Is My Area sustainable ?

Is my home a sustainable development? Before I lived in Halls I lived in a place in called Rush Green which is Dagenham in east London. Is this place sustainable? I do not think it is fully however it does have some of the features of a sustainable community. For Example it has great transport links, there are very little homeless so in that sense it appears sustainable. Also the local council Have but in a green policy involve rubbish giving every house a “wheelie bin”. Also looking at the statistics it can be seen that The Majority of the population of Barking and Dagenham have there own room. Therefore on the source it looks like the London borough of barking and Dagenham is sustainable. Well it is not and I know that as I have lived in this borough nearly all of my life. There has always been great social unrest and high unemployment .This has increased in modern times due to the extremist parties that are currently involved in local politics. There area also has a Notoriety level in the local area. For example I went to school in the next borough and quickly learnt that children opinion “which they took from the parents “was that Dagenham was a dangerous place which shows that it is not a sustainable place. Also according to the statistics website there is a high level of unemployment with 5.7% signing on to benefits. So due to the civil unrest the answer is no Barking and Dagenham is not sustainable as shown with the following figures at http://www.upmystreet.com/local/crime-in-dagenham.html

Education for Citizenship

About My local Politics
I am from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in East London. My council primary is Labour as well as the councillor whose name is Jon Cruddas( Cruddas was a candidate in the Labor Party deputy leadership election of 2007, being eliminated in the penultimate round of the contest which was eventually won by Harriet Harman. He won the most votes of all candidates in the first round of voting, obtaining 19.39% of the vote from both party members and party-affiliated organizations. It is thought that the second-choice votes of the Cruddas supporters contributed to Harman's eventual victory.)
Here is the recent history of voting in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
Election Councillors Aldermen
Labour Conservative BNP Chadwell Heath
Ratepayers' Assoc. Liberals /
Liberal Democrats Independents Labour
1998 47 - - 3 1 -
2002 42 2 - 4 3 -
2006 36 2 12 - - 1

2010 election
The two Question that where asked for this blog were What is your attitude concerning people who are not planning to vote in the general election? As well What main concerns do you have that may influence your vote?. These two both tie in together. As can be seen above the BNP are a serious threat in London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and my main concern. It is simple as the smaller the turnout the more likely the bigot racists will get into power which would be a travesty that such simple minded scum would get into our politics.

As for people who do not vote then I am disappointed as the people have no care about anything of this country and are simply ignorant and have no right to moan about this country. BNP aside I will be voting labour as I am an extreme Left wing follower. Although I would rather vote for a more left wing party they simple have a lack of support and feel it would be a wasted vote. I disagree with some of the policies of the current labour government ( such as the taxes impended on the middle class who have really suffered under this government). I also feel that Gordon has about as much charisma as my left nut.

A lot of “experts” claim that it will a landside victory for the Tories and a Prime minster job for “sleazy” David Cameron” The main reason for this is due to the results of the European election. These elections were not as important to people and people were simply doing it to have a protest due to the recently revealed expenses scandal. I will go as far to say that this election will be a “hung parliament.”
One of the biggest election results in recent years was Boris “ the fool” Johnson which was only because he is a bumbling idiot and people were simply entertained by him so they voted him other candidates Paddock and true mayor Ken Livingston. This simply shows how poor the countries political knowledge has come to.

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 perh

When I think of transport and the transport industry I think of the railways. This is because my dad has worked on the railways for all his life and therefore my feelings towards that industry are of course postive due to the fact that it has fed me , clothed me and put a roof over my head so in regards to economics I am grateful to the transport industry.
The majority of people use transport to get to work as they do not live within walking distance of work. Without people going to work the world would simply not go round and the human race would not exist as it does. All thought this sounds extreme it is true.

In the 20th and 21st centuries globalistion and a globalised economy means that people need to travel to places all over the world within some people having to have two homes which would therefore mean they have to travel . Although in an afterthought due to the progresses in technology in the last 10-15 years maybe traveling over the world is not as needed as it once was. For example a banker in new York can press a button in New York and move $10000 to Tokyo in a blink of an eye lid.
Putting my my opinion that on global warming being man made is fiction aside then the Exhaust fumes are a problem. If public transport was “better “ then maybe people would not drive so much.
Althought I have little experience of transport abroad ( except for in Israel where they run a extremely good bus service  )so I will focus on the UK. One major problem with transport that springs to mind is the cost. People see public transport such as trains rather expensive. It can cost the same amount to fly somewhere as it can to get a flight. For example it is £68 pound Eurostar to Paris from London while it is only £25 by plane.
There are countless other problems on transport such as to get Luton to Northampton you have to go into London rather than a direct train route.
In regards to sustainability then as the Railway is owned by franchises whitch are bidded for the largest sum then the government ( if they truly care about sustainablilty and not just money) can added that in the bidding and make the bidding parties present ideas of how they will make it sustaible.
As for the Aviation Industry , who plute the most this is a diffcult problem as they pollute more than any other transport. Air travel as also been blamed for a phnomom called global cooling which could counteract global warming creating a stable earth . Just a thought 
Overall I feel that why there are many problems with the transport industry the transport industry is much needed and in the grand scheme of things rather ncredbkle how U can travel around the world in six hours which is truly a Example of how far man has come.

Is Christmas sustaibale ?

When people think of Christmas they think of fairy lights and food. Christmas is also the annual high of mass consumption whitch does not appear to be sustainable. Cutting down trees and using a lot of electricity is not good for the environment so in that sense it is not sustainable.
Although for a lot of business (for example the turkey industry) often depends on Christmas for its sales and therefore the industry would lose many profits if Christmas was not happen and so that specific industry would not be sustainable .

However if Christmas is not sustainable then that would mean it should b altered or cancelled. What is the point of sustainable living if your not allowed to have fun and in that case sustainable living is not living at all. However suicide rates increase over Christmas so for some people Christmas can be a very sad and dark time so for some it is not sustainable at all.

Also Christmas is a forever changing thing as it has changed from a pagan festival to a Christian festival to a
period of the year so in that sense sustaible is keeping things going as they are which is not going to happen as Christmas will forever change with the times.

To what extent do best selling UK Newspaper cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that is that is their role to do s

The purpose of a UK newspaper is ultimately sell copies and the amount of copies sold is how the success of the newspaper is measured. Obviously in order to sell copies the newspaper must be entertaining and for whatever reason the general public seemed more interested in celebrity gossip and sport than “serious matters” although some people are interested in different things and most major news story are covered in the papers. The general public have the option of choosing broadsheet but if they choose tabloid newspapers than that is there decision. In this respect a tabloid newspaper is telling people what they want to know? Whether there methods of doing this are moral is another question altogether.

I have heard many times that the tabloid media and low budget entertainment have too much power and influence and maybe to some extent this is true. the media can deicide certain things for example in a general the media have to some extent swayed public opinion on Gordon brown (although to be fair his lack of charisma made it easy) .

On the contrary however the media has raised awareness for things that were once considered taboo for example homosexuality ( aka puffs and dykes) which is now much more tolerated . Another example is turrets syndrome which was once considered as a mad syndrome but now is seen as a common mental health problem. There are many over examples of this as many programmes such as x factor and soaps continued to raise awareness.

Many soaps often use their storylines to create awareness on certain issues. For example after a lot of hard hitting storylines in Eastenders they offer a helpline for those that have been affected by storylines in the programme. However soaps can also cause problems. As they include storylines that are usually farfetched to get viewers it makes certain impressionable member of the public think that is the way life should be and that and that certain behaviour is condemnable when it clearly isn’t.

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?

When looking at a question of this scale it is important to break it down. For example what makes us a citizen? Could it be somebody who is a member of a certain country or just a member of the human race? In my opinion I believe everybody is equal weather they are black or white; regardless of their religion; of weather they are a member of a social elite or living in a YMCA; and living in a rich country or a developing country. This means everybody deserves to know. Obviously there are some serious issues such as security issues regarding the special forces including in the navy, army and air force where matters of national security mean that it is in the best interests not to tell the public things as it would be dangerous and may create a riot. An example scenario would be that if a certain impending disaster was to strike Britain then everybody may attempt to leave the county like a bat out of hell which would cause pandemonium.

Some complicated decisions have to be left for the scientists and other intellectuals who are better trained to deal with the certain situations then it is best left up to them. However it can also be argued that some ordinary person can be clever enough to solve certain problems so the situation rather makes me wonder whether or not it would be a good idea to allow uninformed members of the public to flex their opinions on certain matters.

On a personal level I wish to be informed as I believe it affects my personal life and I don’t wanna miss a thing that could possibly affect my life. For example there are many things that people would like you to believe can be solved with a million dollar bill which is not right?

One worry I have is that no matter what is actually the truth politicians cannot help but spin the truth and I want to break free of this manipulation of the true .

Al Gore an Inconvenient truth !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before watching Al Gore’s an Inconvenient truth I knew of him as a politician and as the runner up in the 2000 American presidential elections. I had also heard his name mentioned in the media when talking about the Environment. When he realised the film I had no intention of Watching as I personally would not find this film very appealing to watch due to my personal tastes

The most interesting part of the film was the predictions Al Gore made about the future of the planet. Ocean current was something that Al Gore mentioned that interested me. . The Water Cycle of the Earth is a closed system and the fact that the pattern is changing is a very worrying prospect.

Another thing that I found about the Film was the comment made that Had Al Gore Won the Election then we would live in a Very Different World. This is obviously true due to the widely acknowledge failure of the Bush administration but also if
AL Gore Had focused on the Environment during his term maybe we would be living more sustainable.

One criticism I had was when AL Gore was talking about the recent hurricanes around the world and most notably the southern United States. I was in Florida in 2004 and felt the full Force of Hurricane Charlie which was one of the larger hurricanes to hit that year. A year later when Katrina hit it caused unbelievable damage to Louisiana and in particular the New Orleans. He mentioned these to make the point that hurricanes are getting worse. However since 2005 the Hurricanes and Tropical storms that have hit Florida have not matches the scale of Katrina.

Al Gore is arguing a point and although some of the things he said are obviously true and need to be considered I also felt that he was very manipulative of the evidence and when watching the film you must be critical of some of the things he said.