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Area: Boston 005F (Lower Layer Super Output Area)

From my memories of my home area, i believe that it is quite sustainable. There are a lot of trees lining the roads and a lot of wildlife who live within these trees. As the road on which live is a dead end, there are not that many cars travelling down it, only those belonging to home owners down the road and the two coming of (which are also dead ends, and only small crescents. this would mean not a lot of car fumes released from within my ward.

However, at the bottom of the road there is a large sports centre which attracts a lot of cars at the weekend for local team football matches. during these days the cars fumes released are multiplied from the rest of the week. The increased numbers of vehicles entering at the weekend may have a great effect on the carbon emissions let of in my ward.

The ward directly next to mine includes a main road, this releases much greater amounts of fumes. The only thing that is contributing to global warming from within my ward is the vehicle emissions and emissions released from houses, there is nothing else that contributed great amounts of carbon emissions.

The large majority of my ward is made up of the playing fields of the sports centre and then farmland beyond that, this means that there is a lot of vegetation contributing to converting the carbon back into oxygen. Along with this there are no further large development plans in the ward meaning that the area is very sustainable as it is not spending anything on development and existing wildlife is maintained well.

Waste management could be improved, the ward has the standard green bin (for landfill waste) and Blue bin (for recycling). improvements could be more options for recycling, perhaps glass, plastic and paper options made separate making it easier and quicker to be recycled. Another thing that is done in my ward is garden waste clearing. this happens once every two weeks, where a truck visits the car park of the sports centre and home owners take their garden waste to either be composted or deposed of appropriately.

Although there are improvements that could be made to the sustainability of my ward, it is doing well at the moment and is not having much of a negative effect on the environment.

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Boston and Skegness is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliment of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliment (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
The MP of Boston is Mark Simmonds and he stands in the Conservative party
The name of my Local Council is the Boston Borough Council.
Conservatives dominate the local council with 46.2% of the votes.

I feel that if you dont vote, then it is only your fault if you dont like something that happens in parliment. If you dont speak out, then nobody will hear you. Thats what the voting system is in place for, so that everyone can have their say. I feel if you dont vote, then you dont care. Everyone should vote for what they want, their extra vote could change the decision of who gets the seat in parliment, so everyone should vote as it is very importent. at the end of the day, it is your country and is you dont have your say then something may happen that you don't like and you will not be able to do anything about it. having said this, once someone is voted into power, they will only do what they want anyway.
The thing that will top my vote this year will most likey be due to student fees and grants. this is the most important thing in my life at the moment, so which ever party offers the best incentives which will effect me personaly will get my vote. Also i believe a change is needed in parliment as labour, to be honest, aren't doing that well are they. saying that, they have also not left much for someone else to build on, so it will be a very tough time for anyone who gets into power,,, and good luck to them.

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So...what are your views? Is there really a transport problem? Do the benefits of motorized transport outweigh the costs? Are there any minor (or perhaps major) changes you personally feel could make our present transport system more sustainable?

I feel there is a huge travel issue at present, more young people are learnig to drive and getting their licences, whilst more old people are continuing to drive, when maybe they should be stopping due to their reactions not being up to scratch, as perhaps they were in previous years. Along with the laziness of the rest of the age groups, the number of cars on the roads is massive. this intoll causing huge pile up on motorways and big conjestions in cities, towns and even villages. During a personal trip on a national express coach it took well over half an hour just to get through a village between Northampton and Luton. Congestion in towns is even worse! It took 20 minutes on the campus bus just to reach asda in kingsthorpe, making me and many other pupils very late for lectures over at Avenue campus.
Although motorized transport has many benefits to drives, most of the time making their journeys quicker and meaning they dont have to consume energy as they are just sitting there really. But the environment is being effected greatly due to this motorized transportation, the buring of fossil fuels for petrol and diesil along with vehicle fumes being let off into the atmosphere is making a great hole in the ozone layer, intoll causing global warming. This is meaning the the polar ice caps are melting causing the sea level to rise. In time this will have a massive effect on a large percentage of land, as it will be under this water, not only ruining many houses and other building but also causing many species of plants and animals to become endanger and even exticnt... All because the man down the road can't be bothered to walk down the road to the corner shop to get a bread loaf.... Well not just him.
If only 1 in 10 people decided to give the car up for some journeys and take to the cycle, or the foot, there would be a massive drop in vehicle emissions. Although it is not much, this could be a start to the future of sustainable transport. Also if the government gave incentives, such as half price bicyle offers, some people may want to opt for this rather than spending thousands on not only a car but the upkeep of a car.

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

No, I do not think christmas is sustainable. It wastes huge amounts of paper through wrapping presents, gift cards and envelopes. Also, the decorations which are used for the festive period are mainly plastic and glass, which all use masses of electricity through lights and moving decorations. this can only lead to more carbon emissions through energy productions to power the demand for electricity during this period. However, I think that there should be allowances for this period as it should be celebrated by everyone, not only the christians but all people who enjoy the festival. Most of the wrapping paper used during the festival are produced from recycled products anyway, and all of which are able to be recycled once again after the festival is over. Some kind of extra facility could but put in place during this time to make sure that the majority of the waste paper is recycled once more, this would then lead to a reduction in landfill pile ups, as less amounts of wrapping paper will be entering them. As with the decorations, only a few people go "over the top" with these. The majority of people usually only have a tree with a few lights wrapped around it in the front window, this is not going to make much of a difference to energy consumption as they arent on during the day and are only operated for a small period of time during the evening.
For me i feel that people should leave christmas alone as it is a time that makes alot of people happy and should carry on doing so for ever!

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?

With only one broadsheet news paper in the top 6 selling newspapers, things aren't looking very hopeful for getting important issues over to the public. The top tabloids don't exactly put across the most pressing issues to do with the environment or sustainability. The main issues that those papers cover are to do with reality TV shows such as X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing. These do not exactly inform the public of the pressing issues which may have severe consequences on the world.

As these are the main headlines the public are seeing every day, it should be their duty to involve the more pressing issues into the papers, and even then some people who read them will be more informed. The tabloids are the papers that are aimed to the majority of the public, if there was a section inside these papers for economical and sustainable issues, and then at least some of the readers will see them. Not a lot of young people read the broad sheets as they are too much reading, so if some of the headlines from these articles were posted in the tabloids which are aimed at the younger generation, then these people may then be getting informed about the global situations.

In my opinion, the low budget entertainment such as the reality shows and soaps have too much influence on this country. Most reality shows are only running to rejuvenate has been celebrities' appearances. These TV shows which are viewed by the majority of the public;

· I'm a celebrity get me out of here

· Strictly come dancing

· X-factor

· Coronation street

· EastEnders

· Emmerdale

· Hollyoaks

These shows have nothing to do with the pressing issues on global economics at all, though this is what the majority of the UK public watch every night. There is nothing in the context of these shows relating to global matters of a sustainable nature. The reality shows are actually inputting even more into the unsustainability of the UK as these cost a huge amount of money to air. The producers of these shows obviously know how many people watch them, if they were forced to include something in the show to do with the issues then a lot of people across the country will get to hear it. Also rather than adverts during the breaks of these shows, if news bulletins were read out, the people who are watching the shows will then also hear the news, this would mean that the majority of people who were originally watching the show will also see the news headlines, therefore becoming informed (unless they left the room to make a cuppa).

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?

As a citizen I believe I have a right to be informed about the important issues that are going on; locally, regionally and Nationwide. I also believe I should know about the pressing global issues. This is the only way that the world can be equal, for everyone to be informed about important issues.

I don’t think that I am as informed as I should be, I believe that it is the governments duty to be informed and to pass on that information to the rest of the country. The government are forever covering up ad hiding news on global issues which in fact do have a great impact on many peoples lives. Take the war in Iraq, the government haven't actually stated why the country joined this war, it didn’t actually involve us, it seems to most people that the UK only joined this war because the USA told us to, and to keep them happy. What we here on the news from the government cant even really be trusted, either because nobody knows when they are telling the truth, and also not even the government are informed enough.

However this could be a good thing that the government are keeping things from the public. If they told us everything which was happening, it may cause a national, or even global panic which would definitely not help the situation. Take the ‘credit crunch’ this was perhaps not as bad as first seemed, however once it all came out in the media there was a big panic in the public where people started not spending and taking savings out of banks, if the media did not blurt out all the information they did, much of which may have been exaggerated, the situation may not be as bad as it now is, because if people didn’t know what was happening, they would have just carried on as usual.

At home, I believe I was quite well informed about what was happening in the world. I read news papers and watch regional, national and global news channels. This I think is how most issues are passed on from the government to the public, through the media. However, now I a m living in halls, it is much harder to keep up with the news that is occurring. As I have no TV signal is my room, I do not watch the news anymore and because I only read the news paper at home because they were there, I no longer read them as I really cant be bothered to get them religiously. I do however have an application on my laptop which shows the important news bulletins as the come out, so I am still getting informed about what is going on a little.

Complicated decisions, I believe should not be left to one, or a small group of people( the government), as people in the past fought long and hard for the right to have a vote and to show their say in matters. Working people pay for the country to be run, in taxes, so they should have a right to put in their own say about decisions.

Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'

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.