Please do not ignore how important this subject is, it may one day save our planet. Education is the most powerful tool in saving the planet and helping us sustain ourselves and further generations. Environmental Studies has not just empowered students, but also changed the way they think and act about their education, their lives, and where they live. For me it's been the biggest page turner in my life, and without it I wouldn't be where I am now. This subject hasn't just helped me, it has helped countless other young adults in the UK find their passion in life and set them on their path for life, who are we to deprive others of such an opportunity? Furthermore it has actually encouraged students to go into STEM subjects at university, something that the government actually would like more people to do. Whilst some think that Environmental Studies overlaps with the other sciences, i can assure you the approach to similar topics is far from the same and each take their own angles and focus on completely different areas. This is a subject that deserves our attention, our care, and our devotion. We only have one earth, we only have one chance at this life, and how are we supposed to understand how we are affecting our home if we are not educated. If you would like to help us please sign this petition and email ofqual to speak your mind on the matter, we also have a facebook page up and running where we will post updates, important information, and some Environmental Studies related news just to show how much of an impact and how important this subject is! Email: [email protected]

Forcing wild animals to perform in circuses causes needless suffering. Beautiful wild Animals – like tigers, lions and zebras – are shunted around the country in trailers, kept alone in small cages, and forced to perform. The best circuses have long abandoned this cruel practice and wow their audiences with talented acrobats and clowns. We aim to finally tackle those few dodgy circuses that still exploit wild animals. Animal welfare experts like the RSPCA and the British Veterinary Association all back a ban on circus animal cruelty and they and many other animal welfare organisations have done fantastic work campaigning for a ban on wild animals in circuses. We were expecting a ban to be announced in the Queen's speech - but this was recklessly dropped at the last hour. For more information: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dismay-as-proposed-ban-on-circus-animals-is-left-out-of-queens-speech-9487481.html

Fracking is known to cause Sink Holes, and even earthquakes. It uses many chemicals which leach into the ground and our water supplies, and some of which are known to cause cancer. Taken from Clean Water Action "Fracking: The Dangers Fracking uses a toxic chemical cocktail known as fracking fluid. Companies using fracking fluid have resisted disclosing the contents of fracking fluid, claiming the information is proprietary. However, samples from well sites indicate that the fluid contains: formaldehyde, acetic acids, citric acids, and boric acids, among hundreds of other contaminants. It has recently come to light that, despite the illegality of the action, companies have been caught using diesel fuel in the Fracking fluid. Fracking removes millions of gallons of precious freshwater from the water cycle. Each well uses between two and five million gallons of locally-sourced freshwater which will be permanently contaminated by ground contaminants and toxic chemicals contained in the fracking fluid. About half of this water returns to the surface, where it is stored in steel containers until it can be injected deep underground in oil and gas waste wells. No one is entirely sure what happens to the other half of the water used in the process. Our best guess is that the water remains underground, though there are indications that at least some of this toxic cocktail makes its way back into the water supply. Fracking causes a range of environmental problems. At least eight other states have reported surface, ground, and drinking water contamination due to Fracking. In Pennsylvania, over 1,400 environmental violations have been attributed to deep gas wells utilizing Fracking practices. Pollution from truck traffic, chemical contamination around storage tanks, and habitat fragmentation and damage from drilling to environmentally sensitive areas have are all related to Fracking.

According to the Huffington Post Boris Johnson accuses the Ukip voting as 'a peasants revolt'! Therefore, he clearly sees us all as peasants. because of this he should resign as the mayor of London.

We feel the BBC News coverage of the European and Local Elections has, to date, been unfairly biased against the Green Party. This bias is not only evident in the almost complete absence of coverage of the Green Party during the European and Local Election results, but also prior to this during the campaign for the elections on Thursday 22nd May and in the months since. Whilst we understand that UKIP made gains in the Local Elections, it has gone largely unreported that the Green Party currently have a total of 162 Councillors and are now the official opposition in Liverpool, Solihull, Islington, Lewisham, and Norwich (15 councillors to Labour's 21). They gained two seats in Bristol, one with over 47% of the vote and retained a third seat, bringing the total to 6. In addition to their many councillors, the Green Party also have one MP, one member of the House of Lords, three MEPs, three MSPs (Scottish Greens), two London Assembly members, as well as a Green-led Council in Brighton & Hove. UKIP don't have any MSPs, London Assembly members, or run a Council. In the European Election coverage the Green Party were only very sporadically and reluctantly mentioned by the BBC. A representative of the Green Party (Leader Natalie Bennett) was not interviewed until 2:30am (26/5/14) on BBC One's Vote 2014, members of the other four parties were interviewed multiple times prior to this. The Today programme (R4) news summary at 8:30am (26/5/14) mentioned the Lib Dems in 5th place, but there was no mention of the Greens, let alone their being in 4th. These are just a couple of examples of the blatant refusal by the BBC to acknowledge the Green Party's successes. Seeing as the results of the European Elections placed the Greens ahead of the Lib Dems they should surely be treated as a Major Party, especially as UKIP are treated as such whilst not having had an MP until four months after these elections took place. The Green's membership has increased by 45% since January. They should receive coverage reflective of their successes and a chance to share the political floor with Farage et al not only during and in the lead-up to elections, but also in the interim period on programmes such as Newsnight and Question Time and in any Leaders' Debates. Incidentally, from the beginning of January 2014 until 22nd May 2014 Question Time has featured five UKIP representatives and only one Green representative (Caroline Lucas). Most despicable of all was how, in much of the BBC's coverage of the election results, the Green Party were consistently lumped in with the 'Others' category and often removed altogether from statistical evidence. This is an insult to the 8% who voted for them - 1.2million members of the British public. The BBC prides itself on painting a fair and unbiased picture of events, however in this case we feel they have not done so. All parties should receive fair, impartial coverage, whether they be Left, Right, or Centre. This apparent news blackout of the Green Party by a much respected taxpayer-funded corporation is incredibly disturbing and must not be allowed to continue. *This petition has been edited to keep its content up to date with the changing political climate*

A few days ago, SSE reported annual profits of £1.55 BILLION. At a time when more than half a million struggling households face eviction, and almost a million people are forced to use food banks or starve, when inflation has risen yet again, when working families account for one in four households living in poverty, and 3 out of 4 claims for Housing Benefit are made by working people, SSE's profits, and the 3% increase in dividends paid to shareholders, are an obscenity. Last week, E-On was fined £12 MILLION, for mis-selling energy packages, making it the 5th of the Big Six to be fined for this appalling practice. In total, Ofgem has imposed fines of £100 MILLION on the energy companies, £39 MILLION of which relates to their failure to comply with the rules governing energy sales. But their unscrupulous practices don't end there: those who choose not to pay their energy bills by direct debit are subject to higher charges than those who do, and those with pre-payment meters pay the highest rates of all. Worse still, of the 420,000 pre-payments meters installed in the UK in the last year, almost 25% were installed without the householder's permission. Of the households with pre-payment meters that 'voluntarily disconnect', which is an energy company euphemism for 'have no money to pay for energy', 44% have at least one resident who is either disabled or has a long-term health problem. There can be no doubt that ordinary people in the UK are suffering on many fronts. It has been said many times in the past that people were having to choose between heating and eating, but the situation is now so dire that many can afford neither heat nor food. Austerity isn't just biting, it is eating us alive. And yet, we know that there are so-called celebrities involved in tax avoidance schemes that deprive the economy of MULTI MILLIONS OF POUNDS, and corporations that exploit tax loopholes to avoid paying BILLIONS OF POUNDS. But all around, people are fighting against injustice with petitions and direct action, targeting the DWP, corporations, AND the energy companies. We must keep fighting if we want to improve our quality of life and SAVE LIVES. We need affordable energy and the Big Six will NEVER, EVER provide it. Even the small, independent companies won't provide it, as they, too, have shareholders. The only way that energy will be affordable is to have a nationalised energy sector, devoid of shareholders. Please keep promoting my petition and encouraging people to sign it. Together we CAN make a difference

It is now 5 years since the Inquiry into the Iraq war was announced, 3 years since the the hearings were completed, and and to date it has reportedly cost £10 million. It is a national scandal that Sir John Chilcot’s findings have still not been published and we call upon The Iraq Inquiry for the report’s immediate publication, including full disclosure of all communications between Tony Blair and George Bush, regardless of political expediency and personal interest. Surveys suggest that the Iraq war has claimed up to 250.000 lives, cost billions of pounds, and its aftermath continues a toll of death years after the foreign troops have left. The legacy of the war has critically undermined any moral authority that the United Kingdom seeks to exert in international affairs as well as intensifying both national and global insecurity. The vested interests of a few individuals in further prevarication must no longer override the moral right of British citizens and the world at large to know the sequence of events and culpabilities of individuals responsible for this disastrous episode. If you believe this report is long overdue, please sign my petition.

The transparency and accountability of the ICO is under the spotlight because section 14(1) VEXATIOUS decisions are being handed down on a whim by the ICO/Upper Tribunal and First Tier Tribunal and hundreds of rogue Public Authorities.Ditto for section 12(4)(b( of the EIR Act 2004. All these vexatious decisions are being handed out based on a court authority GIA/3037/2011 Dransfield v ICO and Devon County Council ,which is still before the European Court of Human Rights Section 14(1) Vexatious decisions should be a LAST RESORT but since the Dransfield case decision in Jan 2013 it has been used as a FIRST CHOICE Nutcracker.

On 22 May 2014 GP's are to vote on whether to introduce appointment charges (estimated £10 - £25 per visit). If this vote is passed it could mean the end of our NHS, free at the point of use. The NHS is currently being dismantled under the guise of an ineffective system and more consumer choice. Increased GP workload and patient demand driving this issue is largely as a result of government policy, hospital closures and privatisation. GP income has fallen by design and patient charges are not the answer. "How many times are we going to fall into the traps set by our political masters?" asks Gurdave Gill, GP Partner writing on the Pulse Today website. "Patient charges are NOT the answer. User charges deter the sick and poor as much as the 'worried well'. Expensive and bureaucratic to collect, evidence shows patients delay seeking medical advice when user charges are introduced. Delay in diagnosis can cause significant harm. If we know this to be fact, to introduce charges appears to suggest that our incomes are more important than any potential harm to the patients. Is this ethical? "The current crisis in Primary care has been manufactured to create a pressure from GPs for charges. [...] We should be demanding increased resources from Government and not our patients. The NHS returned £5bn underspend to the treasury in the last 3 years. The cost of the purchaser-provider split exceeds £10bn pa yet delivers absolutely no patient gain at roughly the entire cost of primary care! {...] We need to identify the correct target and demand our representative bodies are more effective rather than the incompetence/collusion with Government we have seen in recent past. The minority of pro-privatisation GPs leading the call for charges need to be recognised for what they are. We must not be persuaded by the 'greedy and dims' amongst us.” And how about that consumer choice? Right now we have the best of both, individual private healthcare and tax-payer funded. Both are a form of 'paid for' healthcare, one is paid for by the individual, the other paid for and negotiated collectively. If the asset strip continues we will only have the most expensive poorly-negotiated option open to any of us. That is no choice at all. UPDATE The BMA's current position on this motion as outlined to one of our members, obviously, it would be naive to rest on these laurels: "The BMA's current position is not in favour of charging patients for GP appointments. Introducing charging would undermine the basis of the NHS; that healthcare is free at the point of use, and patients receive care based on their clinical need. A fee charging system could require an expensive bureaucracy to collect money from patients. It is also possible that the charges may deter vulnerable patients from seeing their GP which could lead to delays in treatment. However, there will be a motion debated at the Local Medical Committee (LMC) conference in York later this month. If the motion is carried, this does not mean it will become BMA policy. BMA Policy is decided at our Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) in July [ed- It's actually Sunday 22 - Thursday 26 June 2014] and motions are proposed by individual branch of practice conferences (e.g. GPs, consultants, junior doctors etc) and submitted for debate by geographical divisions. It would require further consideration by the BMA's leadership and the BMA's Annual Representative Meeting in July. It is understandable that GPs are looking at raising these kind of ideas, given the enormous pressure on GP services. Many GP practices are struggling from a combination of rising patient demand and falling funding that ministers have failed to recognise. However, the BMA feels that we don't need a complicated and unfair charging system to be introduced for GP appointments. We need the government to provide the resources to enable GPs to deliver the care that their patients need. I hope this is helpful and that it clarifies the BMA position for you." Links: Facebook page that inspired this petition: https://www.facebook.com/healthcharge Pulse Today - GP leaders to vote on whether to support patient charges for appointments: http://bit.ly/1lrI1gg LMC Conference - Full Agenda: http://bit.ly/fullagenda BMC/GPC: http://bit.ly/bmcandgpc BMC Annual Meeting: http://bma.org.uk/working-for-change/arm-2014-info Wessex LMC: http://bit.ly/aboutWessex

It is, of course, right and proper that everyone should pay their due taxes, but by asking for these new powers it sets a worrying precedent. At the moment they can recover owed taxes once a court ruling has been obtained, but it seems they want to get rid of this restriction on their activity and be able to operate free from any legal ties. It is especially worrying that they are bringing this in under the Finance Bill 2015, mentioned in the Budget, but without any details. The government has issued a public Consultation Direct Recovery of Debts (DRD) seeking views on their proposals to introduce into the Finance Bill 2015 the right of HMRC to recover debts over £1,000 by direct access to the debtor's bank accounts. This Consultation paper reveals the full details and everyone should be very worried as this is an unbelievable threat to our civil liberties. At present, HMRC has to go to court to seize money owed and prove it is necessary. Under the new proposals, the 'debt' can simply be removed from the debtors account at the "click of a mouse" and the debtor will have just 14 days to appeal. The 'threshold' is stated at being £1,000 which can be made up over a range of smaller debts and can INCLUDE TAX CREDITS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE. But once power is included in the 2015 Finance Bill the threshold amount can be altered and could affect many thousands of individuals. More worryingly, this precedence could pave the way for other debts (eg council tax arrears) to be removed and for the period of debt to be shortened without further legislation; effectively giving HMRC free reign to raid our personal finances at their leisure. HMRC has a history of frequently making mistakes in their calculations and have to adjust and re-adjust tax assessments. If they have unrestricted access to bank accounts, there is a strong possibility they may well take out monies incorrectly. Please don't let this happen: it is too much power and no one, or government department should be above the law.

There is a suggestion that the BBC may be being used to promulgate propaganda in this affair, may not be unbiased or may be being coerced or influenced to serve one particular agenda. This suggestion should be investigated and BBC conduct explored in the light of their charter.

Sure Start Children's Centre services in Newcastle are facing a two thirds cut in funding over the next three years. This will mean closure of services, buildings, parents groups, activity for young children across the city. It will mean at least 100 jobs will be lost across the council and the voluntary sector. It will mean the opportunities for children and parents will continue to be worsened, following significant cuts already 2010, and the axing of the councils play and youth services last year. SSCCs in Newcastle are all rated Good and Outstanding by Ofsted, reach the vast majority of children under 5 and their families offering universal as well as targeted services. The council proposals:  For the three year budget cycle (2013 – 2016) - the cuts proposed equate to over £5 milllion (or approx. 65% of the total budget) The first £1 million savings have already been agreed, with a proposal for a further £1 million this year and then £3 million for the year 2015-16.   Overall the cuts since 2011 will equate to over 70% with the budget being reduced to less than £3 million from approximately £10 million in 2010-11.   The review of Sure Start and Early Years Services has now been incorporated with the Family Services Review which is being asked to cut £670,000 over the next two years out of budget of £2.3 million which is a 34% cut in services to the most vulnerable families, children and young people.   50% of these services are delivered by the council and 50% by the Community and Voluntary Sector. The city council have estimated that for the work they directly deliver this would equate to the lost of 63 full time equivalent posts (i.e. this will actually be more than 63 people losing their jobs as many jobs are part-time or may be job share) we can only estimate that the equivalent level of job cuts would be made by the Community and Voluntary sector meaning the job cuts proposed would be at least 126 full time posts (probably between 130 and 180 people losing their jobs)   The review has not identified which Sure Start Children’s Centres, Services, Buildings or staff will face cuts.   The councils review timetable includes: ·         April 2014 onwards: Options appraisal (looking with partners at what the cuts could like and coming up with proposals) ·         July 2014: Consultation on the proposed cuts and closures ·         August 2014: Partners agree which options are to be implemented ·         September 2014: Implementation of the cuts for both 2014-15 and 2015-16. ·         March 2015: All cuts implemented.   The councils proposals for 2014 – 2016: http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/sites/drupalncc.newcastle.gov.uk/files/wwwfileroot/your-council-and-democracy/budget_2014-15_-_pc_-_2_-_family_services_review_0-25_incorporating_early_years.pdf   Previous year budgets: http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/your-council-and-democracy/budget-annual-report-and-spending/budget   Unison’s campaign page: http://unison-newcastle.org.uk/sure-start.html   Motion passed at Unison Newcastle City AGM: http://www.unison-newcastle.org.uk/assets/files/AGM2014/140210_18%20Motion%20-%20Save%20Sure%20Start.pdf