Al Gore (and the IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 largely for the production of the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'. The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate (spread) 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?
After watching the film, I feel that many peoples look on climate change will have changed, those who do not see it a big problem may have changed their focus after seeing the facts and figures. Also those who do see it as a problem will now know just how big a problem it is. At first when Al Gore states the rates of polar ice cap melting, it just seems to unreal. Then once he shows the before and after pictures of the melting glaciers, the colossal damage can be seen, many of the pictures do not even look like the same area. I believe that most of the watchers will try to live their life more sustainably, even though each individual person actions on their own will not change much, but if just half of the watchers did something about it, then it soon adds up.
This film did deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize, as I feel that most of the viewers after watching, have done something about living more sustainable (recycling, turning out lights…), its states on Wikipedia that three in four viewers tried to change their lifestyle to be more sustainable after watching the documentary. However, it was not just the work of Al Gore, many scientists have worked for decades trying to find technologies which will help the world to reduce global warming, these people maybe should have been mentioned too, I believe Al Gore won it, not just because of the documentary, but also because of his high profile figure.
I have watched this film a few times, and every time I watch it, it does get me gripped. Although it is informative, it isn’t boring and I think that is because of the way Al Gore presents it, with the odd little joke every now and then. The film was effective, though I do believe most of the facts and figure ha presents are the ‘worst case’, he presents them as that to scare the viewers even more, which I believe would have made more of the viewers change their lifestyles.
Friday, 30 October 2009
Thursday, 15 October 2009
What actions could you (in theory) undertake that would improve the 'sustainability' of your lifestyle? What might be preventing you from doing these?
Sustainable devpelopment… A pattern of resouce consumption that aims to meet the needs of human wihlst also protecting the environment, so that these needs can not only be used now, but in generations to come.
Being diabetic, I know how important it is for me to have a sustainable lifesytle, the main thing that I could do to achieve this is eat healthy! Swapping fast food lunches for salads or cooked food is harder than it sounds:
1. Fast food is really tasty!
2. I am to lazy to cook for myself every dinner.
3. I don’t like rabbit food.
One thing that we can all do to make our lifestyle more sustainable is recycle. Most people already do this with great success. In my halls there are three bins; one for cards boards and paper, one for plastics and metal and the other for general waste. These are all well and good being there, its whether ‘we’ are using them to the full potential. This is basically down to laziness, I know I have thrown something into the waste bin which should probly have been recycled. When recycling is done well, it can protect the environment greatly. Less used products are being dumped in land fill, and less new products are having to be made from scratch.
Another thing that can affect how sustainable a lifestyle can be is energy efficiency. The less electricity we use, the less needs to be created, this then means less greenhouse gasses are being let off into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. It is simple things that can be done to be more energy efficient, like turning off lights when you leave a room, and rather than leaving things on stand by, turn them off by the plug.
Being diabetic, I know how important it is for me to have a sustainable lifesytle, the main thing that I could do to achieve this is eat healthy! Swapping fast food lunches for salads or cooked food is harder than it sounds:
1. Fast food is really tasty!
2. I am to lazy to cook for myself every dinner.
3. I don’t like rabbit food.
One thing that we can all do to make our lifestyle more sustainable is recycle. Most people already do this with great success. In my halls there are three bins; one for cards boards and paper, one for plastics and metal and the other for general waste. These are all well and good being there, its whether ‘we’ are using them to the full potential. This is basically down to laziness, I know I have thrown something into the waste bin which should probly have been recycled. When recycling is done well, it can protect the environment greatly. Less used products are being dumped in land fill, and less new products are having to be made from scratch.
Another thing that can affect how sustainable a lifestyle can be is energy efficiency. The less electricity we use, the less needs to be created, this then means less greenhouse gasses are being let off into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. It is simple things that can be done to be more energy efficient, like turning off lights when you leave a room, and rather than leaving things on stand by, turn them off by the plug.
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