One of the central themes underpinning sustainable development is equality and fairness. This is reflected in the concept of 'empowered citizenship'- in that we can all make a contribution to making our community (our local area, our region, our country, our planet) a better place now and in the future.

Some important areas are quite difficult to understand. Science, economics, politics are often quite difficult to comprehend and yet are central to decisions that are made by others about our lives.

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? To what extent do you think that you should leave the complicated decisions up to others ?

To be knowledgable on issues that surround our everyday living is very powerful as there are important issues at present that require our up most attention, but if the attention isn't put forward, then we will suffer in one way or another. As a citizen I believe it is crucial that we are informed as our future generations depend on the decisions made now to ensure that their world is as peaceful and harmonious as ours is now. For example we need to ensure sufficient time and effort is being focused on climate research. The climate is something that is an issue most serious to us all at the moment, and with the climate everchanging we need to ensure that positive actions are being made now to ensure that the world will be sustainable for many years to come. This is linked to stewardship in that we must recognise the problems now, and take appropriate actions to ensure the world is as pleasant in 100 years time as it is now.

I personally would say I am very informed especially growing up in a day and age of outstanding communication methods. Serious issues that are arising such as the world economic crisis and the war for example are issues that we can in a way have a control on. By this I mean that we vote for a party to take control of our country and we vote for the one that suits our needs and aspirations the most. Different parties have diffrerent agendas and policies for the country and therefore it essential we understand the issues that they are in favour of or against to ensure we know exactly what we are voting for. Politicians are well educated people and often give presentations on issues such as climate change in great detail, using sophisticated language and terminology. To be able to comprehend this language it is essential that you familiarise yourself with that certain issue which can be done in a variety of different methods.

The 21st century has opened up a staggering variety of new communication methods especially in the past couple of years. Nowadays a lot of people are using mobile phones with some allowing you to connect to the internet. Iphones and Blackberry's are phones that allow such a thing and therefore allow high speed internet on the go making them ideal for people to obtain news, emails and general information found on the web. I personally have found myself looking at the news pages on the BBC website via my Blackberry as I am eager to stay informed on issues that surround my everyday life. The internet generally is a tool that I use to stay informed using a variety of websites such as the Telegraph, BBC and the Sky news homepage. Sky news is excellent as news is always breaking on their site therefore making it very up to date. As I mentioned before I use the Telegraph webpage. This has replaced the use of newspapers for me in my life as the same information is available to me on the screen where I can access the information all day everyday promptly without any trouble, and of course being very sustainable at the same time. As well I am very privledged to have a TV in my student accommodation where quite often I will have sky news on in the background, allowing the news to break through to me. With climate change being an issue that has arised in the past 10 years I have been fortunate enough to learn about the issues of climate change within the education system. This puts me at an advantage over people that are in their late 20's and over as they missed out on this important information.

There are complicated issues surrounding our lives nowadays with things such as climate change, the war and the global economic crisis. These issues require in depth knowledge that not many people in society will be qualified to address. For example the war in Afghanistan, I couldn't possibly comment on whether we should be there or not. I don't know about any of the strategies or plans that they have deployed but the chiefs do and we have to trust their knowledge and know how to ensure the casualties are minimal and we get the mission complete as soon as possible. The same applies to climate change. The scientists and professeurs collect and analyse information that they have colloborated from across the world and make predictions based on this. However the problem with this is that many scientists have different opinions on why the climate is changing. Some believe it to be a result of anthropogenic issues, whereas others see it as a result of natural change and argue the climate has always fluctuated. Therefore in this instance I think it would be wrong to trust the more qualified academics as there is no right or wrong answer, making it very open to debate. However on the whole I believe that the important decisions should be left to the Government officials who specialise in their fields as they have the knowledge and research to support the arguement.

Al Gore (and the IPCC) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 (BBC 2007) largely for the production of the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'
The committee cited "their efforts to build up and disseminate 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?


Al Gore, the man the public have become to associate the terms 'global warming' and 'climate change' with begins his efforts in combating the world's pessimistic approach on climate change. His sheer determination and reluctance has made him known throughout the world with his efforts to reduce carbon emissions, which inevitably lead to him winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, teamed with the IPCC.

Having watched 'An inconvienient truth' and reseached his background I have now changed my opinion on Gore. His well structued presentations on climate change made me realise just to what extent the problem with climate change we are actually facing. "The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity," is a comment Gore made which I believe to be very powerful. I believe this because Gore, a Harvard graduate in Goverment who also ran for presidency in 2000, is now prepared to put his efforts of running for presidency aside, and focus his efforts on the impacts of climate change. His efforts took him all over the world to both the North and South poles, glaciers in Argentina and Peru aswell as seeing the retreat of the ice in the Himalayas. Al Gore has a great understanding of climate change mainly due to the help and guidance of his close friend Roger Revelle, who is a professor in geophysics and oceanography and was the first person to prove carbon dixoide was increasing in the Earth's atomosphere. He worked closely with his friend Revelle before making his presentations and therefore was able to collaborate various sets of data that Revelle had collected in order to present a presentation that proved that the climate is changing due to ever rising carbon dioxide emissions. The graphs he illustrated were excellent in demonstrating the significance of rising carbon dioxide emissions and temperatures. Having to use an extendable ladder to point to the top was very powerful and clearly portrayed the extent to which the problem is escalating to. Showing the carbon dixoide emissions line graph and then comparing with the temperature line graph was also very significant as there was clear correlation linking the two. Before I always thought of Gore as an environmental activist who failed to become president of the US and was campaigning for climate change for all the wrong reasons. However now I believe climate change is a real passion of his, and he has now become so focused in his efforts that he would actually turn down presidency in order to continue his campaign! This therefore has had a postive influence on me as I now know a lot more about the guy and respect him for what he is doing for humanitity. I also believe that he could of also positively influenced politicians worldwide who maybe were aware of the fact but not to the full extent that he is. This may have lead to world leaders beginning to think that maybe the problem is continuing and not going away and therefore needing to address the situation.
On the whole I think the film was extremely powerful in its purpose to highlight the problems of climate change. The use of graphics, real life video footage and graphs enables the audience to comprehend the problems in a way that is easy to relate to. Gore also included humour with in the film which I believe always helps as the audience are more enagaged and interested in what you have to say making it more effective. Therefore I would say the Nobel Peace Prize was justifiably given to Al gore as he is leading the fight against climate change.