Week 11- Law and Policy: Local, National and European

This weeks lectures was about law and policy and how laws are enforced in certain localities such as the E.U. I did not look forward to these lectures because i associate law as being a very boring subject but surprisingly this week lectures was the most interesting out of this semesters coursework, it dealt with clearly the conflict between the introduction of these environment policies and the previous historic laws in that particular area. We also found out about how the E.U. puts its laws into place, and of how sometimes EU laws interfere with the constitutional law of countries and how difficult it is to get this to work. A example of conflict which happened in Ireland between local legislation and European legislation was over the fishing industry, become Ireland joined the E.U. in 1973 Ireland as a nation were allowed to catch as much fish as they wanted in their rich fished ocean surrounds, and nobody instead the Irish were allowed to fish in their waters, but since Ireland joined the E.U. and the European parliament introduced the Common Fisheries Policy Ireland now only have the ability to catch a certain quota of fish and any European country has the ability to fish in Irish waters.

This was a sustainable law/ policy introduced by Europe to keep the stability of the fish population in our coastal waters from declining and becoming extinct due to our over fishing habits.

These lectures also stated clearly the difference between a policy and a law.A law is enforceable by the judicial system and its main purpose is to bring justice to the society. However, a policy is a set of rules usually set by organizations such as the E.U. and countries such as Ireland have to achieve certain goals set down by this policy. A policy should comply with the law, for example before the smoking ban law was introduced in Ireland it was a national and regional policy not to smoke in public placed but this strategic plan did not work and the major of people would light one up in public premises but once they introduced the smoking ban law, immediately people began to stop smoking in public places and went out on the streets, this proves clearly a law is more powerful than just a policy.

  

The E.U. policies / laws are not just dealing and implementing laws to deal with social and unethical problems,they are also now since 1999 implementing laws and policies to increase the awareness of the importance of recycling and waste management, because they see this as an important problem for further generations. The WEEE  directive was also implemented by Ireland to deal with the recycling of electrical products, it is also great how Ireland and the European Union are working now in the creation of a more green and sustainable further.

week 12- sustainable communities!!! :)

From Rosie Gowran(Department of Occupational Therapy) lectures, i learned a lot about the daily practices of the local medical and health care services within our locality and the lack of recycling and reusing of material within these organisations.We also learned what actually was a sustainable community or communities and we defined then as communities that 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 and ecological sustainability (including development and agriculture) and economic sustainability. Sustainable communities can focus on sustainable urban infrastructure and/or sustainable municipal infrastructure. The only way also i learned to have a sustainable community is to be responsible, honest and also take part in your communities daily activities.I also learned from these lectures, material that will live with me for the rest of my life, and ways in which you as a human being can have a sustainable life, and ways in which you can have this sustainable life without damaging the ecological and economical state of the land.

We also learned in the lectures that earlier that year we visited a sustainable community called Cloughjordan.Cloughjordan, officially Cloghjordan meaning ”siurdains stone” is situated in North Tipperary close to the Offaly border, it is almost equidistant from Nenagh, Roscrea and Birr and is close to the river Shannon and Lough Derg. The village is stated as being an ”eco-village” which is based to ecological, social and economic sustainability. This new sustainable area has been developed on a 67 acre plot of agricultural land and it will eventully merge with the existing village of cloughjordan, this here is an example of a home grown sustainable community because it is clearly visible from our trip that they are self-independent and all the members that live in this village come together to solve local problems for the good of the village. This village incredibly also creates its electricity by renewable methods and has a sustainable thermal heating system in place to heat up the water in Eco-friendly methods. It is clear that the civilians from this village enjoy been part of this sustainable renewable village not only because they save a fortune on their ESB bills but also being part of a scheme like this gives you a sense of belonging and sense that you are doing something that is not damaging our environment but rejuvenating our Eco-system.

Rosie showed us cloughjordan as an example of a sustainable community but she also showed the medical and health care services as a community which little or no sustainable methods are practiced. she showed us the life cycle of the average wheelchair in Ireland and the way it is disposed of then, throughout this inter process from manufacture to disposing of it, little or no recycling or reuse methods are used. This amazed me and it shows massive leaps and bounds have to be made to make these services more sustainable and also more ecologically sustainable.

Sustainability Metrics-week 10

In week 10 we learned as a class about the benefits of this new concept called sustainability metrics. The concept of this new procedure was that these new sustainability metrics were to measure and calculate the sustainability of an area and a tool that measures the benefits achieved through the implementation of sustainability. In the lecture on monday we saw how the sustainability metric compared many parts of Limerick in their sustainability but from what i saw Annocoty and Limerick city had a very similar graph in their sustainability, but when you broke down their sustainability into different categories such as educational sustainability, energy, etc the comparison between the two locations then became clear. I didn’t clearly expect this sustainable metric result due to their vast difference in their population numbers and I always thought as Limerick being a city and all, i thought it would have been way less green than it was. I also imagined Annocoty as being a place more environmentally friendly and more beneficial in their actions towards future generations.It is clear that there is immense difficulty in calculating the sustainability of regions as it is difficult to find two exactly similar regions with the same population, land area, etc but this new concept allows use now measure regions easily and the availability to compare regions on the sustainability counterparts, examples of sustainability metric is carbon footprint count,human development index, environmental sustainable index and there is many more which have a part to play in this development and sustainability of an area.

These sustainability metrics look quite simple but they are quite effective because it allows government officials measure the sustainability of their country/location easily and with less hassle and it also indicates to them clearly what sectors in general they have to make more sustainable and they are also very effective for comparative purposes.

The carbon footprint calculator is the most common out of these sustainability metrics because this allows us as individuals such as me and you measure the amount of green house gases we release daily, and due to calculating this sum realization kicked in, and for me personally it has me carpooling more often and also buying goods that were produced in Ireland more often because it amazed me the amount of green house gases that were released and fossil fuels burned to have goods such as noodles imported over from Japan.Carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment, and in particular climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating and transportation etc. The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent. I also learned many methods such as turn down the central heating slightly (try just 1 to 2 degrees C). Just 1 degree will help reduce your heating bill by about 8%.Turn down the water heating setting (just 2 degrees will make a significant saving) ,Check the central heating timer setting – remember there is no point heating the house after you have left for work and the most important i think from my personal view fill your dish washer and washing machine with a full load – this will save you water, electricity, and washing powder .



This weeks lectures was great and i learned a great range of information which will no doubt stay with me for the rest of my life and the most important thing which I have learned from this sustainability metrics is that everyone’s sustainability wants are always greater than their sustainability needs.

poster for project

Presentation1 darren 1

16. Track the development of india since it’s independence. (PROJECT)

India is part of the world’s most populated and poorly developed global regions in the world. It stretches from approximately 36 degrees North along its mountainous northern borders, this highly complex country reaches almost to the Equator, and divides the northern Indian ocean into the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Its population reached a billion in 1999.It is estimated that soon India will have more of a population than China,India today has a population of 1.21 billion people and is the second most populous country in the world, while China is on the top with over 1.35 billion people. The figures show that India represents almost 17.31% of the world’s population, which means one out of six people on this planet live in India. This is seen as a major problem for India to deal with for its economic sustainability to deal with.  This is not the only problem facing India because India still has mainly a rural-based economy, and the average daily income per person is only little over an American dollar. India also from my views is not totally sustainable but becoming more sustainable in its actions. We tend to think of sustainability as having three dimensions,ecological,economic and social but these three dimensions are not separate in reality, they are intertwined. Plus, sustainability has an international perspective that we must consider.Acting and behaving according to this concept of sustainability is a global task, and is a key question for humanity. In combating poverty, all three dimensions of sustainability have to be taken into account. This is what the Indian government are now taking into consideration to make their economy more attractive for companies to locate here and make their economy more profitable and sustainable in the long-term.

The majority of India’s continent is situated in the tropical latitudes, only the mountainous zones of the north and the north-west have frost. Temperatures year-round are relatively high, so the main climatic variable is precipitation and the monsoon. This weather shapes the patterns of the development and livelihoods of the majority of the people in India. The monsoon rains are essential for India’s development because delay in the monsoons arrival affects planting of crops and the delay in the production of the crops, then if the monsoon brings poor rains, it has an adverse effect on the growing crops such as rice, etc which needs waterlogged conditions. Low yields and poor harvests can lead to starvation for millions of farmers and their families who depend on the rice crop for nutrition and survival.With only one in four people living in urban centers, the service sector also remains underdeveloped by international standards. India’s economy is dominated by agriculture, and to understand the country’s problems it is important to know that the majority of the wealthy countries have the majority of their income coming in from the secondary and tertiary sector, for example 79% of Ireland’s gross domestic products have come from the manufacturing and services sector. For India to become more economically sustainable it has to increase its capital coming from the services and manufacturing sectors.

The primary sector

India as a nation has surprisingly a large amount of land that has good agricultural potential, but only the mountainous regions and the large Thar desert is not suitable for agricultural purposes. Success in this sector is vital because, two-thirds of India’s huge working population depend directly on the land for earning a living and if the crop fails many a million of their population will die from starvation.India in previous years was colonized by Britain(1947) but when India received their independence the country recognized agriculture as a key sector for national development.This was clearly a bad move by India’s government because little profit could be made in this sector because the majority of the profit from raw material to finished products are made in the manufacturing and services sector and a lot of money had to be pumped into the agricultural sector first to get a little back.Most small farms are also broken up into tiny and scattered parcels of land. This actually reduces the productivity of the land even more and makes introducing modern farm practices, such as mechanized, difficult. The scattered and small plots of land clearly shows how unsustainable the agricultural sector is over in India. India’s government today are now sorting out this problem by knocking down these boundaries for these small plots of land and creating larger more easier mechanized plots of land for farmers to farm, due to this the farmers are making more profit from their crops because they have more land to farm and easier to harvest, sow their crops because now the farmers have more money to purchase machines which would do these jobs more simply and easily for them.

Types of farming in India

Agriculture is vital for India’s economy and also its sustainability because, it supplies most of the country’s food supplies, supplies products such as(tea,coffee) for export, Employs over 60% of the country’s workforce, Uses most of India’s land area and provides the government with a large % of its taxation revenue. Before India was colonised India had a very sustainable economic agricultural sector, but when britain colonised then, Britain made them grow cash crops which were shipped back to these developed countries with little or no profit going for the producers in India. The colonist used India’s fertile land, abused their cheap abundant labour, their underdeveloped transport systems. They also devastated their sustainability as a nation and reduced their confidence as been able to run their country themselves.The majority of the farming that takes place in India is in the production of rice. The rice that is farmed has only one purpose and one purpose only, to feed his/her family. Rice is grown mainly in the flood plains of the Indus and Ganges rivers. Little or no sustainable methods are used in the rice production and development, no fertilizers are used by these peasant farmers because they don’t have the sufficient money, finance to purchase them so nutrients that the crop takes from the ground is not recycled back into the ground. Almost all planting, weeding and harvesting is done by hand, with all of the farmers family involved, this clearly in my eyes is not sustainable because if there farming practices were more modernized it would require less man power to harvest and sow the crop and produce a higher yield. Keeping a controlled depth of water is very important, because water provides moisture but also nutrients due to the deposits that are in suspension in the water, this type of fertilization and hydration plan is clearly not sustainable and safe because if the river doesn’t burst its banks and floods the paddy fields, a failed crop will be produced that year meaning million of India’s civilians would die from starvation. India are now today taking the opportunity for raising their sustainable techniques through more modern farming practices and this practice has taken place from 2001 to present day, today for example they are using fertilizers, seeds which are certified and the introduction of bigger plot of land and the rotation of crops each year, they also as a continent are taking advantage of the genetically modified crops, which are actually more disease resistant and produce higher yields.  These seeds also have a larger germination rate compared to the normal rice seed, these seeds/crops also don’t require as much water either as the other type of seeds used by them in previous years so if the rivers don’t burst their banks sufficiently and flood their flood plains these crops will still grow accordingly resulting in fewer people in their population would die from starvation. All these advancements from 2001 has only taken place because of government incentives and advice.

How India is sustainable in the secondary sector

From my opinion when India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, it had only a limited range of industries such as textiles and food processing, this was less sustainable for a continent the size of India and they should have been more clearly diversified, also when India gained independence only 2% of the working population was employed in industry, this employment only occurred also only in the cities in India. Five to Ten years after gaining independence, India’s government tried to make India more sustainable, they did this by encouraging companies, multinational companies etc to set up their factories over there, their direct aim was to reduce India’s independence on imported industrial goods and to promote greater wealth and employment across the country. This idea helped India on becoming more of a wealth nation because they had two things that helped India’s industrial sector prosper, they had a large population so this provided a large home market for the goods which were produced and also the had a relatively cheap but skillful labour force which attracted many companies to set up their industries in their country. They also developed a modernized communication system around the country which also attracted a lot of companies to set up there also.

India now in the 21st century has become more a developed economy and see’s the sustainability of its country as a major issue, nowadays high technology industries such as bioprocessing, etc are attracted to india’s population of skilled workers, low costs of manufacturing and improved communication systems. These high valued industries presented a new and modern face to india, they also suggested a brighter future for the country’s industrial/manufacturing base. India now are targeting science developement as way of developing their country to a higher and more sophisticated branch and also increase their countries sustainability and sufficiency, India’s government have invested heavily in the development of science based subjects in their education programs and due to this have the largest amount of science graduates graduating from their universities each year. Modernisation of india’s traditional industries, such as textiles, and the introduction of new high-tech industries, such as pharmaceuticals, etc provide a new basis for national development and increases their sustainability and economic position as a nation.

Is india’s tertiary sector sustainable???, and how if possible will they as a nation increase their sustainability in this sector???

IIndia’s tertiary sector remains underdeveloped, it is very hard also for their government to resolve this problem also because about 70% of the country’s population lives in rural areas. Most of the people who live in these rural areas are very poor and don’t have the money for services such as schools, health care, banking even if they were available in these remote locations. The majority of the service sector companies in India are located in India’s major cities because their would be a large population situated there and the people from the city have the finances to splash out on these services. In the larger cities, there are job opportunities in services, such as government administration, finance and banking, retailing and education. This sector is also making India more sustainable and become more of a developed economy but the black marketing which is illegal in india such as drug dealing, prostitution, thieving, etc it hazardous towards the government because india has to spend more on law enforcement and less can go into education. Black marketing within India’s society is reducing India’s sustainability as a nation. Developments within transport and tourism in recent years have made India become more of a marketable location and since India is so big the government have invested heavily in the transportation sector but still from the 600000 villages located around India only 480000 of them have access to tarred well maintained roadways!.

Can India rely on tourism as a sustainable future???

India offers major attractions for the international tourist trade. International transport links have also improved in recent years, bringing more and more tourists to the country, due to India having an underdeveloped economy, tourism offers many advantages, and the government actively promotes this industry.India has many attractions such as the amazing/ spectacular mountain ranges of the Himalayas, the vast numbers of palaces and fortifications that are scattered throughout India and the great rivers and varied physical landscapes that India as a continent has to offer us. India has a lot of work ahead of them yet in promoting tourism as a basis for development, a lot of investment has to be made in upgrading internodal transport links and tourist facilities, such as accommodation. Another aspect that India’s economy should consider is that some tourists may be put off by the sheer pressure of population and the obvious poverty of many of the people who are homeless in India. Tourism can be seen as one option how India as a country could make their country profitably sustainable but the size and especially the rate of population growth in India is the key factor behind many of the problems facing the country.

The main reason for the rapid growth in India’s population is its high birth rate and also due to better health care services the death rates have gone down a lot. This rapid population growth is not only affecting this prosperous tourist industry but also putting pressure on their government to make sure there is enough food available for their growing population and enough jobs available also for this rising population figures. In the 1970s the government started a campaign to reduce birth rates. They offered incentives to encourage people to use birth control and reduce average family sizes. The campaign had some success but it has been hard to educate quickly large numbers of the population to the advantages of family planning. It is especially difficult in remoter rural communities, where large families are still seen in a positive way. Even with the slowdown in the rate of natural increase since the 1970’s, the sheer size of the population and its young age profile have resulted in ever-greater numbers being added to India’s total population. As urbanisation continues, it is thought that the birth rate will decline and help slow down the country’s rate of natural increase. The other problem the Indian government are also facing is the unevenness of their population distribution is also making them as an economy less sustainable and harder to manage, there is many ares of very dense concentrations of people in the major river valleys, narrow coastal plains and hinterlands of major cities.

I have so far given how in general India as a country has become sustainable since it’s independence from Britain but in general I’m going to concentrate on agriculture and their sustainable electrical energy requirements and production!!

India is the 6th largest energy consumer, accounting for 4% of the global energy consumption by more than 17% of global population. India’s sustainable energy is controlled by the government of India’s,Ministry of power, ministry of coal reserves and department of renewable energy.Thermal power plants are the main generator of electricity followed by hydroelectric power generation, 2.78% of the electrical energy is created by nuclear power plants and 10.75% by renewable energy sources. More than 50% of India’s commercial energy demand is met through the country’s coal and fossil fuel reserves. India’s government has also recently invested heavily in the generation of their electricity by renewable means, such as the installation of solar panels and wind turbines. In July 2009, India unveiled a $19 billion plan to produce 20,000 MW of their electricity requirements by solar power energy by 2020. India has committed massive amount of funds for the construction of various nuclear reactors which would generate at least 30,000 MW.The country’s annual energy production increased from about 190 billion kWh in 1986 to more than 680 billion kWh in 2006. The Indian government has set a modest target to add approximately 78,000 MW of installed generation capacity by 2012 which it is likely to miss. The total demand for electricity in India is expected to cross 950,000 MW by 2030. This expansion is clearly not adequate for to make India have their electrical production more than 60% sustainable because the unplanned growth in reactive load has resulted in poor voltage profile and more sub transmission and distribution losses, as a result the financial health of State Electricity Boards (SEBs) become a matter of grave concern as their losses had reached an alarming level of Rs.26,000 crores during 2000-01,which was equivalent to about 1.5% of GDP. If the Indian government don’t start pulling up their socks and make electricity production more profitable and sustainable all the other sectors within India’s market place will also become less sustainable because Power is a critical infrastructure for economic growth.

Sustainability in India’s agricultural sector!!!

Sustainability in agriculture is referring to raising soil fertility, improving water storage capacity, increasing water quality, diversification, raising Peoples capability to cope with risks and withstand natural calamities, reducing energy consumption, minimising risk and use of modern practice. India is improving their sustainability in these sectors already by the following means, using advanced fertilizers using modern irrigation schemes and also by using genetically modified crops which are more disease resistant and produce more of a yield, the farming also has become less labour intensive and more mechanised by using more machines in the producing and manufacture of the crops, also if the agricultural sector becomes more sustainable it has the potential to create more economic growth in the rural areas. It generated job opportunities in adding value as in the food processing industry in bringing agricultural products to the consumer and in providing support. It is clear from the passive above that from India seeking their independence from Britain in 1947 to the present day, that India have made great progress in trying to increase their sustainability and profitability as a nation and the passages about sustainability in Agriculture and in electricity production highlight this fact. If India also carries on with its current progress i can see it become from a developing country to a developed country within 20 years and then from there i can see itself and china becoming the most developed and powerful countries in the world. I also have concluded that India have no problems in their sustainability sector in the production of their electricity because them as a nation are investing heavily in renewable sources in ways of creating their electricity properly and with little harm to the environment!!

Conclusions!!!

From doing this project i have learned a lot about India as a country and learned an incredible amount about on the ways a country can make themselves more sustainable and more self-sufficient and also the importance of preparation before tackling into a project/assignment. From the information provided above, it is clear that India are increasing their productivity and in the process making them more of a sustainable country. I must thank you sincerely for reading my project and i hope you enjoy the information i have enclosed above!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

references!!!!

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/RIC/Publications/building.txt

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/02/16/a-look-behind-rising-food-prices-population-growth-rising-oil-prices-weather-events/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_India

http://www.ecoindia.com/sustainable-tourism.html

http://www.sustainet.org/download/sustainet_publication_india_part1.pdf

http://www.infrainsights.com/infrainsights/downloads/reports/external/IIR000013.pdf

https://ktn.innovateuk.org/web/sustainable-manufacturing-opportunities-in-india
           

Books that were used!!!

geography leaving certificate book called GEO also was a great help..

Our electronic and waste problems :( :(

Us as civilians of this earth are obsessed with technology and new tech gadgets such as the latest i-pod touch, i-phone, etc. This obsession of ours is making us trash our planet and increase the major amount of useless e-waste on our planet. Their is many solutions we could implement to stop these problems but the main question i am going to ask you is, why are we not implementing them.????? I am going to answer this question by saying its us as conservationist/energists versus these technology wizards/inventors. The technology wizards want to manufacture products that are expensive, last for a short period of time, put huge amounts of toxic materials in the manufacture of their technology, make them as less recyclable as possible and products that are easily broken and impractical to repair, this is described by many people ” as products designed for the dump” . Us as consumers don’t like this product design one bit, because we want to buy technology that is durable, long lasting and that is easy to recycle after its life-cycle is completed. For example is costs more to repair a product than purchase a brand new product.

Gordan moore’s statement still holds strong today about the ability of companies to double the electronic processing ability every 18 months, and due to this law, companies and businesses such as Apple have found a niche in the market for this to be implemented. This means that every consumer are buying these new products and are throwing away their old piece of technology, resulting in the increase in the amount of e-waste disposed on our planet. These companies are not just causing a economic recession in our wallets but also a toxic waste problem for our planet to deal with as well. These toxic waste products are mined out of the ground such as fossil fuels are today, they are then shipped out of these resource bases and transported to manufacturing premises, then these very toxic substances are then added in vast amounts in the manufacture of these products e.g. 5 litres of lead is used in the processing and manufacture of the modern television, and for example if this lead then is not disposed of properly and it runs into local water schemes it can cause many deaths to the people that are drinking this water.

This manufacture of these products happen in developing worlds and places which are hard to monitor. These companies are poisoning their locality and making their civilians more sick than they already are due to them not having well developed medical care centers yet. When we have finished with the use of this technology we add it to the mountains of e-waste we have already on our planet, these e-waste dumps are bases in also developing countries and we have people that are non-educated in how dangerous these chemicals really are, these people are opening up televisions,etc without little or no protect gear and trying to pinch the valuable materials from the device and throwing away or burning the non-profitable material.

From this information above i basically think that the whole production and recycling of our electrical products have to change, designers have to start making their products more recyclable and more long lasting, it is also important that in the future that these electronic products are not shipped over to these developing countries anymore, and that these products should be and will be recycled in the country of the developed world. This insures that their being recycled of properly and with little health problems. :(:( 😦 bring on the future so.

 

 

The responsibilities for companies to have a sustainable environment!!

From todays lecture we learned a lot about the responsibilities of companies to create a safe and sustainable place for their workers and also for the place in which the business is located. We talked about companies such as the major oil-producing Bp and their irresponsibility to allow a major oil leak to occur , which ended up in causing major catastrophic damage to our environment and caused many deaths in nature and in other more serious way to occur, the spill was caused by an explosion on the deepwater Horizon oil rig.

The oil rig sank immediately causing massive amounts of oil to begin to leak into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers were killed instantly due to the explosion and seventeen other workers were severely injured and rushed to hospital. From this spill it was estimated that 210,000 gallons of oil was being pumped into our seas daily, altogether it was estimated that17 to 39 million gallons of oil was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico. The major recordings from this oil spill was that major quantities of fish especially tuna were depleted, it was also estimated more than 150 threatened and endangered sea turtles are dead, also it was acknowledged that many of our species of birds also died horrific deaths due to this oil leak.



From these staggering results and figures above we see the major importance for businesses and companies to be responsible in their actions towards our environment and the nature around us, for example companies today such as BP are more interested in making a profit and finding new ways to increase this profit rather than the ways as them as a company could reduce their carbon emissions and their amount of waste they’re disposing of. Then we talked about an ideal company which is green, makes wright moral decisions and takes care of it workers honestly. I think in the future more companies will be more green and One of the reasons why  i think more companies must go green is for them to be a positive example for their employees that augment morale and the company loyalty. Companies can also gain a competitive advantage than other companies by differentiating their self as a Greenfield company. And it also improves an efficient and possibly lowering operating cost.Also, another reason why companies should go green is for them to provide a healthier and a cleaner working environment. The main objective of business going green is for them to be green enabler.

I found this weeks lectures very interesting because it highlighted that not only us as civilians has to change our actions to make this planet sustainable, businesses has a more of a major responsibility than us because i learned they use more electricity than us, they dispose of more waste than us, and also more importantly, use more of our natural fossil fuels more regularly than ourselves. Also from todays lecture i discovered due to stories our lecturer was telling about the madman and the bareness, everyone had different opinions on the situation that happened and everyone categorized responsibility differently to every individual mentioned in this story. From these findings, it assured me that everyone is different and everyone has a different frame of mind!! 😀 😀

University of Limerick by 2050!!!

Universities are used by students, both mature and maturing for one purpose and one purpose only, it is to widen their knowledge and skills. Then from learning these new skills and talents they will be able to widen their career opportunities and prospects!!! Universities can also be seen by many people as a research and development warehouse because for every student to graduate,they as part of their syllabus have to complete their final year project, their project then has to be relevant to their further career!!

These final projects vary from making state of the art tables to better ways and opportunities for companies such as ”TAYTO” to produce and distribute their products more efficiently and more importantly with less cost associated with it!!! The projects then can be viewed by many businesses which are willing to search through them all to find a new idea for their business to develop and make it into an ideal product for consumers to purchase. Universities can also be viewed today as place where to make new friends and also a place where you can also express yourself through the means of alcohol not under the supervision of your parents. I think the last reason mentioned was the main reason why most of us students attend college and enjoy our college years so fondly and with such a high regard. From the information provided above this is how i have viewed college so far and the purpose of universities!!

 

My further predictions of the University of Limerick by 2050 are as follows. I see this university being very prosperous in further years, i can see that instead of students having to go into college to see what happened in todays lecture, all they will have to do is turn on their computer and the college itself will have software that will virtually allow the student and lecturer communicate over the computer. This allows the student the ability to do all his work at home and now the further student does not need to seek accommodation near the college, this is a win-win situation for our Irish government because the government doesn’t need to pay out large grants to students anymore and students will be more encouraged to work during their college years. The government also wins because they wont need to spend large amounts of finance on extending our colleges premises and very little money will be spent on the maintaining of our colleges.

I’m also clearly sure by 2050 Ireland will have developed wind and solar energy so efficiently that Ireland as a nation will be totally energy efficient and a green nation. From my predictions so far the world of 2050 seems to be no fun and fun college factor that is clearly here today will have clearly vanished by it reaches the year 2050… My best advice to you is enjoy life now and allow our further generations deal with it in later years 😀 😀

What the future has in for us??? :(

Last week we learned a lot about global warming and the green house effect and how in future years it will change our magical planet. These lectures also dealt with ways as a human civilization we can slow down global warming and avoid it’s hazardous effects!! In this very interesting lectures there was two main discussion points kicked off, one discussion point was stating that due to natural causes such as the eruptions of volcanoes, cattle releasing large quantities of methane into our atmosphere was the main cause to global warming.

There is a lot of information that leads us to believe that volcanoes do have an effect on global warming. Volcanoes release SO2, Cl2, HCl, H2o, Ash, and CO2 into the atmosphere. Over the past 100 years, the earth has warmed about one degree Farenheit.Methane gas is the second largest cause of greenhouse gases in our environment. Many factors cause methane gas to be released into the environment. Most of the commonly known contributors responsible for releasing methane are man-made. However, recently scientists believe cattle may actually play a large role in contributing to the release of methane into the environment. Both of these gases and materials released due to natural causes act as an insulator and slowly but surely make our planet warm up.

The second discussion we had was a total contradiction our first opinion. This stated that ” Global warming was due to humans influence on our planet and due to our mean actions” Our influences and mean actions i am referring to is the over use and large quantity burning of our fossil fuels, which is releasing large quantities of CO2 into our atmosphere and also the major increase in deforestation on our planet which is allowing there be a larger percentage of carbon dioxide and other green house gases stay in our atmosphere!! Instead of cutting down these trees we should be replanting way more than actually was cut down because trees and plants in my eyes now after them lectures seem to be our only Saviour ant the only thing to stop those detrimental effect due to global warming on the world from occurring.

MY CONCLUSION FROM THESE TWO DISCUSSION POINTS…..

I believe honestly that natural causes such as cattle and volcanoes etc, play a roll in this major issue of global warming but to be perfectly honest with you, its influence is so small it’s not worth talking about but on the other hand our civilization is the major contributor to these green house gases which is clearly causing global warming, we are doing this by using our motor vehicles everyday which is burning large quantities of fossil fuels which when used in combustion carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide are released into our atmosphere acting as a great insulator for our planet, gradually making our earths temperatures increase!!!

These temperatures from Ireland’s point of view is seen as a great thing because Ireland is seen my natives as been a cold place and they think that if global warming keeps increasing hopefully Ireland will have a great climate, such as spain etc and due to this the Irish will save loads because they wont have to spend a major quantity of there money on going on summer holidays!!! This is totally stupid thinking because by the stage it reaches this point, the major cities around the world would be flooded and the places such as Spain which had very hot climates during the summer would be way too hot to live in and both the north and south poles will by totally melted.

ALL I WANT YOU TO TAKE FROM THIS BLOG IS DON’T ALLOW OUR PLANET BE DESTROYED BY THE STUPID IRISH I TALK ABOUT IN THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH  😀 😀 😀 🙂

Ireland’s reliance on the British energy source!!! :(

From todays lecture i have discovered how Ireland as a nation are intending to create there electrical energy necessary for this country to develop in relation to peoples expectations in future generations!!! The way they intend to do so is by setting up a connector between England and Ireland which would allow us use the electricity generated by Britian,s proposed 10 newly created nuclear plants. This puts Ireland in the same situation as they fought for many years ago, once again relying on the English for one more of those vital sources which makes our clocks tick and makes us independent as a nation.

I think Ireland has the creativity and necessary skills required to build these nuclear power plants and we as a nation could sell our surplus energy to other countries making us a exporter of energy rather than an importer of energy, resulting in us not relying on any country and making us more interdependent as a nation.

England on the other hand have named a huge expansion of nuclear power as it named 10 sites where new power stations could be built.The first is set to be operational by 2018 and, by 2025, nuclear electricity generation could amount to around 40% of new energy provision.Nine of the new sites are in England, including three in Cumbria, with the 10th in Anglesey, North Wales.

From the previous paragraph it shows the advancement the English as a nation are making while the Irish again are the people on the ditches, we sooner rather than later should start considering nuclear energy as our main source of energy because nuclear power generation does emit relatively low amounts of carbon dioxide. The emissions of green house gases and therefore the contribution of nuclear power plants to global warming is therefore relatively little compared to coal burning power stations also this technology is readily available, it does not have to be developed first and also it is possible to generate a high amount of electrical energy in one single plant. The energy created by one of these power plants are significantly the same as three wind farms or four solar sites.

I have choose not to talk about renewable sources of energy in this blog such as wind etc because much advancement has to be made in these areas to make them have the ability to produce as much energy as these coal burning power stations and these magical nuclear power plants. In my opinion i can only see Ireland advancing as a nation if the set up at least three nuclear plants around Ireland!!!