Treats to Sustainability

Although there are many definitions for sustainability, the clearest one for me describes it as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1988)


Threats
Credit crisis – at the moment our country on the whole is in a recession so people are looking for the cheaper options in life. Sustainable purchases are therefore not as common. For example things like bio-fuel or hybrid cars at present are more expensive. This is not just the case for the purchasers, but the producers are struggling to get hold of materials and fuels as well under the current situation.

Agriculture – the increase in agriculture can have a detrimental and unsustainable impact on the natural environment. This is partially due to the increase in pesticides and fertilisers reaching the lakes and rivers leading to eutrophication. However more sustainable methods like organic foods have been introduced these are generally too expensive for most people.

Population increase – This basically refers to the more people the more consumption, resources and energy will be required. If this is not produced in a sustainable manor then it will soon be used up.

Education – Ideas of sustainability are not presently covered in much detail in the national curriculum. If this were addressed then younger generations could be more conscious of how there decisions impact on the environment and act in a more sustainable manor.

Culture – We are regarded as a throw away generation. This is a very unsustainable way to be as the earth gets polluted from our rubbish that could and should be recycled. 6.7 million Tonnes reach landfill per year. Cars are also in high demand and not necessarily essential as many areas have very good bus or train services for example which are more sustainable. However some people are reluctant just to rely on these as they like the convenience of having their own car.

Government lack action - Governments need to stop being totally concerned with loosing voters over unpopular lifestyle changes and promote new sustainable policies. Even though they may be unpopular initially over time there incentives will preserve the earth for future generations. The governments defence tends to be that sustainable development strategies take time to implement and would need to be passed on down many agendas. (pretty poor really)


There are threats to sustainability however there are steps that can be taken to tackle them. These include things like, better education, less ignorance and making better transport decisions. All these need to be addressed for us to live in a sustainable future.

Lewes 003C

My home town is Lewes, East Sussex. The area covered by my post code gives an electoral ward of Lewes Bridge and a Super Output Area is Lewes 003C. the total population in 2006 was recorded at 1,483 with 855 dwellings.

The Sustainable Communities Plan (2003) defines a sustainable community as:
A flourishing local economy; Strong leadership able to respond positively to change; Engagement and participation by local people, groups and businesses; A safe and healthy local environment with well-designed spaces; Sufficient size, scale and density and the right layout for development; Good public transport and other infrastructure; Buildings that can meet different needs over time, minimising the use of resources; Well integrated mix of decent homes of different types and tenures to support a mixed and balanced community; Good quality local public services; A diverse, vibrant and creative local culture; A sense of place; The right links with the wider regional, national and international community.
Lewes on the whole fits with this definition. The extent of this is shown as follows.

Fits definition
The transport system in Lewes is very good with a regular bus and train service. The local economy is thriving. This is encouraged by the recent introduction of our own currency (the Lewes pound) aimed to encourage people to spend in the town. The mayor has frequent discussion meetings of which all residents are able to partake in so as there feelings are heard. The local environment is very pleasant to live and is classified as being in an area of outstanding natural beauty, including the South Downs. There are good quality of local public services, e.g. post offices, 2 supermarkets, many eating establishments and a train and bus station. These transport links also make the town well connected to jobs (easy to even get to London) and education. The town itself has 5 primary schools, a secondary and a college. However Brighton is just 15mins away which has a much wider variety. This availability of education is shown by the high GCSE rates of the town. 56.8% children getting 5+ A*-C grades, the average for England being close to this at 60.4%. The area is environmentally friendly with good recycling facilities and an area called railway land where an ecological team protect and maintain the biodiversity of species. Finally, Lewes has a very creative local culture, this includes the famous November 5th (bonfire night celebrations) which have been happening here since 1605 and draw the whole community in as well as outsiders.

The main way in which Lewes doesn’t match a sustainable community is with relation to housing supply and affordability. It is very contrasting to urban areas such as the neighbouring Brighton as Lewes is recorded as having only 20-24 houses per hectare. Lewes is one area of East Sussex with the 2nd highest house pricing problem.

In conclusion Lewes area 003C fits the definition in many aspects. It is a nice place to live with total deprivation being considered very low. This can be split down into many sections, these are;
· Education 2/20
· Health – 5/20
· Employment – 7/20
· Income deprivation – 8/20
· Crime 13½/20

With the exception of crime these are all quite low. Health and education are concidered very good indeed.

Sources: Communities and Local Government; Office for National Statistics; Valuation Office Agency

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadHome.do;jessionid=ac1f930c30d7e14947527f424ebc91268339c3727cf0?m=0&s=1235561163626&enc=1&nsjs=true&nsck=true&nssvg=false&nswid=1003

http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/NeighbourhoodSummary.do?a=3& c=BN7+2BS&g=441845&i=1001x1012& j=305403&m=1&p=1&q=1&r=0& s=1236019475325&enc=1

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/143669.pdf

learning for sustainable development booklet

Education of Sustainable Development

The education of sustainable development is an important topic that should be taught to everyone as it is us who can affect the environment. This should include teaching people about how to use non- renewable sources more efficiently as over consumption is at a high at the moment. Now is a good a time as any to start this process.

2005-2014 is set to be the United Nation's decade for education into sustainable development. The aim is to teach people to respect others (present and future generations) and the planet (flora and fauna). This will hopefully encourage people to change their behaviour and encourage them to make better decisions to secure the future of the planet. The educational approach involves visual and holistic learning as well as multi-methods such as drama, art and written. This makes it more interactive rather than lesson based, hopefully capturing more attention.

The DESD want to change the current educational approach with the goal being;

"...to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. This educational effort will encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations.'"

There are 8 themes covered by the UN for sustainable development, these are; gender equality, health promotion, environment, cultural diversity, rural development, peace and human security, sustainable urbanization and consumption. All of these are important in sustainable development issues, for example ill health of workers can be a burden on social and economic development. Globalization has increased the importance of cities with relation to sustainable issues as now 1/2 the population live in cities and the others depend on them for economic, social and political progression. This shows that as the majority of the population live in cities, this is a good place to start school education into sustainable development as the youth have a huge influence and need to be taught before the damage to the environment is done.

I think that geography is a good subject to teach sustainable development in as it covers humans and the environments affects to the earth already. However it is also good to teach aspects of it in other subjects such as the sciences as this captures lots of different people. Therefore I can not really agree with Haigh 2005 who states "geography is the best place to deliver sustainable development curriculum" as there are clearly both positives and negatives to both sides of the argument.

So far this year I have enjoyed the module as it is completely different to anything I have studied before. I find the module quite unique in the way that it is looking into the future and how we can affect things, where as most other topics e.g. physical geography look at the past and how we have affected the environment. Sustainable development, although is technically only taught in this module it does relate to other modules in geography I'm studying at the moment which shows that it is at the heart of geography.

https://webmail.northampton.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=27234%26URL_DO=DO_TOPIC%26URL_SECTION=201.html

It's Crunch Time

Britain is in its 1st ressesion since 1991, the economic growth of the UK is 1% lower in 2008 and 2009. Many banks are struggling to stay afloat resulting in us seeing the closure of many including Northan Rock. Shops are also struggling and at the beginning of this year we say the closure of the final woolworths stores that went into administration after 99years of service. These factors result in a increase of unemployment thus producing poorer people potentially resulting in a greener environment e.g. with the reduction in C02 emmissions from partially from people using their cars less and taking fewer holidays by plane.

There are a few environmental benifits to the economic recession including; reduced oil buring, less shipping, less non-renewable sources used and less C02 emmissions. As well as this there should be a reduction in landfill as less consumption = less packaging = less dumped on landfill. At the moment per year we produce billions of tons of waste globally, with 1/4 of this coming from USA. Less consumption also means less lorries on the roads transporting food.

However the effects are not all good as greener products tend to be more expensive so less people are going to buy them. Even recycling takes energy so therefore to benifit the environment companies should aim to reduce the amount of packaging on their products. The Government also needs to be careful not to over do the pressure on people tp reduce their emmissions as this could easily lead to mass rebellion.

In conclusion in times of struggle like this we globally need to pull together and help each other out. This will hopefully keep all the effects of the ressesion whether economic or environmental will be limited. However environmental issues are possibly the least of peoples worries when unemployment is rising so high that people are struggling to support their families.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/always_look_on.php

Travel Plan

Last Thursday we completed our research between 12:30 and 1:30. During this time we split our group into two halves, one completed the traffic count standing at the barrier and the other stood outside the Senate building asking for people to fill in questionnaires.

The data collection at the barrier was quite easy to collect as all the cars had to stop at the barrier so it was easy to count the number of people in each car. The results were quite variable throughout the hour with the majority of cars appearing in the first half an hour and only having one person in them. We didn't find it too surprising how many people travelled alone compared to those who had car occupants.

The questionnaire collection was quite hard as people weren't keen to stop no matter how polite we were. Also because of the time of day and the weather there were not many people around to ask. We were quite surprised by the number of people who lived more than 15miles away and commuted daily. Often these people travelled alone with no other car occupants. Also not many people were concerned about their effects upon the environment.

If we were to carry out this sort of research again we would choose a better time of the day, where there would be more people about to question, such as morning rush hour. It would also have been good to cover more days so as to get a more representative view of the weeks car useage.

By Cat and Emma M

How Can we Make a Difference?

There are so many ways in which we as individuals in the population can make a difference to sustainable development. Although most of these are pretty simple tasks like not leaving anything on standby and taking a shower rather than a bath, not everyone sees that it’s the little things that make a huge difference to the planet over time.

There are many things individuals can do these include;

Recycling
In many areas this has been made very easy now-a-days with little thinking involved as the different boxes are clearly labelled. For example in University Halls here there is blue bin for tins and plastics, a green bin for paper and cardboard, a red bag for glass and a red bin for normal (non-recyclable) products.

Back home in Sussex we have black boxes and bags for the different recyclable materials and again these are clearly labelled. The boxes are collected by the County Council straight from the door fortnightly which is the perfect length of time as they don’t over fill. Therefore there is no excuse really for people not to recycle as it’s so easy.

Linked to recycling is the idea of re-using products like plastic bags. This can help lower the amount of plastics manufactured. Tesco even offer rewards “green points” for its customers as an incentive to reuse bags therefore helping to make a difference to sustainable development.

Lower Car Usage
Possibly one of the things we are most guilty of is making unnecessary car journeys, sending an excess of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Short trips are one of the worst polluters and are mostly the unnecessary ones. However if you are in a situation where you need a car then you could always drive in an environmentally friendly fashion such as using the highest gear as soon as possible.

Alternatively people could ditch there cars altogether (or 99% of time) and use public transport, which in many areas is easier, quicker and sometimes more economical as well as being better for the environment. This is the case in Lewes, especially as they have now launched a scheme where you have to pay to park on the road and each household is only allowed 2 cars.

Cut Down on Electric usage
Saving electricity is yet another way individuals can make a difference as all it takes is to turn off light switches as you leave a room, not leaving things on standby and only boiling the amount of water you actually need.

I think you will agree that none of these are particularly taxing…however you will potentially also agree with me when I say that like many of the population I could do a bit more to make a difference.

United Nations Activity

From the activity I learnt that generally it’s the less developed countries that want to carry out more sustainable development strategies rather than the ‘developed.’ However countries like China should be made to impose strong policies as they hold 20% of the population so any policy would have a great effect.

Originally I thought being china it would be easy to find policies, however it proved quite difficult. In the end we did manage to find some good policies, I especially liked the sustainable panda one! The lack of implemented strategies did surprise me a bit, what was most intriguing though was that China implemented a clean air act for the Olympics – why are they not imposing this all over China and for a longer period as it did work!

All the 14 countries had different approaches and attitudes to sustainable development strategies which was quite unexpected. I felt that generally the least developed countries would generally benefit from the money and have good strategies ready to implement, whereas people seemed wary of developed countries as to whether the money would actually trickle down into the policies or just get absorbed by the Government. I found it a bit weird how if the USA got the money they would give it to Africa, it would seem more appropriate to give the money direct to Africa.

This is the first time I’ve had to do a presentation like this; therefore I thought it went ok. However it could have been a lot better if we had practised timings more as we over ran dramatically missing out most of the information from the handout. Also we ended up just reading off the handout so next time I would make prompt cards with information. Our handout was very sufficient as it covered the background information, all the policies we found with there limitations as well as an evaluation of the key points on China and what we would do with the $10 billion if we were awarded it.

I don’t particularly like talking in front of people, so this was good practice for me. The exercise was quite enjoyable as it was different to usual work I have done in the past which made it more fun. I think we worked well together as a team and were able to research and present our findings ok considering neither of us like talking in front of people and especially don’t like questioning!!!!!!! :)