Some important areas are quite difficult to understand. Science, economics, politics are often quite difficult to comprehend and yet are central to decisions that are made by others about our lives.
To what extent do you think that it is your duty as a citizen to be 'informed'? Are you informed? How do you get to be informed about serious issues? To what extent do you think that you should leave the complicated decisions up to others ?
One part of making development sustainable is by speaking to people and getting their opinions and what they would recommend in order to make it sustainable. Say if you are planning a development in an area which is rural or in a small village in Africa and you want to make it sustainable you will need to inform the locals and get their knowledge on the area and skills in order to make it successful. Without informing these people of your intentions and what you want to do you could make the development a disaster and could make the environment and quality of life worse. In the 21st century I think everyone should have a voice and say in decisions involving their country and even more in what is happening in their local area or community. Without a voice to be heard people are basically robots being told what to do and not having a choice or say in anything which affects their lives.
Even though some of the decisions that need to be made can be hard to make and people may not have a clue at all about the decision or the impacts they should be provided with the information so they can make a decision which has a positive impact. Although this doesn’t occur in some countries in the world as they are a communist state and don’t have no say in the matter and I see these people as robots. Even though in recent years America has decided some of these countries need to be like America and have attempted to change them either through political ways or by war. Typical America really thinking they are the best thing since sliced bread!.
In England where I have lived all my life I do think that as a citizen of the country who has lived here all my life I do think that I should be informed about events and decisions which affect the country and local area as I am living there. Although I don’t think that people who have lived here for under 5 years should have a voice in our country as they have only been here for a limited time and I don’t think these people will know what is best for the country or their local area at this point. Saying that I think that I should be informed about everything that goes on in the country there are some issues which I will not find out or be informed about. These are though for very good reasons such as for national security so if MI5 decided to tell everyone the intelligence they had then there would be a major threat to national security. There are also many political and economic issues which we should be informed about such as what is going on around the world which involves our country and economically. I think that everyone would like to be informed that England are now in a record high debt as it is just nice to know that we are completely f**ked for generations to come. Some exceptions apply here though that there are some things which we can’t be informed of for reasons of security or it makes the current government look bad. So when lets say a council is planning to improve the local area and are going to invest in money the area they should look towards the community to let them know what need or want to improve the area. Although if they wanted to make the development or improvement sustainable citizens might not be the best people to speak to as you would need someone qualified to tell and show you how to do something like that. But I still think that people should be involved in the decisions though sometimes you need professionals or qualified people to either guide people and make the right decision for the area and environment.
I would say that I am a fairly informed people about events going on in the country, county and town that I live in. this is because I regularly look at www.bbc.co.uk/news which gives me news not only about the country but also the world so it allows me to keep up to date with issues going on. I also read a national newspaper which I find interesting though most people properly don’t and think its crap (you will properly guess what newspaper I am talking about if not then it’s the Sun) and read the local newspaper which gets put through my door at home every week (when I was living at home). These are all ways that I keep informed about issues and other things which are going on in the country and in my local area. I also like to keep informed about my old area which I moved from 3 years ago and I know that there is some interesting development going on there. It has one of the largest regeneration schemes going on there which will create new jobs, houses, 3 schools, high quality open spaces and many other things all for the tidy sum of £4 billion or so they say. This is a major development which is going to be made environmentally sustainable and people have been informed about this going on but they haven’t had a say on the project and has all been done under their noses. There was some opposition to the project for a while one of the main arguments the amount of traffic that will be created in an already congested area. Websites for this development are: http://www.barnet.gov.uk/regeneration-cricklewood and http://www.brentcrosscricklewood.com/.
Being informed about serious issues are usually found out by people and myself from the media as there are many different types media which people use and can be spread to a wide audience very quickly. I find out serious issues mainly from the media from things such as the TV, Radio, Internet and newspapers which are very easy to access that is why it is easy to get informed from these sources. Other ways I have been informed about serious issues is sometimes by the post but this is rarely when people send letters to inform or put leaflets depending on the target audience. As I work for the royal mail (don’t talk to me about the company I know it’s sh*t and I agree!) they have sent me letters in the last few months giving me information on the strike and encouraging me and other employees not to strike so it wouldn’t damage the company. This is a situation where I had a say in the issue and was informed because it was to do with my own job so it was very relevant to me and was the employees choice and idea to use this course of action. I also get told about some issues from my parents who find out stuff which I don’t know or don’t find out first in the news and media which are relevant to the country or local area.
I said that I think that everyone should have a voice in decisions that involve the country or local area they live in because it affects where they live and their life. But I also agree that there has to be exceptions to this as not everyone will know the in’s and out’s of what the decision is being made about and might make a bad decision which will have a negative impact. Such as if you were planning to build houses in a local area and everyone had a say in where they would be built you would need people to know the sites very well and the negatives and positives of each site. So if you had a Brownfield and Greenfield site in order to be sustainable the Brownfield site would be the better bet but would cost more than the Greenfield site so just on hearing that people might pick the Greenfield because of fears of taxes going up in the local area. When the better decision would be on the Brownfield site as it is more sustainable and better for the local environment. So even if you give people a decision on complicated decisions most people will look to just make everything easy and better for themselves which is very selfish rather than look at the wider picture. This is why although everyone should have a voice in complicated decisions sometimes you have to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and think that sometimes decisions should to a group of professionals or more qualified people. But in some complicated decisions people should be informed and have a say because after all we live in a democracy.
