STUDENT Jonathan Horenfield has proved he is a Green champion!

The 17-year-old from Bury College has won the first Making Bury Greener competition, organised as a way of engaging with young people in Bury and raising awareness of Climate Change and the environment.

Jonathan's prize is an all-expenses-paid trip to Westminster to spend a day with Bury North MP David Chaytor.

Students from schools and colleges across the borough were invited to submit up to 500 words about the sort of energy saving ideas they would like to see introduced in Bury and to express their views about the big issue of climate change.

Mr Chaytor, who is supporting the Making Bury Greener Award, said the idea for the competition came from his political assistant, Rosie Crabtree and Sarah Profitt, a young journalism student.

Both are from Ramsbottom and saw the award as a response to last year's government report by Sir Nicholas Stern.

The review warned that the consequences of climate change will mean more floods, droughts, devastating storms and economic instability across the world unless major investment in reducing carbon emissions is made now.

The competition, which was launched by David Milliband when he was environment secretary, was judged by David Chaytor MP, Coun Wilf Davison, Coun Jack Walton, Ian Savage, editor of the Bury Times, Rosie Crabtree, youth officer with Bury North Constituency Labour Party.

Jonathan, who is studying geography, environmental science, law and English A-levels at Bury College, said: "I entered the competition after hearing about it in college.

"I thought it would be a good opportunity to express my concerns about the environment and how we can improve it.

"I am thrilled about winning and am looking forward to visiting London as I'm sure it will be a fantastic experience."

The Bury Climate Change Coalition was started by Mr Chaytor as a way of pushing the importance of environmental change up the agenda with local people.

Mr Chaytor said: "The competition was very hard fought by all the entrants and we had a number of entries of a very high quality.

"Jonathan's entry stood out however and I am pleased to be able to present him with a pair of first class rail tickets to visit the House of Commons for a tour and lunch with me on the terrace."

Four other entrants' work was highly commended.

They were Faye Preston (17), from Bury College; Eddie Ashcroft, Year 10, from Castlebrook High School; Azhar Khan (13), from Bury Grammar School and Alice Andrews (15), from Woodhey High School.

Jonathan's winning essay is printed below.

To read the four highly commended pieces of writing go to Making Bury Greener on the Bury Times website.

How to make Bury Greener

CLIMATE change, global warming and managing resources are the main reasons why human beings need to become greener in the way in which we live.

This is everyone's problem, from the managing director to the child in primary school, and we all need to take responsibility and address it.

There are many ways in which Bury as a whole can become more environmentally friendly and tackle the phenomena such as global warming.

Firstly, education is the main way to make Bury greener by making people aware of the damage we are causing to the environment. Children need to be taught from an early age about environmental issues in both primary schools and high schools. There needs to be one lesson a week on this topic, which is easily feasible to fit into the school curriculum and would prove to be very beneficial. It would make children aware of environmental issues, and also prompt them into doing something about it e.g. simple measures like not leaving appliances on standby and recycling plastics and glasses.

Secondly, the future also holds a huge part in this war against climate change. All new developments - both residential and industrial - should be built in the most ecological way possible. This means using renewable sources of energy incorporated into buildings such as solar panels on the roofs and also wind turbines. This will help generate electricity cleanly and drastically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions produced by power stations.

Thirdly, improving public transport would also make Bury greener. If the bus and tram systems were improved so that they extended to more areas around Bury, they become cheaper and more reliable and then many more people would be inclined to use them instead of using cars.

This will save on a huge amount of carbon dioxide emissions and thus contribute to the fight against global warming. It would also reduce congestion and pollution of the borough and make it a more pleasant environment to live and work in.

We need to take a leaf out of Brazil's way of tackling climate change and have a no car' day each week. This would mean one day of the week it is ILLEGAL to drive a car and people would have to use other measures of getting to their destination, for example use public transport or even, heaven forbid, use the legs God gave us! This would save on a huge amount of carbon dioxide emissions.

An increase in the plantations of trees and woods would contribute to making Bury a greener society.

More plantations like the new Hurst Wood would offset the increasing carbon dioxide emissions in the area due to the photosynthesis they carry out, reducing the impact of global warming.

Give incentives to people to recycle. For example, bus or shopping tickets for every kilogram of waste they recycle, and also provide recycling points in more areas, easily accessible to everyone. This will increase the amount of waste recycled, cut down on the problem of too much rubbish and also combat the dilemma of resources running out.

Finally, we can all do our bit to help the environment by not leaving appliances on standby, walking when possible instead of taking the car and trying to recycle whenever possible, which will all save electricity, reduce carbon dioxide emissions and preserve the earth for future generations.

JONATHAN HORENFIELD