Whats with the lies?

Sustainability is the new black or blue or whatever the trend is at the moment, but it is the in thing, everybody what's to be in the in crowd, seen by others as a good person, so saying that you recycle, turn of all the lights in your house and travel on the bus makes them sound sustainable. But can turning of the lights and catching the bus really be classed as a way of being sustainable or a way of saving on the energy bill and a little extra money? For there are many people who would say that they are thinking about the environment; when they pull on an extra jumper when it’s cold, but in their mind think "I have just saved some money there". Thus this could be classed as lying or a lot of bending the truth, because it’s easier to think that you are saving the world on a hot sunny day by winding the windows down, in your gas guzzling car, then it is to think that you are adding CO2 into the atmosphere. So in my case I am unsure if I am lying or saving the world, for I do recycle but only because there are recycling bins supplied at Uni.

Would you rather drive (or drive in the future) a Ford/Renault car or an Audi/Mercedes/BMW?

At the moment I do not drive and I know nothing about cars, but in the future because I see myself as a high flying business woman an Audi sounds right up my street. Though I can also see myself having children in the futre, who will not be able to squeeze into my two seated convertible. So if I weighed up my options properly it would be better for me to drive a people carrier then a convertible, which would make me sustainable, but it would be buy accident.

Would you honestly rather live in a small flat in a city centre or a bigger house, with more space, perhaps in the country?

For me this is a difficult question, because I love the sound of living in the city, preferably New York, which means that I would be taking up less space which is more sustainable, wouldn’t have to drive for miles to get to the closest supermarket and a car would be pointless with such good public transport systems in the city. Which means without lying I can say that I would love to be sustainable in the city, but as I have said before this is a difficult question, because though I would like to a high flying business woman living in the city, there is no room to house the children I wish to be mother to, thus a bigger house preferably not in the city would be better.
However living in a 3 bedroom plus house in suburbia or the countryside is less sustainable then living in the city, for example I like old fashioned  houses with character which  take up much more room than a one or two bedroomed apartment. If I'm thinking about living in a village I would need to drive to get to any shops and bigger houses means more central heating or if I wanted to be sustainable more layers of clothing can be put on, which need to be washed and dried, adding up to more energy being used anyway. When deciding between a flat or a house energy efficiency and CO2 ratings come into play, for a flat is lower on both, putting it in the F band of the sustainability rating, which makes the flat far more sustainable.


Though when I am personally talking about a flat in the city I am talking about New York City. But the sustainability of a studio flat in Central London has an energy efficiency rating of 72 which puts it in the C band and a CO2 level of 66 which places it into the D band. Compared to a 3 bedroomed detached country house  with space in Brackenburn Foxfield, which has an energy efficiency rating of around 36 placing it in the F band and a CO2 level of around 34. Making the $945,000 1 bedroom apartment in New York abysmal due to its fancy electrical gadgets, sauna and interactive golf room and the amount of metal and glass needed to make the spectacular tower block. 


So I am much better off living in a fabulous 3 bedroom barn conversion which has an energy efficiency rating and Co2 level in the D band, which is much more sustainable than both the other house and the flat in New York and has much more room than the flat in Central London. Which means that If I chose to live in the barn then I would be being sustainable, but once again its more to do with necessity then sustainability.

Would you prefer your next holiday to be in Norfolk or Wales or do you fancy a trip to Thailand/South Africa/California/Greece?

At the moment my family are planning a trip to the Isle of White because we are going to an archery tournament, not to cut down on holiday CO 2 emissions, though that is a bonus. But for me if I had it my way and money was no object I would definitely go abroad to California and Greece. Mainly because I have been to neither of those places, but also to gather a sense of global culture and awareness.


When it comes to holidays it does not really bother me (even though it should) about CO2 emotions, frankly it is the last thing on my mind.  Though it would make more sustainable sense to go vacationing in Norfolk or Wales (seriously, these places look so amazingly, heart poundingly BORING), in which less Co2 emitions are produced compared to the 5 of us in my family travelling to California (from Heathrow to Los Angelis International) and flying  roughly a distance of 8768 each way, producing over 9650kgs for the round trip (calculated at Flight Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions).

But in my opinion why would you want to stay in a caravan for a week and not be able to go out to visit the beach because this is England and it’s raining. However if you look at the 2 ways of holidaying properly, staying in sunny warm England or jetting off into the countries where they actually see the sun, then outcomes look rather different. To me in my opinion it makes more sense in terms of sustainability, to pack about over 800 people onto a plane and travel to California, than it is for those 800 people to drive travel to Wales. For example a normal long haul flight can carry around 800 passengers, whilst the average car can carry 5 people, so if you send those 800 to California (bearing in mind that for long journey by air produces between 210 to 330 grams of Co2) the journey will produce around 2,367,360 grams of CO2. Whereas if the 800 people drive to Cardiff each in 5 seater cars (160 cars) then 3,840,000 grams of Co2 would be produced (worked this answer out by using Flight Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Emissions and How does air compare to other means of travel).

There is also another reason why flying abroad is a good thing, because when we go to other countries we are supplying them with some of the income they need to grow and stay sustainable. So if all those 800 people travel to Wales instead of Thailand or South Africa, then there is less money for them to develop to help make the world a more sustainable place.

Would you go as far as swap your new smart phone for the cheapest handset in Tescos?

My phone is theoretically my life support machine; it keeps me in contact with the rest of the world. My lovely little HTC Wildfire may be unsustainable because I have to charge it every night and it may have cost an arm and a leg to produce in terms of CO2 emissions, due to the fact that it was manufactured in Asia somewhere. But I would never ever swap my phone for a Tesco’s cheap one, though come to think of it aren’t all phones unsustainable due to the fact that when they do eventually die from over usage or just old age, they just get chucked out the window and onto a landfill site where the harmful chemicals in the battery seep into the surrounding atmosphere. Also why should I swap my high tech phone that is probably made out of new age eco-friendly material, for a brick that is probably so cheap because it is mad out of the junk that nobody else wanted. Though when looking into the future it would probably be smarter to have a smartphone over cheap Tesco’s one, because companies such as Motorola have collaborated with Android to create the Motorola Citrus, which is the new greener smart phone. To quote from Motorola it has a “convenient eco-friendly design that is carbon free and made in part with 25% recycled plastic“ which means that the future for smartphones is not orange, its green. Though the smartphone will always being more energy insufficient then the cheap phones, due to its energy intensiveness, but smartphones provide the power for a person on the move to bring their life with them on the go such as a business man or woman, think about would you prefer to carry your note book, laptop, calendar, friends and your brick of a phone in your bag?

Would you give up shopping for clothes for a year?

This has a quick and easy answer: NO!!!!!!!!

I’m sorry to say this to my fellow earth inhibitors, the environment and Mother Nature, but I love to shop, shopping makes me feel good inside. I know that buying new clothes every other weekend is probably one of my worst habits, due to the fact that each item of clothing I buy, probably creates the same carbon footprint as a family in a 3^rd world country.


But I can’t help it I have always been a shopaholic and I always will be. But when I am fished with certain clothes I make it a point not to throw them away, instead I either donate them to charity or recycle them to make new clothes. Donating a kg of clothes apparently saves 4kg of CO2 says the GAIA Movement Trust, they also say that when clothes are donated they get recycled down into new cotton and other textile fibres. Which means when it comes to making a pair of jeans weighing in at 1lb which requires 10,000 lb. of water, 0.5 lb. of fertilizers, 0.4 oz. of pesticides which produces 6lb of greenhouse gasses, when new cotton is used from recycled clothing, my contribution could help to save half the greenhouse gasses generated. My life-long love affair with clothes does not just stop at buying them I also love to reuse my old clothes and turn them into something fabulous. When I’m feeling extra crafty I go on craft sites such as Instuctables, Craftster and Cut Out and Keep to get inspirational ideas for making my new clothes. Recently I made a cute summery dress out of a t-shirt I didn’t like anymore after watching a video tutorial by a girl called GiannyL on Instuctables. I also shop in charity shops too, I pop into Oxfam from time to time to see if there is anything I can wear or create into something new, which means I’m thinking sustainably while I shop and helping others.

But the best thing about the fashion world is that new environmentally, ethical, sustainable clothes are being designed and created now and in the near future. For example on the Guardian online on Friday 28^th January 2011 “H&M creates clothing line made out of left over pieces” was shown off to the world, it’s a new clothing line called Waste , which is made entirely from left over pieces from their Lavin collection. Which in my opinion I see the Fashion industry trying to be sustainable and I’m going to help it the best way I can: by continuing to partake in Olympic sized shopping spree where in a couple of years time those clothes will be reused to make a summer dress.    

Would you stop eating bananas, oranges and out of season fruit?

Now this I could actually mange I think, well to a certain extent. I think that I would be able to handle not eating out of season and imported fruit and vegetables; it gives me an excuse to do some gardening and to learn to use the resources that I have at hand. My garden at home in Harrow, London, has enough room for my family to make a vegetable patch; doing some digging is a good way to be sustainable (and in this case it’s not because we have to, it’s because we want to, so there is no lying involved) which means that we can cut down on our food mileage and carbon footprint by growing in season fruit and vegetables. We called also pop down to the local farm shops that we have close by to our house, where we can buy both local and British, supporting are local community to help keep us all sustainable.

But, now this is a big but, in the real world we have no time to be digging in the garden collecting food, because my Dad works all the time, my Mum works part-time and is a house wife, plus I would not trust my brother and sister with gardening tool unless a trip down to A&E is on my to-do list, also I’m at University for the majority of the year, so I’m great help. When looking rationally into what grows in season in the UK I think I would have to starve or stock up on last season food to get by each season, for in the spring I will not eat purple sprouting broccoli, radishes, sorrel or spring onions and tell me who wants to eat rhubarb all spring. So looking at this question logically, it can be done but the vegetables will dye, my brother and sister will give each other black eyes, I will be craving a fresh pineapple and raspberry smoothy and my parents will probably think about investing in a hot tub to cover up the disaster of a vegetable patch.

I could do this Jamie Oliver style but I don’t have time.

Are you so naive and innocent that you think wind farms, tidal power and solar energy can possibly supply our needs in the future?

I for one am not naïve when it comes to sustainable forms of energy; believe me the majority of my A Level course consisted of how we can save the world the sustainable way, so we could use these forms of energy but we would need a large supply of them and a good back up plan. As the population increases more people are going to be demanding more energy and since the energy resources we already use are running out and becoming too expensive, new methods of energy generation are needed, such as wind turbines and solar power. I know the good points and the benefits of renewable energy, but if you really think about it a lot of energy and money is needed to put these projects into action. For example the cost of a commercially used wind turbine varies between $1 and $2 million per megawatt (ezinearticles.com) and with the typical wind farm being made up of around 20 turbines extending over an area of 1 square kilometre. Thus to be able to generate just 10% of the UKs energy from wind turbines alone, 12,000 megawatts would be needed equating to between $12 and $24 million (Renewable UK). When I think about if these types of renewable energy will be able to supply our future energy needs, I think that we might be kidding ourselves a little bit. Because as I have stated before it is going to cost well over $12 million just to create 10% of our energy needs, which is too much for too little, this is not enough. If we started to design bigger scale more efficient forms of renewable energy sources such as stronger solar cells in solar panels that captured an increased amount of rays, then yes we might just have a chance to rely a bit more on renewable energy. But as a country we do not have the space to accommodate so much renewable energy if all non-renewable energy forms went bust, unless we start insisting that we have solar panels on the roves of our houses and wind turbines in everybody’s garden.

Is there any hope or are we all too selfish, ignorant and lazy to change?
I personally believe that there is hope for use to become more sustainable. But it’s not just me who has to recycle bits of paper and card and to remember to turn off all electrical appliances if not being used, but everybody has a moral responsibility to do it, they just have to wake up to reality. I have to admit at times I am a selfish person, when I’m standing in the line at the till in my favourite shop; I want to be served first, because I could not care less about the 12 other people in front of me. But if we all had that attitude towards global warming and being sustainable, then we would be digging our own grave. But there are allot of people who are not and are interested in what is happening to the planet or nobody would have gone to watch An Inconvenient Truth. Though people these days are very ignorant and lazy, especially since the advancement in technology. Technology such as cars have made people see walking as a to inefficient, so they hope in their car to make that 5 minute walk to the corner shop that little bit faster. The TV is another example; people would rather waste away in front of the TV then get out a board game which produces less emissions than  watching TV. But with all this in mind I do not think we are too lazy to change, just that people need to be shocked out of their comfort zone.

How are we going to change behaviour or should we admit defeat now?

NEVER EVER ADMIT DEFEAT!!!!


We will change; it’s just that in order to, people need to be reached on a level that they understand such as the use of celebrity as a billboard. If you stick a famous face on anything it will sell, so if you put a celebrity’s face on the concept of sustainability you have yourself a winner for a certain amount of people, while the rest of the population say “who?” For example “Leonardo Dicaprio started the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to promote environmental issues, drives a hybrid car, currently writing and producing a feature length documentary on global warming called "11th Hour”” (allamericanspeakers.com) and a few other green celebrities include Orlando Bloom, Gisele Bundchen, Coldplay, Fergie and Snoop Dogg. With people like these and there global reputations people are bound to follow, because I know I will most definitely listen to (more like stare at) what Orlando Bloom has to say about the environment, and I know that many guys will watch what Gisele Bundchen has to say about sustainability. But this is only one idea, because once you capture the public’s attention you’ve got them till the next fad comes along.

Well to answer the overall question “Why bother lying?” I know that I do what I think is best for me, and if what I do is bad for the environment I am not going to butter it up and make it better by lying. But when I am sustainable I am sustainable. So to finish I will admit that I would love to drive an Audi and live in a Manhattan apartment. But reality has a far to stronger hold on my future, so I will have to settle for my 8 seater Ford people carrier and live in a converted barn in the countryside. But I will not forgo my trip to California, buy a cheap Tesco mobile, stop shopping for a year or eat rhubarb for the whole of spring, thus when it comes to these aspects of my life I know I’m not sustainable and I’m not going to lie about it just to fit in with the in crowd. Because I know that there are many other aspects of my life that do make me sustainable, and that’s no lie.

An Inconvenient Truth: None Like It Hot!

In all my life I have never seen a movie that could bore the living daylights out of me, but at the same time intrigue and open my eyes; and that is an inconvenient truth. I could not truly believe that I was watching a serious documentary about how our fossil fuelled lifestyles are eventually leading to Earths unfortunate demise. Because to me what I was watch was a sort of serial chat show style set up; in which Al Gore presented his slide show with detail and graphs about climate change, Co2 levels and greenhouse gases. Then out of nowhere he would say something really intelligent which had an added joke inserted in it, which amused the audience bringing them to life, then silence would fall as the chat show set up had broken into a documentary sequence.

An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary film like in the style of March of the Penguins, but with defiantly a lot less ice, directed by Davis Guggenheim. The film is about the former U.S Vice President Al Gore whose campaign to educate people about the effects of global warming. This film is not an action film like I thought it would be, but involves Al Gore presenting a presentation on climate change and what will happen to Earth. It is broken up between snippets of slideshow and film clips; where he talks about how global warming plays apart in his own life from education to family.

With the understanding of the nub and jist of the film I can begin to reflect on it; it’s overall message, how it’s presented, my overall view of the film and what I think the audience would have thought.
The films messages have complexities attached to them; In my opinion the messages are trying to open the audiences eyes; not in a “shut down all the factorise or the Earth gets it” type of way, nor is it saying “oh don’t worry, when the Co2 levels get really bad we will figure something out” kind of way. Though the first message that I personally picked up on was “as the citizens of this Earth this is what we are doing to it and boy we don’t really want a happy future do we?”. It’s showing to us the levels of danger that we could come into contact with if we don’t start sorting ourselves out, but in a way that immediately catches our attention. For example Al Gore uses examples from 650,000 years of Co2 levels against temperature. Where at first he explains that yes there has been in the past a natural global warming and cooling of the Earth, but the Co2 level had never reached over 300 parts per million, until people became more modern and screwed up Earths natural system. This screwing up of the Earth’s natural system has resulted in the succession of Co2 levels exceeding the 300 part per million level, which Al Gore then emphasises or to put as he said “exzardgerates” through the use of a cherry picker how far predations can compute Co2 levels will be in the next 50 years. This message comes in the form of a dark joke which says “ha ha yeah that sure is funny how he has to use a cherry picker to show how high Co2 levels will be, but hang on; if Co2 is related to temperature… we are going to roast, that’s not funny anymore”, and throughout the part of the film that I watched this sort of eye opening dark comic intellectual humour continues. With a message like this being showed off to the audience, it is a hazy and in some places a complex one to understand, this is because in my opinion the main message is climate change and how it is going to affect us but it is covered up by scientific explanations and jokes.

When deciding whether this approach of portraying the message in the form of in-depth scientific fact and humour is a double edged sword; this is because the message can be interpreted in two ways. The first way of interpreting it is by only seeing the facts, which in my opinion where blown out of proportion and emphasised a bit too much, which can quite easily lead people down the path of panic if miss interpreted. Whereas other people may only see the humours side of what is being said; only listening to and remembering the jokes and comments made around the scientific facts, which can lead to ignorance to what is truly happen, thus the appropriateness of how the message was approached depends on how the person watching the message interprets it.

Within the docufilm when it comes to determining whether the information in the film is the right information it is difficult to say because I don’t know if what is right for one person could be wrong for another, but in my opinion from seeing half of the film the information was sufficient for a main stream audience.  An example of some of the information given by Al Gore was that there are assumptions “that just ain’t so” in which people say that “that the Earth is so big we can’t have any lasting harmful impact on the Earth’s environment” (An Inconvenient Truth, 2006). But he sets the record straight by saying that we are affecting the Earth’s atmosphere which is so vulnerable because of how thin it is. This snippet of information about the Earth’s atmosphere may not contain the right amount of information, but if Al Gore went into depth with it, he could end up losing the point he was talking about and the audience. But a question that springs to mind is well isn’t all this in that GCSE geography textbook I had to read? Yes it is, but I do not think that a middle aged person read that one, so is having a look at this film for guidance, thus the information is relevant for them. 

Some of the information in the film may be right for different people but that does not matter if it is too technical, boring or leaves views confused. Though in my opinion the film is not too technical, it does not contain large amounts of numbers and scientific explanation like what some other documentaries cover, which means that a wide range of age groups and academic abilities are able to understand what is going on. Al Gore uses simplified methods of explaining how global warming occurs though the medium of images and graphics; he begins to explain the process of global warming with the usual textbook description such as in the book New Key Geography for GCSE (Waugh, D. and Bushell, T. 2002). Then into a more simplified comical explanation and between the two explanations even my 11 year old sister and my 9 year old brother could understand global warming; thus if children are able to explain the basic nub and jist of what the film is trying to explain, then it can’t be that technical. When looking into how boring the film is, it wins this round hands down; it is boring. Though credit needs to be given where it is due; yes the film is boring but as I have mentioned before it is eye opening in many ways. When I was watching the film especially during the part where Al Gore discussed the depletion of global ice coverage, my mouth just dropped I am sure I was  catching flies, because to me ice caps have always been so impressive and to see such a large magnificent creation just wither away shocks me, though I know that they are melting, seeing the images just makes it seem so much more real. Now when it comes to being confused whilst watching a documentary, for me at times it is inevitable but whilst watching An Inconvenient Truth confused was not part of my state of mind; the film to me was straight forward, Al Gore had laid it out by explaining global warming, how it is created, what it causes, such as increased natural hazards like hurricanes and droughts and explains what will happen in the future.

However I may be seeing the film in a too simplified light or just giving it too much credit, for the movie itself may be too simple treating views as children using only the tip of the iceberg of information. I say this because, the information as I had mentioned before can be found in a textbook or educational websites such as BBC Bitesize or in a newspaper for example information can be found on The Guardian online. The film explains how global warming is created through solar rays being trapped inside the Earth’s atmosphere, but then goes onto showing a clip from the TV program Futurama. This raises the question is it right to use a cartoon that doesn’t explain global warming in enough detail to make a coach potato sit up scratch there head and say “I should be worried about that”? Patronising the viewer is what this film does not have many elements of doing, Al Gore is not phonetically spelling out the word “Gu-Lu-Oh-Ba-All—Wa-Oor-Mm-Ing”, instead he is making his explanations simple enough to understand, but not so difficult to make the viewer feel stupid.

Though the views that I have given on the film An inconvenient Truth are what I personally think, others may see it completely differently, or in the case of the BBC movie review on this film some may agree with me. The BBC says that “An Inconvenient Truth, is not a drama or even a documentary. It's a slide show, delivered to a live audience, on the subject of the environment. Doesn't sound too thrilling, does it? And in truth, it ain't Die Hard. But be assured: this a really really good slide show”.
Whilst other people have an entirely different view to mine, such as those found on the site rottentomatoes.com which include reviews such as “has its heart in the right place but overall the film stands as a one-track doomsday warning with too little substance to achieve its intended effect” by Dustin Putman from dustinputman.com and “no matter how much generosity critics and activists show this movie, it is still a boring slideshow by a boring speaker with cool graphics and thus, a boring movie” by David Poland from Movie City News. But as I stated before people will interpret how they see the film and its message differently, and the opinions of others does not sway my own, for I see the film as a great movie, but in terms of how good it is as a tool to promote awareness about climate change and environmental sustainability in general, I’m still on the fence.

For the film An Inconvenient Truth to be a tool for promoting awareness about climate change it would need to connect with people from all walks of life. For example if I was not told to watch this film I probably would have not because I don’t usually go for that type of movie, I like chick flicks but also because I thought it was an action film I avoided it, but I know now that I was wrongly informed. The film also has trouble in my opinion at being a tool because when it does get shown to people they may instantly forget about it, for it is not hard hitting enough to be imbedded into peoples memory, thus doesn’t really promote awareness if people watch it but don’t see it. People need for something to either happen to them personally or to shock them to their core or the global destructiveness won’t get through to the middle class office worker who only worries for the day are “I wonder what’s for dinner and did I remember to feed the cat?”. Also to add, as the reviews had stated beforehand to some people the movie was boring, so do you really think they are going to remember it for its global awareness points?


The film doesn’t manage to promote awareness about climate change to its full potential as it had been continuously bashed by scientists saying that some of the information is wrong or blown out of proportion. The BBC may have given the film the thumbs up but it also found nine 'errors'. For example “Mr Gore's assertion that a sea-level rise of up to 20 feet would be caused by melting of ice in either West Antarctica or Greenland "in the near future". The judge said this was "distinctly alarmist" and it was common ground that if Greenland's ice melted it would release this amount of water - "but only after, and over, millennia"”. With such negative remarks it can make people see the film as a dramatisation thus leading them to taking the information included in the film with a pinch of salt. However the film could be acting as a tool for creating awareness; it could be the push that some people need, to see that global warming is actually happening and is a real thing.

Even so, to conclude, in my opinion An Inconvenient Truth is one of those films that is not going to be everybody’s cup of tea, for it has an acquired taste, to one person it may be as tasteful as boiled socks to another it’s the cats pyjamas. The film brings the subject of climate change and global warming to the table quite neatly and the message is clear” this is climate change and this is what is going to happen because of it” with enough added information to not confuse or patronise the average Joe, but to bring about an awareness with whit and scientific fact at it's side. Though the film has been slapped around the face a few times by those in the know, it has managed to capture the attention off the girl who fell asleep watching March of the Penguins and has the theme tune to Sex and the City the Movie as her ringtone.

How sustainable is my community?

 

The definition of community is regarded as `a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage’ (dictionary.com), so with this in mind I regard the London Borough of Harrow as my community. Though it covers 19.5 sq mi (50.47 km²) and had a population of 216,200 in 2008 (Wikipedia),I live, work and play there, taking part in many of the community activities and using its facilities, making it a part of me, my community.  I know that over the 19 years that I have lived there, it has begun to become a greener area; for example there has been a heavy recycling policy put into place, where if it’s not in the correct bin all hell breaks loose, and when taking a closer look. However my community is roughly more located in a small town in Harrow, but to understand the extent to which the community is sustainable the assistance of the definition of a sustainable community is needed, thus with this definition I can see how my community fits into what a the definition is trying to portray, then it can be illustrated to what extent it is sustainable.

(http://www.areasoflondon.com/harrow.html)

 Harrow situated in the district of Middlesex, North West London has been said to be `a very ‘green’ borough, with many parks and open spaces. However there is also a thriving business community and a wide range of shops and facilities’ from the website Town Pages, which in my opinion is true; the 88 parks and open spaces in Harrow provide a greener more sustainable outlook on the area. Though the thriving businesses that go on in Harrow, may be thriving one week but are having a closing down sale the next, which does make the mind wonder how sustainable the community actually is. Though to make it easier, if I break down Harrow to my immediate community area in which my ward is situated, Rayners Lane, a small town in the borough, would be regarded as my community, I can begin to use aspects and factors of the town to help to justify how sustainable my small town community is.

So before I can start to decipher how sustainable my community is with the focus being on Rayners Lane, the definition of a sustainable community needs to be looked at. One definition is a sustainable community is "a place where people want to live and work, now and in the future" from the The Guardian. But this is not an in-depth understanding of the word sustainable in the context of `sustainable community’, thus another definition is needed such as ` Sustainable communities are planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. This may include sustainability aspects relating to development, water, transportation, energy, and waste and materials. They tend to focus on environmental sustainability (including development and agriculture) and economic sustainability. Sustainable communities can focus on sustainable urban infrastructure and/or sustainable municipal infrastructure’ sourced from Wikipedia.  Though this has been sourced from Wikipedia, which can be unreliable the majority of the time, the definition given makes it clearer to understand what sustainable community means. Thus I am able to interpret an understanding in the form of `a sustainable community is one in which the residence fulfill their lifestyles with the notion of making sure that what they do today doesn’t harm tomorrow. With this it is not just the residence but where they live work and play as well; the facilities, housing and the environment also play apart in keeping the community sustainable’.

Rayners Lane defined by how sustainable the community is and how well it fits into the definition of a sustainable community, can be looked at through various aspects of the community such as the amount of people that live there and how they travel around. Distinguishing factors such as those found in the document called Sustainable communities: building for the future, by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, can be used to determine what makes a sustainable community and what doesn’t,  such as: a flourishing local economy to provide jobs and wealth, a well-integrated mix of decent homes of different types and tenures to support a range of household sizes, ages and incomes and Good quality local public services, including education and training opportunities, health care and community facilities, especially for leisure. With the factors from the document I can begin to look at where my community is thriving with sustainable factors and where it is lacking, by looking at six main aspects of the community: people, housing, transport, facilities, community activities and lastly the environment. To help see if my community in Rayners Lane resembles a sustainable community examples from my own experiences are going can be applied.

According to the document Sustainable Communities when it comes to people and housing the density has to be suitable enough so that people are still able to lead their lifestyles but not to the extent of overcrowding. Thus there must be management in the community so that the communities carrying capacity is not breached, to add to this housing must utilise the resources to hand to their full potential `A well-integrated mix of decent homes of different types and tenures to support a range of household sizes, ages and incomes’.  In 2008 Rayners Lane was home to 8,079 people of different age ranges, cultures and social backgrounds which makes the community very diverse.

The age range in Rayners Lane is spread over a spectrum of ages, though the majority are between the ages of 25-49 which is the main working age with around 37%, then the percentage of those that are aged 0-15 is more with 22% than those aged 60+ with around 14% (data sourced from Office of National Statistics. Figures like this can be interpreted in two ways; it can be seen as a part of making the community more sustainable; those who are at the right age or able to work keep the local economy going enabling for the community to improve its facilities. Whilst the elderly people attend many community functions such as coffee mornings at the local church, and some even have allotments, where they grow their own fruit and vegetables thus providing an environmental incentive to home grow produce, instead of buying the same produce that has been shipped half way across the world. Also the combination of the two age groups 0-15 and 16-24 adds up to 33.5% of the communities population, meaning that in the future there will be a work force that can take over once those who are in the 25-49 age group have become elderly and retired.  

(http://www.cityfarmer.info/category/england/page/5/)

Another way at looking at these figures is in a more negative light by  looking at the high number of  25-49 years olds and saying that how many of them have children, want children and want more children which will slowly increase the population density as people in the area become more wealthy. An example from the Office of National Statistics for the average weekly household total income estimate is £840 compared to London which is £690 (Office of National Statistics), this shows that people in Rayners Lane may be able to afford more children.  

When it comes to housing and buildings, a lack of poor housing and residential area conditions place pressure on the sustainability of the community, with this house prices can also place an effect on the extent to which a community can be sustainable. For in Rayners Lane there were 523 dwellings in 2008 (Office of National Statistics)and in the different parts of the community the housing styles and the conditions vary, in which the community mainly consists of flats, terraced houses and semi-detached housing. With this these styles of housing change depending on which part of the town you are in, the same with the condition of the property. Rayners Lane could be seen as a form of suburbia because it has `extensive residential developments on the outside of towns, low density, large plots of land, structured around cars’ (from power point presentation called sustainable communities 28^th October) as shown by the Radburn design.

Housing quality is a key factor in the workings of a sustainable community, for example if houses are of good quality and in a good area people have a better quality of life, thus this makes the community better off for as nehboughs interact more due to their lifestyles. The same can be said for the type of housing, for example people who live in flats crate their own miniature community as they maintain and live in their shared living space. However as the document Sustainable communities states `homes in poor condition damage the health of those who live in them and can undermine the sustainability of neighbourhoods’ this is true for my community in which some parts of the area are of poorer quality, leading to people moving out and increases the chances of the area becoming rundown. An example could be that the road that I live on has very nice quality housing in a good area and down my road everybody knows each other’s business, whereas where my friend lives which is an area dominated my rundown housing and flats (mainly council estates) people don’t really have as much of a close nit community as we have down my road. Because the area is not very inviting and people have a lower quality of life making the sustainability of the area almost impossible as nobody interacts with each other creating no sense of place.



Le Corbusier's design for France, in my opinion doese
not look good in my community.



The density of the housing also affects the sustainability of my community, for example the flats that are by the town centre could be considered as a sustainable type of housing. This is because they use up the land available to their best ability by building upwards not outwards, thus allowing around 4-5 families to live on the same amount of land as one. Which means in comparison the 3-4 bedroomed 7 bay window houses that are selling for over £300,000 on the market, are more unsustainable due to space and the amount of people that they can accommodate. However these types of housing make the area look and feel better aesthetically which gives the community a better quality of life as stated before. Though in my opinion these flats that were inspired Le Corbusier design of tower blocks to solve Frances urban squalor, are unsightly and do not make the community look aesthetically pleasing.  But this problem is a double edged sward for as the area gets nicer the more people are going to want to move in, increasing the population density which could push the community’s carrying capacity over the edge. Another problem that could damper the community’s sustainability is that because Rayners Lane is a nice area close to good schools and the underground, house prices are going to go up as well as the demand for these houses, which could make the area too expensive for existing residence. 

 


 

The transport factor of my community is a tricky area when it comes to the sustainability of the community, because though we have direct train and bus routes into London which cuts down on transport emissions, these forms of public transport are not wide spread throughout the community which still creates a heavy need for cars as the main means of transport. In Rayners Lane from what can be interpreted form the Office of National Statistics website; around 80% of the community have at least one car, this means that there is a lot of car emissions in the area which is an unsustainable part of the community. But the cars are needed as the majority of the major facilities such as supermarkets and shopping centres are quite far away from the town, making a type of suburbia where cars are needed to carry out the lifestyle.





This reliance on cars in the community creates a lot of congestion on the roads which puts people off walking unless they have to from fear of road accidents, which have accrued a couple of times on the main road going through the town. With all the congestion on the roads its unsustainable for another reason other than Co2 emissions, damage to the roads in my community is a big problem, there are always men in high visibility jackets mending the roads because of the amount of traffic that accumulate, this is highly unsustainable for the money that is needed to pay for the road mending comes out of the communities money, which means that roads are being fixed whilst recreational areas begin to die down. But the community does redeem itself by having many cycle lanes all over the town with many in the residential areas, so that if people want a green more healthy method of transport it is available to them, I am personally one of the users of the cycle paths, for example I would ride the 20 minute walk it took to get to my sixth form whilst my friends would take the bus or drive, though there not a widely used facility the cycle paths do show that the community is trying to be sustainable.

 The facilities available in Rayners Lane are well maintained by both the community and the council such as the local schools in which the one closest to my house my siblings attend in which my mother and several of her friends are a part of the PTA there, which creates a community inside the school but also the local area around the school, this a sustainable part of the community as the council, children, teachers and parents work together to make the schools in the area better for today and the future. Not only do the schools in the local area try to improve their own community they also try to improve the rest of the community through events such as that HA2 Can Do carnival that myself and my brother where apart of for many years which can be seen in the local paper Harrow Times and my old high schools newsletter ( page 7).



Another facility that is a part of the community is the high street which has a few local shops such as newsagents and some small supermarkets like Tesco’s express and some speciality shops such as Polish delicatessens and pure vegetarian Indian caterers, these high street provides the community with a place to meet due to the coffee shops and restaurants making the high street the heart of the community where everything is happening.

The use of facilities in the area such as the schools and shops are part of the glue that keeps communities together thus making them sustainable in the future as these facilities provide people with a sense of purpose or belonging. However this sense of belonging and community being brought together can be broken by the continuous changing of some of the shops in the high street, for example over the past couple of years some shops have changed for the worst such as the local Chinese restraint which went out of business during the recession, which has now been transformed into an empty nightclub/cocktail bar which not many people in the community are interested in, this leads to a breakdown of the community which is unsustainable in the long run as people are unwilling to adjust to change.



(http://www.guides-uniform.co.uk/)

Another aspect of the community that makes it sustainable is the social clubs and community activities that people attend, such as though’s mentioned before; allotment societies and local carnivals but there are others such as Scouts and Guides, Sports clubs, Dance lessons in church hall and so on. From my experiences of these clubs and community activities it brings people in the community together from all walks of life and of all age groups for example Scouting and Guiding brings the children of a community together along with adults to be their Scouts and Guide leaders creating communities for both adults and children alike in the home town. My personal experiences with the Guides have made me part of my community for the past 11 years through community based projects such as bake sales and Christmas shows. However though these activities are good at making the community more connected, people are split up into different groups within the community which in a way brakes down the overall community, and if there were an increase in activities it could become unsustainable in the long run.



Then there are the environmental factors that need to be considered, Rayners Lane is home to several parks and open spaces such as Alexandra Park and Roxbourne Park, where people are able to meet in the community providing them with a sustainable area which is maintained by the council. For example the parks are used as sports grounds and children’s play areas playing a vital function to the community. Another aspect of the community that keeps it sustainable is our recycling policy, where by every house hold has three bins: one for recyclable waste, non-recyclable and kitchen and garden waste, this is a part of an incentive from the council to be more green and eco-friendly, this more green way of recycling can be seen on the Harrow Councils website. Though these rules and regulations have been put into place by the council for the good of the community, the sometimes get kicked to the curb, for example in my house were supposed to separate out all the rubbish that we through away, but in some cases it’s a hassle that we can do without, and my family are not the only ones to “forget” to recycle properly.

So in conclusion, I would say that over all my community in Rayners Lane, Harrow, is a sustainable one, I do think that it is a place where people want to live (though I wouldn’t really say work) and it is being modified to promote sustainable living through incentives from the council such as having so many bins it’s easy to get what goes where wrong, but the bigger picture is that it is good for the future of our community and that’s what counts. Though we may not be building the community of tomorrow from scratch, we are improving on the community of yesterday to bring it towards tomorrow, through community factors such as a diverse population with people who are working to keep our community afloat to those who are being educated for the future, as well as having miniature communities through Guides and PTA meetings, thus in the long run it  builds to a better community as the mums on the PTA hand out flyers for the Guides church coffee morning. Other factors that make us a sustainable community is that we work together to strengthen our community and that of others such as the HA2 Carnival in which all the schools in the community take part and everybody gets involved, even the town next door to us.

However we do have are sustainable slip ups such as the Co2 emissions that the mums taxi’s create in the mad rush to get to school before 9 o’clock, the popularity of the area that is pulling people in could be the reason for pushing people out as the community begins to reach its carrying capacity and the incredible large amounts of space wasting 4 bedroomed semi-detached houses.

But all in all I think to be a sustainable community you need to have flaws in the system otherwise it’s not a true community, because those who can see past the run down council estates and through to the smiles on people’s faces as they dance down the high street in carnival colours, are the people who make my community of Rayners Lane a sustainable community.