Saturday 19 March 2011
The day that shook Japan (video)
Friday 11 March 2011
Tsunami hits Japan
- Magnitude 8.9, followed by six other major tremors and numerous smaller tremors.
- The fault which caused the Earthquake is likely to have ruptured approx. 500km.
- The previous Earthquake along the same fault was in 1993, with a magnitude of 8.4, which was associated with a tsunami and caused 3000 deaths
- Tsunami tide was up to 10m high in some places.
- Tsunami wave reached 3 miles inland.
- 11 nuclear power plants out of action.
- 1 nuclear power plant cooling system failed.
- 4,000,000 homes had power disrupted
- The Tsunami wave swept away and destroyed farmland, buildings, cars, ships, and even a train has been stated as missing in a coastal area.
- Fires have broken out in oil refineries and other buildings.
Sunday 26 December 2010
Recycle at Christmas...
Monday 29 November 2010
Education for Sustainable Development
Education is a crucial tool for achieving sustainability. Most people would agree that the current economic trends are not sustainable and public awareness, education, and training are key to moving society nearer to being sustainable. Beyond this there is very little agreement. Is the meaning of sustainable development within reach? What do sustainable societies look like? How will they function? Why has the government not developed sustainability in schools? The amount of disagreement has handicapped efforts to move education of sustainable development forward.
Sustainable development is difficult to define. What makes it harder is the fact that it is also continually evolving. One of the first descriptions of sustainable development was created for the Brundtland Commission and states:
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p 43).The general thought is that sustainable development has three components: environment, society, and economy. The well-being of these three areas are linked, not separate.
It’s interesting that while we have such a problem defining sustainability, we can easily identify un-sustainability. We can make lists of unsustainable activities; inefficient use of energy, lack of water conservation, overuse of transportation, high amounts of consumerism… But we should not condemn ourselves over our inability to define sustainability; we should work around the problem.
Haigh (2005) stated that Geography was the best subject to teach a module in sustainable development. To a certain extent it is a good idea, as it involves major aspects of geography such as three main ones; environment, society and economy. These three aspects all draw upon traditional geographical techniques. However, sustainable development is such a large subject it draws on other subjects other than just geography and, in my opinion, needs to be a subject of its own, as citizenship now is.
References and Extra Reading:
- Haigh, M., (2005), Geography and the 'European Year of Citizenship through Education. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 29, 173-182
- Some Definitions of Sustainable Development
- Sustainable Development in Government
- A quite simple Encyclopedia of Sustainability
Saturday 31 July 2010
What can we do as individuals?
Another way for people to lead a sustainable life is to research their energy provider to find the most sustainable one. Eon for example use wind as an energy source, so the user will have much less CO2 emmisions. Alternativly homes can be fitted with their own wind turbine.
So, as shown, there are a lot of ways for people to become sustainable, i have named but a few. The main point here though is the fact that no one individual can only help the environment, but if hundreds of thousands of people start and continue, we will start to see a change.
Roadway USA
Tuesday 6 April 2010
Shen Neng 1, A Sign of Things to Come?
So even before this most recent incident climate change, acidity levels, over-fishing, coral mining, and other types of pollution and human activity threatened the reef. Climate change, of course, has had one of the largest impacts on the reef in recent years though. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) dissolves in the seawater which in turn increases acidity, making it more difficult for coral organisms to grow and maintain their shells.
The ship which has crashed was carrying 72,000 tons of coal from Queensland to China for power plants in China, but this is not the issue. The ship could have been carrying nothing but flowers and it would have the same impact on the reef after the crash, as it is the ships fuel which is leaking on
the untouched reef. Although only a tiny amount of the 975 tons of fuel carried has leaked so far, there is the worry that if the ship is moved it could rapidly increase the leakage by either splitting the rip even more (A 3km trail of oil has already escaped). Australian officials have also warned the ship is unable to move unaided at present as the rudder and engine have been damaged.
The bulk carrier crashed into the reef at full speed 24km off its set course, well outside the authorised shipping corridor, which begs the question: Why? There has been an investigation launched to find this out but it’s also thought that this is the third major international incident involving its owners in four years.
The captain of the ship, responsible for destroying the beauty of an untouched wonder of the world, could be fined up to $250,000 whilst the owners of the shipping company have been fined a total of $1 million… If the reef contains 25% of all marine species does this mean the entire ocean is only worth $4 million? This is of course ludicrous! The amount put in place is simply to scare other shipping owners and to try and prevent this happening in the very near future.
But this could be a sign of what is to come. This is the third oil spill of its type in a year, off the coast of Australia, and as Gladstone is trying to increase into Australia’s major port the amount of traffic will no doubt increase.