it as many people in society do.


The primary source that keeps me informed about serious issues is newspapers; I often read stories encompassing sustainable development and similar topics. But I must say that I can be highly sceptical at times. There are so many different opinions floating around in the media and in politics that it is almost impossible for news sources to give you a clear-cut factual view of what is really going on, you need to make the decision yourself about what you believe. The biggest example of this is the ongoing climate change debate, there are many people out there who believe that humans and CO2 are to blame for increasing temperatures and that within a few years, global warming will have cataclysmic circumstances. In complete contrast, there are many cynics including many scientists and other respectable people that believe that global warming is not caused by humans and CO2 at all and some even believe that global warming is a natural event that happens every few hundred years. So I find it very difficult to make decisions on what I believe.














All human beings have the right to be informed about the changes that our Earth is going through on all levels; environmentally, politically and economically. This gives everybody a chance to have their opinions and ideologies if their voice can be heard, but a voice does not have to be heard on an international or even national level, as individuals, we can all do things to make a difference and in some respect it is our responsibility to make a difference, whatever a person’s view on climate change or world development we must consider future generations and what must be done to make life for them as it is for us or better, this can be undertaken in any way that the individual deems reasonable, using their car less or perhaps donating clothes to charity. However, I do believe that the science behind climate change should be left to scientists and major development decisions should be made by economic and political experts. We need to know what is going on with our planet; evidence needs to be provided from historical and scientific sources and major decisions need to be made by reliable governmental bodies.

Blog 2

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?



Through media sources, I have been well-informed about Al Gore's and the IPCC’s efforts to educate the international public with vital facts and statistics about the biggest threat that we, as a planet, face today. The film has made people across the world recognise the severe urgency that is required for the world to make even just a small change to global warming; it has also informed the world of the concerning links between mankind and climate change.

At first, hearing about how the film was laid out with the “PowerPoint presentation” theme, I was sceptical and thought that I would not find the film very interesting or as powerful as I did. The statistics were very fascinating and made me realise how potentially serious that climate change could be. It was useful to contain much historic data, this definitely helps show the audience that this pattern of climate change and of course, the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have never been seen before. In contrast to this, the diagrams, animations and clips proved to be a very welcome “breather” from viewing charts, graphs and figures. Seeing how our emissions are affecting the atmosphere and the subsequent impact of that on the ice sheets, wildlife and the oceans was very effective for the spectators, these send the audience into an imaginative trance that allows them to perceive what they think the earth would be like if these things happened in real life.

After watching the film, I had many thoughts and perceptions about what might happen and what could be done to prevent or at least slow this catastrophic outlook. Unfortunately to me, it looks like there is very little that mankind can do to stop this disaster in waiting, all we can do is learn how to cope with the changing world and see how the global community and environment can evolve sustainably without excessively polluting our planet and speeding up global warming. I believe that Al Gore and the IPCC have made an impressive effort to educate and alert the world to this new phase in our history, therefore I feel that the Nobel Peace Prize awarded was given deservingly.

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

In order to improve the sustainability of my lifestyle the first thing I would look at is what I buy, particularly food shopping, I could look at the quantities of the products I am buying and their sources. I would aim to buy just the right amount of food shopping to avoid wasting food and unnecessarily draining resources and impacting on the environment. I would also consider the geographical source of the products and consider buying fair trade if the option was available, as fair trade is considered as the best way of keeping things equal between the consumer and the producer. I may be prevented from doing these things by a number of factors, the main one being cost, although I would be saving money by cutting back on the quantities of the products I buy, I will almost definitely be increasing the amount I spend by purchasing higher priced fair trade goods.

Secondly, I would look at the way I travel. There are many ways to travel nowadays that reduce carbon emissions, road accidents, environmental damage and cost. I would consider walking or cycling when possible and using trains or buses for longer journeys. The main reasons that would prevent me from changing my travel habits would be time and comfort. Most people prefer to travel by car as opposed to walking or cycling due to the time consumption, you may have to walk for an hour to cover the same distance that you could in a car in 10 minutes. Comfort and hygiene are big factors in peoples decisions to use public transport, for example, you could be on a bus for half an hour standing up and being coughed and sneezed on, this prevents a lot of people from using public transport.

There are many ways that I can improve the sustainability of my lifestyle but it would take some time to sit down and work out the pros and cons to decide which ones would be the most rewarding to me and to the environment.