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Key Learning:

After this week’s lecture and workshops on climate change I have learned about:

• What climate change is, that climate is the average weather at a given point and time of year, over a long period (typically 30 years). We expect the weather to change a lot from day to day, but we expect the climate to remain relatively constant.
• Evidence of climate change is collected by: weather recordings , ice cores , rocks and fossils and analysis of pollen and trees.
• The impacts of climate change
• The Greenhouse effect
• Global Warming and weather
• Politics and Global Warming

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice:

Prior to this week’s input on Climate change I did not have a great deal of knowledge on the topic however after both lecture and workshops from Louise and Andrew, I now feel that I have expanded my knowledge and can see the benefits of teaching children the impacts of climate change.  Also before the inputs I believe that I had been quite ignorant to climate change and the effects it has on our planet.

I found the practical workshop with Andrew to be most effective as it allowed us to carry out a few different experiments with regards to climate change such as making a cloud in a jar and the weather front experiment. Both experiments were very easy to carry out, engaging and would be perfect in a classroom.

Furthermore, after calculating my carbon footprint – which was larger than expected – I have taken into account my own personal effects on our planet and have become more aware on how to reduce my carbon footprint.

Areas of interest to explore further/develop:

• I found that using the WWF website to calculate my carbon footprint effective and I believe that using it with children would be easy and also effective as it illustrates the areas which impact our carbon footprint such as food, home and travel.
• Explore further reading and research regarding this theme.

In 2009, the Scottish Parliament unanimously passed the Climate Change Act, which aimed to reduce emissions from 1990 levels by 42% by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. The Act hopes for the public body to act in the way best calculated to contribute to the delivery of the targets and also in a way that it considers is most sustainable. The Act is comprised of several parts:

• Part 1 of the Act, creates the statutory framework for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in Scotland eg. The 2050 target.
• Part 2 of the Act contains provisions which will allow the Scottish Ministers to establish a Scottish Committee on Climate Change or to designate an existing body to exercise advisory functions should it be decided that this is appropriate.
• Part 3 places duties on the Scottish Ministers requiring that they report regularly to the Scottish Parliament on Scotland’s emissions and on the progress being made towards meeting the emissions reduction targets set in the Act.
• Part 4 places climate change duties on Scottish public bodies.
• The Act includes other provisions on climate change in Part 5, including adaptation, forestry, energy efficiency and waste reduction. Public engagement is a significant feature of Part 6 of the Act, which also includes provision on carbon assessment.

The Act has impacted our lifestyle choices in many ways on of which being the carrier bag charges. Legislation was passed by Scottish Parliament, on 20th October 2014, that requires ALL retailers (food and non-food) to charge a minimum of 5p for each new single-use carrier bag .The aim being to encourage bag re-use. This new piece of legislation has had a positive impact as the number of plastic bags handed out in stores was slashed by 80% – the equivalent of 650 million carriers – in the first year of Scotland’s 5p charge – the net carbon saving is more than 2,500 tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. Personally I have seen a great change in the way people use plastic bags now, most of my friends and family re-use bags everyday instead of buying a bag with each shop. Furthermore, now schools are making children more aware of their carbon footprint and also by taking actions eg. Eco committees , to reduce carbon footprint within the school environment.

After taking the WWF ‘How big is your environmental footprint?’ I was shocked with my carbon footprint result as it was much larger than I thought it would have been at 180%. The quiz asked a number of questions, some of which I was not aware even related/ influenced my carbon footprint such as clothes, beauty products and food.  The quiz also provides some useful tips after completing such as buy more seasonal foods and take up cycling or walk to work.

 

Sources;

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Environment/climatechange/scotlands-action/climatechangeact

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-34575364

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This week in class we spoke about climate change. Before the class I thought the same as most people think: that climate is the weather. I learned though, that climate is the average weather at a given point and time of year, over a long period (typically 30 years). Whereas the weather changes daily.

After the lecture in the morning, we had a workshop with Andrew where we learned more about climate change and its effects on the earth. We saw how the water cycle works as well as how clouds and tornados are formed. I found this workshop very interesting as we got to see the experiments but we also spoke about how we could do them in a classroom setting with children.

In louise’s class we learned about what politics has to do with global warming. We watched a video which showed the amount of emissions which countries have given off over a series of time and it was quite astounding the rate that China’s emissions have been growing. We also learned how countries can trade oil etc for the right to give off more emissions which I was quite surprised that this is allowed.

Climate change is a topic that I have had many previous misconceptions including mixing up the definitions of “climate” and “weather” as climate occurs over a long period of time and is constant whereas the weather on a particular day may change several times. Another misconception I had was the lack of public acceptance of climate change and in fact, many of the public question climate scientists and do not think it is a real issue. This is addressed in Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) as a UK study showed that only about 75% of the public accepted climate change (BBC 2010 and Spence et al 2010 cited by Dillon and Hobson). This result came as a shock to me as I believe climate change is a real, urgent and current issue with the most visual evidence being the melting of polar ice caps, which conveys the severity of the effect of greenhouse gases on our environment as a cause of climate change.

The most significant lesson I learned was how much of an impact was created by the choice of terminology surrounding climate change and how this affects the audience. Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) present a further UK study that showed the term “climate change” to create more of an alarmingly awareness of what is happening to our planet more so than using “global warming” which did not arise concern. (CRED 2009 cited in Dillion and Hobson, in press, p.6). Therefore, this made me re-evaluate how I first intended to teach this topic to children and to be consistent and clear with my terminology to inspire the desired acceptance and understanding of climate change.

After conducting the carbon footprint test which resulted in a result of 93%, it has become evident to me that awareness needs to be increased on the origin of the food I buy and consume in order to consume locally produced food, this will reduce my carbon footprint as the food will have been sustainably sourced and so the source can be repeatedly used for generations to come and not being wasted or not benefiting the environment. This action can simply be enacted by taking the time to check the label of food I buy and generally becoming more aware of where my local supermarkets source their food from. Other actions I can easily participate in is taking part in Earth Hour annually to join the communal effort of helping to become a greener planet.

References

Wals, A. and Corcoran, P (eds) (2012) Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change. [online] Netherlands: Wagenigen

Welcome to blogs.glowscotland.org.uk – Glow Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This weeks input on climate change really opened my eyes as to whats going on in the world. I was shocked after seeing some of the visuals on the build up of CO2. 

Before this weeks input I had not realised how bad the pollution in the air is. During the spring and the summer many plants can absorb some of the CO2 during photosynthesis. However after summer there is a build up of CO2 and although this change is expected, we are seeing a increase each year in the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is contributing to the long term trend in the rise of global temperatures.

Another thing that I hadn’t been aware of was the amount of carbon monoxide that the southern hemisphere releases in to the atmosphere during summer.

This carbon monoxide build up is not as talked about as much as the CO2 build up, even though it is a harmful gas to not only the environment but humans as well.

I think because Climate change is something we do not always see the effects of, unless we were to watch a documentary about the icecaps melting in the antarctic, I think many people often forget about it. Also because it is something which is happening over a long period of time and changes are happening gradually this is another reason people forget about the importance of it. I think the media need to be publishing more stories and visual images like the ones above to show people the harm that is being created.

I also hadn’t been aware of how rapidly we have started using up our carbon budget. To not exceed 2 degrees celsius of warming means we cannot realise more than 3 trillion tones of CO2. However by 2011 we had used 65% already and if emissions continue to rise with the historical trend, we will have exceeded our budget of 3 trillion by 2033. I found this quite a scary fact and it is obvious that more needs to be done to prevent this.

When looking into ways to reduce my carbon foot print, something that I hand not considered before was my diet. I had never thought about how the things I eat can have a large impact on the planet. I will try to at more veg and slightly less meat and I will also try to make sure I purchase more locally grown food whenever possible, rather than imported fruit and veg from supermarkets. There were also a number of tips on how to make your car journeys more efficient, which I spoke about in my direct study task, that I will now take into consideration when driving.

I think it is important that children learn about climate change as, without scaring them about the dangers that are arising, they still need to be aware of what is going on in the world. If they all change 1 thing about their current lifestyle, wether it be recycling more or putting a jumper on instead of putting the heating on, all of these small actions can make a difference. After all, it will be their generation and the generations after them that will be the most affected by climate change, so it is important that they are well educated on it and know what they can do to prevent it.

After completing the carbon emissions test, my result was 162% of my share of carbon emission, which I was very shocked by.

I had thought that my result would’ve been much lower, as my family always try to recycle as much as we can, don’t waste food, use energy saving lightbulbs and insulation etc. However I think the main reason my carbon footprint was so high was my travelling. As I live in a small remote town with a lack of public transport, I have to drive almost everywhere. The bus services are very infrequent and unreliable and we do not have a train station, therefore even if I was to try and be more green by getting public transport and get the train, I would still have to drive to the nearest train station which is in the next town.

Although it may not be realistic for me to quit driving and use public transport all the time, after doing some research I found that there are a few things I could do to make my car journeys more efficient and reduce my carbon footprint. Making sure your tires are properly inflated can can increase your petrol milage by 3%, which would mean I wouldn’t have to use as much petrol. Planning my driving routes to avoid traffic as much as possible would also reduce my carbon footprint as being stuck in traffic wastes petrol and creates more CO2. Something else which I hadn’t considered was my style of driving, unnecessary acceleration and speeding wastes petrol, releases more CO2 and can reduce your miles to the gallon by 33%. These are all things that I will take into consideration when driving in the future, as well as taking public transport whenever it is possible.

I live in a town in the west coast of Scotland called Kilmarnock. It is a relatively small place, however is the second largest town in Ayrshire. In the town centre, there are over 60 shops there (although now since some have closed down, about 30 of them are now either pound shops or card shops).  There is also a cinema as well as a leisure centre called ‘The Galleon’ which has a swimming pool, gym, ice rink and games halls.

There are 12 primary schools and 4 secondary schools spread around the area of Kilmarnock. I attended Kilmarnock Academy for 6 years between 2009-2015. This school is the only in Scotland to have educated two nobel prize winners. There are a few community centres in Kilmarnock where various events and clubs are held.

In Kilmarnock we have both a bus and a train station and so you can travel to anywhere using just public transport! The train is a popular form to travel in when going to Glasgow and they are currently working on a bus route from Kilmarnock to Silverburn shopping centre which is also set to be extremely popular.

The Palace Theatre has been a huge part of Kilmarnock’s community for over 150 years, it opened as a corn exchange a first but then converted to a theatre only 40 years later. Here is where I and countless others have performed in shows. I actually performed in the 150th anniversary of the theatre as part of East Ayrshire Youth Theatre, a drama club for youths in east Ayrshire.

We have many parks in Kilmarnock, the Kay, Dean and Howard. The Kay Park has been done up in the recent years and has since reopened the Burns Monument centre which is a popular place to get married.  The Dean park is a great tourist attraction due to the history of the Dean Castle and the range of wildlife and animals it has.

Kilmarnock was the home to Johnnie Walker, the large whiskey producer until the factory got shut down in 2012. It is the most largely distributed brand of blended scotch whiskey in the world.

The population of Kilmarnock is 46340 and the population density is 3,152.5 inh./km² .

The air pollution level in Kilmarnock is currently sitting at the low score of 1.