An inconivent truth

An inconvenient truth was a message from Al Gore that global warming was the most pressing subject of today’s problems. Global warming and climate change is happening due to many factors he suggested and that if we don’t do anything, it will harm our earth’s climate for many years to come.

He makes the message very clear, that if we carry on our way of life, with the pollution from fossil fuel extractions that global warming will happen even more quickly, therefore our human impacts are creating the planet to warm up even more. This is then has more long term problems such as an increase in melting of ice, which then leads to an increase in sea levels, which then has problems such as flooding. These changes in climate also has increased in the amount of natural hazards that have occurred, due to warmer weather producing more cyclones, hurricanes and other natural hazards.

Al Gore makes this message very clear by using photos from past and present, the way he uses short animation films to also make the point that its human impacts that have causes all these hazards to happen. He also uses graphs to show how that carbon emissions have increased a lot over the years, by using ice core readings and tree lines to show how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere in the past and present. He uses this particular graph in the film that shows the Keeling curve, which as you can see shows an increase in the carbon emissions.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/ [accessed 23/02/2011]

So I feel the message of global warming and climate change comes off very clear and strong in the film.

I feel that this is the right approach to show the public of what their actions could cause in the near future and also a good way to let people see how we need to change the way we live and how becoming more sustainable will be a good thing. It felt that to change the way we live was a necessary course in order to help save the planet. I didn’t feel that it was too boring or technical, as I felt it was the right amount of balance and that Al Gore did explain it well and backed up his arguments with other research other than his own. The correct information was put into the film by making carbon emissions and climate change becoming the more recurring theme, as he made it clear by using other types of information in the film. Al Gore used his own personal experiences of schooling, trips and his political career of what he has seen throughout the years of the landscapes changing. By using his own experiences, it makes it seem more personal to Al Gore, therefore makes it interesting to the public. He manages to draw people in by doing this, to show that he is just an average man and that he has also seen the changes first hand.

This film interested me as a member of the public and as a student who does geography. It reminded me one of the reasons to why I took geography, as I want to learn more about the world around us and to try and make a difference. By making a difference, we need to become and have a more sustainable way of life; therefore we can remake our own energy by not harming the environment. We can do this in many ways and one of the ways is to reuse what we have got at the moment which is the Earth. The Earths energy has caused things to grow and happen by natural processes such as photosynthesis and without this process we would not be here today, but the film clearly shows us, that as we have changed our way of life and by using much more power for higher demands, we are polluting even more. This causes the earth to warm up; this causes our landforms to change and our earth’s atmosphere to change completely. This then will cause problems for generations to come, as they will have to sort out the mess. The film also makes us think that our non-renewable energy MUST become more sustainable as we will run out; therefore we have to look for alternative ways.

By finding more sustainable ways of living, such as renewable sources and simple things such as recycling, our way of life will change for the better, causing more sustainable communities and a more sustainable future for the generations to come, and I do believe that this film does get the message across by showing us an inconvenient truth.

How sustainable is my community?

Colchester is located 60 miles north east from London and has many transport links to London and other parts of the UK and is also known to be the oldest recorded town in Britain.

Colchester 002E is the area in which I live in and is a fairly new development and only has data back to 2001. So is my area a sustainable community? It may have some of the features of a being a sustainable community, but it may not actually function as one.

Table one

From April 2001, we can see that there are a total of 633 households’ spaces, but as it’s a fairly new development, it may now be much more than this, as even I can remember the area being shrub land!

From the table of the super output area, that there are many different types of housing around the area, such as houses, bungalows and flats and they can be detached, semi-detached and terraced. The majority of people live in a house or bungalow however it shows that flats are only as an in purpose built block of flats.

Within this area, i show the small percentage that live in a flat and there are many different types of flats. Many blocks of flats tend to have four flats within one block however in the block we live in, there is only two.  

Within the area I live, I can see how features of a sense of community have been place within the building works of the area. The SCP (2003) have defined sustainable communities of having, “A flourishing local economy,  strong leadership able to respond positively to change,  engagement and participation by local people, groups and businesses.”

From living in this area, I can say that there is a strong sense of leadership to try and change things as even my mum was asked to join a residential association.

There is a chance to become engaged with the local people, groups and businesses as we do receive a newsletter through the post. This then lets us know what’s going on within the community and what’s on offer to join or participate in. (However I do have to admit, we do tend to glance through it and put it straight in the bin!)

http://www.mylandparishcouncil.gov.uk/index.php

This is the official website for my local council and this gives us news on whom, what and where. It also gives us the chance to go to meetings where we have our say. So if we want to let the councillors know how to make a positive change in the area, there are many ways to contact them. This then ties in with making a change and interact with others within the same community.

However I can say that when me and brother were younger, we did participate more within the community by going to our school fairs and other things we did more when we were younger, but now we don’t really participate within the community, as I think there is more emphasis for when children are younger in order to socialise.

The local services around my area are at least a 15 minute walk away from my house. There is a small square that provides services such as a Tesco extra, hairdressers, doctors, post office and a community centre. Here is the local sense of community, however it being a walk away we tend only go when we need the services and not use the community centres facilities.

This community centre also acts as the local church, the halls are available to hire to the public, (even I have been to a few parties in the hall!!) and many other activities for different age group of children. I also when I was younger spent a lot of time here as this was where my dancing classes were held.  I am afraid to say I haven’t been in the centre for about 8 years, so as you can tell I’m not very community spirited. 

The square also has bus stops and there are three different bus services that go different routes, but all three end up in town. This means there is good transport links around my area for me to get to places and the routes can also mean I can also go to my friends’ houses too!!!

Now when I got my bite plus card, it became my new best friend. It entitles me to half price bus fares all across Colchester and runs out when I turn 20. This enables me to get a full day ticket for £1.60 and a one way ticket for just £1!!!! There is also another category that allows 14-16 year olds to have half price child fares. This has encouraged me to use public transport more and helps to have a more sustainable future.

 On the square it also has many recycling facilities, such as old clothes, shoe, plastic, cardboard and glass collections and other different collection points. This could be seen as a sustainable feature, as the local community and councils are trying to encourage people by recycling their old things, by having the necessary facilities available.

When looking around my area, many people rely on their cars to travel to work and to other facilities as many of the properties have their own drive ways, garages and allocated car parking spaces. My mum for example has the facility of having her own garage and car parking space. There are many traffic calming measures around the area, as there are many speed bumps and the road has been made very windey therefore drivers do have to slow down more.

So to conclude, my community does have some aspects of becoming a sustainable community with all the community activities that are available to the public and there are also aspects of becoming more sustainable. This is with the recycling systems that are around the local communities, good public transport links and especially with the new bite plus scheme to encourage more young people to use public transport. However there are serious flaws to my area being a sustainable community, as there are many opportunities to do things but now the public do not tend to get involved within the community. As a member of the community, I do when I am at home volunteer at a local brownie pack and I must say I love it! So maybe my local community need to try and reach out to older teenagers and give them a more insight to where these things can lead to in later life. Then there are more people involved in their local community and then will be able to help it to become more sustainable for future generations.

Link to table one

http://nile.northampton.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tabGroup=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FcontentWrapper.jsp%3Fcontent_id%3D_303755_1%26displayName%3DLinked%2BFile%26course_id%3D_4755_1%26navItem%3Dcontent%26attachment%3Dtrue%26href%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.envnorthampton.blogspot.com%252F

My bite+ card