Adam - East of England Champ 08

Wellies, Hitting my head against a brick wall no more and Superheroes!

2008-10-13T17:45:00Z

Hi, Adam here- wanted to just keep you up to speed with my environmental campaigning/journey / whatever else it could be called. There's 3 real parts to this blog- My Visit to the Fens, Progress on School's Eco Garden (Finally!) and This Saturday's visit to Cambridge.So that's why this blog's divided into 3 mini blogs, or just because I've just been studying French- le trois blogs mini ! My Visit to the Great Fen Project. (The Wellies part of the title) To be honest, I did...(read more)

The Physchological Benefits of Apples

2008-09-25T17:53:00Z

One day I will get into the habit of writing regular, normal blogs, but now I'll just stick to my sporadic off the wall type ones! Apples. We all know the benefits of eating fruit, and of a healthy lifestyle, and I'm sure that we've all heard the "5 a day" slogan many, many times before. So thankfully I'm not going to harp on about that. Neither am I going to write some kind of New Scientist Style article on a new chemical endorphin found in apples. Actually, I'm talking...(read more)

I'm Back! Part 1 Featuring Cake, Celebs, Hitting My Head Against A Rather Stubborn Brick Wall

2008-08-08T21:10:00Z

OK, I'm sorry. I've done something that's very rare for me...kept quiet. But I'm back, and hopefully going to tell all about my latest exploits.(Well, I say latest- but this starts in May and ends in August- so this can only be classed as latest if you can call news from the last 4 months "latest"?! lol Firstly, there was Sustainability East , a great event designed to celebrate Sustainability East's 10th Anniversary, and their renaming (they were previously known as...(read more)

I'm Back! Part 2 Featuring Celebration and Jubilation, A Stint of College Talks and Unpaid Labour

2008-08-08T21:00:00Z

This is the 2nd part of my "I'm Back" Blog- Check out "I'm Back! Part 1 *Featuring Cake, Celebs and Hitting my Head Against a Rather Stubborn Brick Wall" for the first. Celebration and Jubilation This year was my school's 50th Anniversary, and to celebrate, we held a fayre on our school field, with motorcycle display teams, vintage cars and live music. I thought this would be a brilliant event to get Footprint Friends along to. So after a couple of conversations with...(read more)

!GRAB! the world's attention

2008-04-01T18:08:00Z

If I was to hold a vote, I'm sure about 99.9% of my school would never have watched BBC Parliament. Or had been to watch a Shakespeare play. But why not? BBC Parliament deals with some pretty major issues such as the running of the entire country, and Shakespeare's plays are a bit like a modern action thriller, with blood, guts, murders and magic galore. Surely these should be popular items. The main issue is the presentation. We would probably all, if given a ten second choice with no information...(read more)

Mental Blocks

2008-04-01T17:51:00Z

There's always a period, no matter what you're doing, however committed you are, that everything seems to be going wrong. It's the point when you question why you are doing something, when you just want to crawl up and sleep for a while, when everything you do is half-hearted, if you do anything at all. This is the advantage of teamwork, when one person is disheartened, the others cheer them up, inspire them again, and help them face a challenge or situation with a new mind. Taking time...(read more)

"Historic Solutions" No.1

2008-03-18T18:43:00Z

OK, slight revision to plan,I'm going to do many famous leaders/figures rather than groups, unless I can think of a particularly funny line for a group. So, to start with, I have chosen the Romans, from which many great quotes have originated. Mark Antony-"Friends, Romans, Countrymen-Lend me your feet. I wish to reduce your carbon footprints, I come to bury them, not to praise them. Julius Caesar-"I came (on public transport) I saw (the excessive use of fossil fuels) I conquered (in...(read more)

Climate Change-A Satirical History (An Intro to "Historic Solutions")

2008-03-14T19:32:00Z

Basically, My idea is, over a couple of blogs to create a historical time-line, with me putting what I think different cultures, kingdoms and people would have made of climate change. This is following on from a piece of Drama, where I "persuaded" my friend to let me do a history of the world in 5 minutes-very funny it turned out to be as well (cheers Dan) (dinoman564). I could have put it on a forum, but I knew that I would hog it, so thought to keep it on my blog, but feel free to criticize...(read more)

Alistair's Budget, Is It Enough?

2008-03-12T18:37:00Z

To be honest, reading about the new budget today, I was rather disappointed. Though some changes have been made, such as raising car and aeroplane tax, it really didn't seem like that much of a step forward. We were left with infuriatingly long times to wait before changes take place, and were fobbed off with the wishy-washy statement that the government would force a charge for plastic carrier bags only if the problem was not dealt with seriously. This may be a typical government statement,...(read more)

Stereotypes-and (EX)Stereotypes!

2008-03-11T16:25:00Z

Once again a controversial issue-but one I'm quite interested in.

How many people, when thinking of "eco friendly" or "going green" immediately thought of politicians, protests and "hippies"? Unfortunately, though I know this isa not true, this is tyhe picture conjured up, especially with the general youth. Though this is slightly changing, its not enough. Those who want to make a difference need to break this stereotype, making climate change an engaging subject and relating to "the hoodie generation" how it affects everything, and that its not all "boring" politics. The use of popular media is certainly a big step towards this. Things such as music (Jack), fashion (Hayleigh) the internet (Patrick and Akhil). These can be coupled with media that be used in many ways, such as art (Pippa), presentations (Ziana and Shirley) (useful for assemblies and talks), video (Jess), and my futuristic newspapers (not really sure when they could be used-I suppose as posters/teaching aids?!)

Innovation, Creation, Action- The Magic 3!

Break The Mould, Keep the Planet

Attitudes

2008-03-09T21:41:00Z

OK, well I may have only waited about 15 min to publish my second blog but what the hey!

Whenever I go to Climate Change Events, there's always one message which I'm particularly keen to spread.

This is that its not just government policies that need to change but people's attitudes. At the present, people are far too willing to pay say a samll fee to a charit5y or organisation that does the work for them and that's it. This may be still achieving the same result, but as my Drama teacher says its not just the result, but equally the process. If people actually take action themselves, such as writing to MPs, schools, businesses ect then the actual companies/organisations will be given the public's exact opinions, rather than one charity or organisation. I know this may be a bit controversial, and I know that these companies that offset carbon ect are doing a brilliant job, but in the end the instinct for paying money to these good causes will not be passed on, but if people have a proactive attitude then this will be continued through the generations, helping to create a get up and go world which understands the personal sense of achievement of bringing about change. One such experience of this is being in my school's eco council, and instigating recycling. I would have got the same result if I had just supported the group in getting recycling, but now can truly appreciate what it feels and what it takes to instigate this, and am now more likely to use a system I set up myself.

Wander how other people feel about this?

Hello Feet!

2008-03-09T21:14:00Z

Just would like to say a HUGE thank you for footprint friends in hosting the champions, and in DEFRA for creating the competition that has already given me so many great experiences. Strangely, I still can't actually believe what I did, where I went, and who I met. To be honest, I know a lot of the Champions wrote diaries and took notes, but I wasn't so organised, and really just wanted to soak up the atmosphere rather than worry about a diary. My kind of diary are the photos my Dad and I took, which I will hopefully load onto the blog soon, but unfortunately the pics of me outside No.10 were on a memory card which has just decided to develop a fault. (GRRR)

I'm afraid that this blog will now be a large output of my life, with rants, raves,and all manner of writings appearing on it.

Personally, I'm rather mad and wacky, enthusiastic, bit of a boffin at school, super busy with numerous clubs (rugby,ballroom and latin dancing, amateur dramatics, family history, creative writing, eco-club (Global Action), and as well as normal teenage stuff such as xbox, cinema, and meeting my mates...Phew!) but, I think most importantly, I'm extremely passionate about our Earth, but whereas Patrick is looking at the moral side, I prefer the politics and the sociology as well as loving looking as historical attitudes as well as changing current day ones.

Think that's enough for one blog, but my next blog will be on Attitudes-Stay Tuned and Keep Watching!

Adam Dyster