High Tide COP15 Project

Leaving Copenhagen: Last Words On Making History Here

2009-12-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

I am packed, ready to go and thinking about what happened here and my opportunity to track it all with you. Thank you. It was an honor and a privilege. I met many wonderful people because of this blog.

May we all find ways to cool this planet in the times ahead. May you all have found something of value to take away from what I've shared here. As the holidays are upon us, may we all find ways to share the best of what has emerged from our experiences in the year ahead.

We sure made history here this month. It wasn't all a cheery kind of history.

Yes, I was disappointed last night to hear Obama's words and know the outcome was no deal at all. For the first time in a long time, I don't think the "failure" is the fault of the USA. If there are intransigent parties, some stand-outs include Canada, Brazil, India & China. Whom to blame there? China & India each have huge, desperate populations. And California is the primary consumer of tar sand oil. In the end, Saudi Arabia's outrageous claims were just the comic relief.

But Africa also has a desperate population and is making progress. The Maldives will be carbon neutral.

Arguably and more importantly, what I saw was still a close race between forces holding back progress on climate change and forces determined to see a good outcome for everyone, especially the Least Developed Countries (LDC).

Many of us expected this outcome from the heads of state of the developed countries. Financial reparations by 2050 are a relatively meaningless goal for the hundreds of millions of people who will be imminently displaced by global warming or the 50% of species that will be going extinct.

But as many pointed out to me also, thruout this process, from Kelly Blyne of 350.org and Jim White, my collaboator from INSTAAR, to the EU negotiator on the train up from Germany, it isn't the end of the story. It just makes for a more painful and complex narrative.

For the long term, I am actually vastly encouraged by the many wonderful projects I learned about around the world, mostly at the Side Events in the Bella Center, many of which I tried to share here. I wish the whole world knew about them. An enormous amount of networking occurred and I'm sure the grounds for further policy negotiations were laid.

In the short term, I think every sane person who was here and a lot of the rest of the world, is speechlessly bowed down by grief for every species, every nation which, every child who, will bear the consequences of COP15's failures. And in the end, nothing and no one will escape the scary consequences of failure to act on the causes of climate change in a timely manner.

So where to go from here? It's in the hands of those who care. Many of you are under thirty. And there are a LOT of you to work with, educate and help.

Finally Getting my Press Conference www.GOOD-COP15.org

2009-12-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

Copenhagen Being Peaceful and Picturesque

2009-12-18T07:25:00.000-08:00

Brad Pitt visits Copenhagen for Climate Change

2009-12-18T07:22:00.000-08:00

Art at Poulsen

2009-12-18T07:19:00.000-08:00

I asked Larkon of the Yes Men, if it was possible to make good activist art that was neat? She thought a moment & then said , "No. But I've been thinking about that a lot." "I have too. It seems that the messiness is part of the aesthetic," I replied. "I agree," she said.

Modeling the Survival Ball at the Poulsen Gallery in Copenhagen on my last day

2009-12-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

Viewing Obama's non-content speech at the Poulsen Gallery with Angelika (left) Yes Men & Avaaz folks

2009-12-18T06:53:00.000-08:00

Day 12 Copenhagen, Day 11 COP15 and The Good COP15 Press Conference

2009-12-18T06:16:00.000-08:00

I woke to gray clouds scudding diagonally past my window and snowflakes slowly winding their way down. Angelika, Andros and Auguste, their sturdy 18-month old son & I went out today. I mailed home almost $100. worth of paper and then Angelika and I went on to see some art- only her third outing without her family, since having Auguste eighteen months ago.

Ian Garrett had suggested several venues and highest on my list was the Yes Men http://theyesmen.org/ at the Poulsen Gallery. We walked thru the beautiful, old part of the city and I got a lesson in Copenhagen's demographics while snapping pictures of the city, which now looks like the home of Hans Christian Andersen rather than the shocking site of police violence it was Wednesday.

The show was great. http://www.gallerypoulsen.com/template/t04.php?menuId=82
I loved it. It was all activist work. Upstairs I was fitted by Larkon of the Yes Men and modeled the Survival Ball, a suit for the executive who has everything but wants insulation from needs or empathy. Downstairs we met a larger bunch from the Yes Men & Avaaz doing "Good COP15," www.GOOD-COP15.org.

Larkon took me into their performance space and started a press conference for me in "the Good COP," set up to look like the Bella Center. They've done about 100 press conferences so far, including with Darryl Hannah, of what people would want to say (not just your fifteen minutes of fame but a whole press conference) at Bella. Larkon just had a little hand held, but then a REAL news crew came in: Wendy Jewell, producer and Sister Jewell-Kemker, filmmmaker, reporter and activist for, "An Inconvenient Youth; kids fighting for their future," with serious camera. We did it all over, inc a Q&A, and all happily exchanged cards after wards.

So finally, I had my press conference in the "Good COP" with the Yes Men. And maybe, in the end, that was where it was supposed to happen.

Tonight is my last night here, so unless some major news happens, it's au revoir and thanks for the laughs. It was great while it lasted. :).

On Trigger Point Theory and Activism

2009-12-17T15:24:00.001-08:00

The three-day workshop I led earlier this week here, was about finding the place where all the edges come together, using aesthetic analysis to observe them and then choosing the smallest possible point, at the site of maximum degradation, to activate sustainable healing for the entire system, as acupuncture can in the body. I developed the theory to apply to environmental restoration. But I do think it applies more broadly.

So where is the Trigger Point here in Copenhagen? Kiribati, the atoll nation that will be the first to go? Muhammed Rasheed, of the Maldives, insisting there must be a meaningful agreement by Saturday? In the legal difference between the word "shall" or "must" in treaty language? In the image of a police baton coming down on peaceful demonstrators? If this is the biggest Happening the world has ever seen, then based on how Allan Kaprow always worked, the real impact isn't in the event or it's site but in the story of the event... whose story, told where?

For me, listening to the BBC "debate" tonight, it was in the subtle timbre of audience applause when people spoke truth to power. You can hear differences in applause: not just duration or volume but the acoustic trajectory of sounds of approval and connection. Not for Kevin Rudd, saying he'd toe the line the others toe. It was for Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace, when he said, "the people are ahead of the politicians," and I might add, possibly ahead of the artists too. And that's a good thing.

The Corner Where I Waited in Vain for the #66 Bus This Morning

2009-12-17T14:52:00.000-08:00

First Real Snow on Koefoed's Clematis Arbor on the Way Out of Their Home

2009-12-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

Day 11 Copenhagen First Real Snow

2009-12-17T14:16:00.000-08:00

It has turned really cold. I moved from where I was staying with Oleg & Suzanne today, to Andrus Jensen and Angelika Gregoruissen's home, in a beautiful old working class part of Copenhagen: Norrebryggel (sp?). The snow slowed down the buses to a crawl and I waited in the cold forty-five minutes for the right bus and then took the closest I could find. By then I was so bone chilled, it took hours to warm up later. Dragging my suitcases thru black slush was an ordeal and since I've stacked one heavy suitcase (full of paper from COP15) on top of the other, I lived in fear of the whole metal infrastructure system breaking. I've already noticed a loosening screw- sort of like the COP15 negotiations for better or worse.

The demonstrations seem to have cooled down with the weather.
But more dire accounts of the demonstrations yesterday (attack dogs) and the following video supplied by Amy Lipton:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2009/dec/17/copenhagen-climate-change

Today, was connect with colleagues from my own practice day. So I met Juanita Schaepfler, from the Z-Node PhD program group I'm part of out of Zurich. She recounted waiting two hours in the cold Monday to get into Bella, giving up and waiting 8 hours Tuesday to get in & then being too tired to attend sessions, so she & a friend ended up going out with some of the Nigerian delegation, who apparently told endless jokes about how bad things were there. Aside from that, we shared our mutual burn out before she headed for the airport.

We had met at the Klimat Forum, where I connected with another Z- Noder after she left, David McConville, who is connected to the Buckminster Fuller Challenge grant folks, in his dizzying black dome planetarium:
http://www.350.org/geodome

After the viewing, we talked about events here. We shared a sense that things will go forward regardless of the policy people because so many people with a sense of urgency are doing good projects.

I hung around and watched the plenaries on screens and then met up with Ian Garrett, Executive Director of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. He's really concentrating on doing the arts and other events outside Bella here and told me about a lot of stuff I've missed, including the YesMen press conferences. I wanted to go to their reception tonight but had committed to dinner with Andrus and Angelika and was just too exhausted on this bitter cold night to go out again afterwards.

Ian's work is at:

http://www.sustainablepractice.org
http://connect.sustainablepractice.org
http://wiki.sustainablepractice.org

We did an interview for his blog and the ending was pretty close to the conversation with David, to the effect that hope is in the horizontal.

Page Two of the Press Release for the December 16 COP15 Press Conference that never happened and the role of art in climate adaptation

2009-12-16T23:24:00.001-08:00

If COP15 and the UNFCCC desire just allocation of resources to deal with climate change. Why then, has art, which has so much to contribute to that goal, been absent from all discussions of adaptability?

Artists are available to help with adaptation. In additional to indigenous cultural groups, over 200 educational and cultural institutions internationally have courses or entire programs devoted to ecological art The vast pool of resources for COP15 implementation can be seen at: http://www.ecoartnetwork.org/, http://www.greenmuseum.org/, http://www.ecoartspace.org/, http://www.sfeap.org/, http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk,
http:/ashdenizen.blogspot.com, http://www.uoregon.edu/~ecodrama/whatis

TEXT IN COP DOCUMENTS DESCRIBE THE NEED:
Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention on its seventh session, held in Bangkok from 28 September to 9 October 2009, and Barcelona from 2 to 6 November 2009; chosen because it bears equally on human needs for ethics and culture.
Key words and phrases:
build capacity and facilitate adaptation, Ecological art, adaptation and mitigation, aspirational goals, technology transfer and development, Resilience, Vulnerability, “[the level of adaptation][adaptation needs]”, “[framework] [programme]”
Key document text that illlustrates why art can become a partner:
pg 54: “Adaptation is a challenge shared by all countries; .... in order to reduce vulnerability, minimize loss and damage and build the resilience of ecological and social systems and economic sectors to present and future adverse effects of climate change [and the impact of the implementation of response measures]. (reference content of non-paper no.41 (5 November 2009)”
pp 61: “identifying sources of adaptation;
Strengthening, consolidating and enhancing the sharing of information, knowledge, experience and good practices, at local, national, regional and international levels, consistent with relevant international agreements, through creating forums where different public and private stakeholders can discuss concrete challenges;”

Additional considerations:

Gender issues relate to questions of art and culture. Disproportionately, artisans in indigenous cultures are often women. Their practices often preserve the, “[land use, land-use change and forestry sector]”; (and represent how to) p. 92 “respect the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples[, including their free, prior and informed consent,] Deforestation is often a consequence of the cultural disruption that displaces gender roles.

Art and humanities foster creativity through out all sectors of society. In transition periods, creative problem-solving is as essential to survival as financial or regulatory support.
The costs of sustaining cultural communities in relation to other ecological costs is not only minimal but has historically transferred wealth, in a variety of forms back into an economy. This will help cultures in transition maintain identity and independence, a response to the need to, “develop low-emission [high growth sustainable] development strategies.”

Films by Aviva Rahmani with discussion afterwards will be viewed at 5: PM December 16: Farumgade 4-6, 2200 Kbh N (Nørrebro) http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=203108274870#/pages/FIT-freie-internationale-tankstelle/60219692736?ref=ts (via shareaholic)

Communications with the Media Center in response to my query about options

2009-12-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

Received 10:53 PM
Dear Aviva,

I am really sorry about that. You may ask Marilyn to contact me: tel.
xxxxxxxxx. I will make sure it is placed on the shelve dedicated for NGO
press advisory.

Best regards,

Jingwen Yang

Press Conference Room Officer
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - secretariat

My response back:

Dear Jingwen,

Thank you very much. I'm sure this situation is as frustrating for you as it is for us. As I wrote a list serve I am part of about today:

"As I said tonight at my film screening, 'to the world, it appears as tho a very few people, with limited information, transparency, accountability or insight, are determining the fate, literally of billions of others, not to mention other species."

I would be very surprised if Marilyn still has the 500 copies I printed and gave her. But perhaps she might advise you where they were left and some might be retrieved and placed where they could do some good. Just in case, I attach the first page.

Best

Aviva

Art in a (former) Garage

2009-12-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

Police Guarding the Last Gate to the Bella Center- there were several

2009-12-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

Cheerfully persistent demonstrators in front of Bella Center

2009-12-16T13:12:00.000-08:00

Civil Defense Troops heading for Bella Center a ten minute walk down the road

2009-12-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

Blur of police thru train window as fast as global warming

2009-12-16T13:08:00.000-08:00

Police massing several miles from Bella Center tracking people coming from the demonstration

2009-12-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

Thinkers at work in Workshop December 16, 2009 Copenhagen

2009-12-16T13:01:00.000-08:00

Light through the windows where we held the "Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism" workshop

2009-12-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

Bella Center December 15 after news that everyone might be shut out

2009-12-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Young People inside Bella Center December 15

2009-12-16T12:45:00.000-08:00

Day 10 Copenhagen day 9 COP15 End of a very long day

2009-12-16T11:51:00.000-08:00

It's been snowing all day today and finally sticking. I've been out in it most of the day off & on. The final day of the workshop I led went well. I've already written about my experience of trying and failing to have a press conference.

In the evening, I went to show my films at one of several restored gas stations around the city, retrofitted for art, in this case, curated by a man from Berlin: Dede. Comments and ideas shared afterwards were inspiring and interesting, including that tomorrow, I move to another household for my remaining time in Copenhagen. This will relieve Oleg & Susanne of the stress of sharing thier newly expanded family with any more people than is essential and may be a more comfortable set-up for me. Someplace along the line of transition, I hope to get a real newspaper and finally know what is being said, in some detail about events here.

Since it was mostly the folks from my workshop at the screening, in addition to their responses, I was able to understand more about their work and have insight into ways to develop my own future work. Fabian and I discussed a film project he's beginning about migration issues. I mentioned that of all the work with Jim, that migrations were the most pressing issue that had emerged about climate change. I said it's only a symptom of the problem of climate change, but like dying as a symptom of cancer, the symptom can be quite severe.

I like an orderly society as much as anyone but not at the cost I'm experiencing here. I spoke to eyewitnesses (people known to me), who watched Danish plain clothesmen infiltrate the protestors and become provocative until the police charged, at which time the police encircled the phony agitators to bring them back into the folds of their own, while going on to beat up the rest of the crowd.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/16/protests-in-copenhagen-de_n_393784.html

Bill McKibben of 350.org, sent out a mailing this evening enjoining us all to stick with pressing for the numbers. But I want the world to know the price being paid here by individual people who have been physically hurt, arrested and silenced. Numbers are important but some clear & balanced reporting means we don't just hear the pollyanna side of what's going on.

As furious as I am with the UN Secretariat's decision to shut out NGOs (Avaaz and Friends of the Earth had their entire delegation, a first at a COP, thrown out) and all our information, experience & insight, today was the first time in my life that I felt resentful towards protestors. Was it really necessary to storm the Bella Center this morning announcing it would be "taken over"?? I get it: people feel shut out and want to be part of the process. Who's fault is that? The lazy reporters? The conservative publishers? The ordinary ciitizens who don't ask probing questions? The employers who don't leave workers enuf time to feed their families & get a good night's sleep, let alone read a newspaper for the scant reporting that does get thru? I also resent colleagues warmly, safely inside the Bella Center with apparently no thought for the rest of us.

I admire the NGOs & delegates who walked out to join the protestors today, knowing they wouldn't get back in. I'm furious at myself for not having the foresight to have a back-up plan with a press badge. Look in the mirror and find the enemy, inc moi-meme.

From my point of view, the work of thousands has been trashed today by the combination of the UN Secretariat and the Danish police shutting down the Bella Center to NGOs, in effect, for the remainder of the conference. Which incidentally, included anything I might have said in my press conference today, about art's role in policy & science, to help people adapt to traumatic change as climate refugees. Since I too was shut out. The snow has been as wet & cold as the Danish reception here.

Page 1 of Press Release for the Press Conference that Never Happened

2009-12-16T06:55:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release: December 16, 2009 Contact: Aviva Rahmani Asger Jorn Room, Bella Center, Copenhagen ghostnets@ghostnets.com www.ghostnets.com

Art can help build the capacity and facilitate adaptation needed at COP15;
SOS Gulf to Gulf is a virtual model for the role of art

Protestors world wide see COP15 as a conflict between money and legalisms. This press conference asserts that is why art needs to be at the table, “ [supporting] [assisting] [enabling] all developing country Parties, particularly the most vulnerable, in undertaking adaptation measures.” Art is how people express their experiences. Millions of artists have another approach to environmental issues.

Artists can help COP15 communicate between parties
The media can convey how art can enable adaptation and implement climate justice
Contemporary and indigenous art practices provide relatively low-cost, uncontentious models for adaptation and mitigation that can contribute to long term cooperation and capacity building. Art is a vehicle to express what words and numbers can’t.
When we take “aspirational goals” seriously for the Least Developed Countries (LDC), we see that the arts in each culture and between cultures are a means to express aspiration, sustain it’s people, bridge communication gaps and be a container for important historical information, including indigenous environmental knowledge. Art is the glue holding societies and cultures together, under stress, means to intimately connect people.
In the 21rst century, art can create ways for technology transfer and development to translate and protect bodies of cultural knowledge, because artists are innovative.
Ecological art is a recognized practice that embraces an ecological ethic in both its content and form/materials, embracing collaborative opportunities.

SOS Gulf to Gulf is an example of how an ecological art practice can help
SOS Gulf to Gulf developed in virtual collaboration to reduce carbon emissions
Artist Aviva Rahmani and scientist Dr. Jim White, director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado at Boulder, initiated a cross-disciplinary virtual collaboration, addressing the international global warming crisis in gulf regions.
The story reveals parallels between Bangladesh, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Maine, the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf connecting water, war, pirates, fisheries, education and migrations.
SOS Gulf to Gulf was inspired by the Trigger Point Theory of environmental restoration developed by Rahmani

Presentation Credits: dialog is between artists Aviva Rahmani and Peter Buotte, curator Tricia Watts, Ecoartspace, Marda Kirn, director EcoArts Connection, Dr. Jim White, INSTAAR, Dr. Ed Maibach, George Mason University, Dr. Eugene Turner, Louisiana State University, Dr. Michele Dionne, director of Research at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Wells Maine and Tuku Ahmed, a New York City taxi cab driver and immigrant from Bangladesh.

Day 10 Copenhagen Day 9 COP15

2009-12-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

They closed the Bella Center to all NGOs today, effectively cancelling my scheduled press conference. Before I arrived, at 1:30: the police were beating demonstrators. There were lines of police vans for miles before we reached the Center. we were let out a ten minute walk away from the Bella Center.

I walked upstream against a tide of unhappy NGOs to reach the police lines, a few hundred feet from the entrance. When I told them I had a press conference they directed me to the VIP entrance for advice. I tried to contact my organizer, Marilyn Averill, who was inside and had offered me her secondary badge. At first my new blackberry locked and no one around me could unstick it. Eventually I could call. Meanwhile, I stopped a couple people with a media badge & asked them if they'd be willing to bring my press releases inside. They thought about it, then said, "not my job," and walked on. After a moment of feeling stunned by their lack of generosity, I felt like yelling, "then what do you think you job IS?" But by then, tall & long-legged, they were far beyond earshot, long gone to whatever they considered their REAL job.

I got to the VIP gate and was able to connectw ith Marilyn, who ahd to run a gauntlet to be sure she could get back inside. I gave her the press release and she said she would put them on a shelf. Who knows if anyone will see them? On the other hand I made a nice friend in the line, working on coastal island issues and whose husband works on environmental funding.

I trudged back to Oleg's getting progressively more angry & hungry, where I emailed the U press office, one reporter and a couple others to see what I could do: not much. In a couple minutes I leave to show my films. Later, I'll post photos. Meantime, I'll post the text of the press release for the press conference that never happened.

Numbers

2009-12-15T10:24:00.000-08:00

Between James Brady and myself, we calculated close to 1 million people are engaged directly or indirectly in ecological art or audience members for it's ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ecoart

This is how we estimated it:

1. How many schools/ museums/ books-journals internationally the ecoart list serve alone (about 100 invited members) represents (ie., including residencies, publications, group & individual exhibitions)?

2. Estimate 2,000 audience venue impact total (av. 20 times 100 per person, a conservative figure I think)

3. Each venue represents about 200 min audience access per... = 400, 000 if my math is correct...+ secondary effect has to double that figure = close to 1 million (chatter with family members & friends assuming at lease one conversation per person and then there are workers for each venue: guards, bookkeepers, etc)

That's a mighty constituency.

Can Haste Make Waste when time is of the essence?

2009-12-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

I love 350.org: www.350.org/vigil-vid
The magic number of 350 is critical.

But the devil is in the details. I worry about adequate oversight in allocations.
I worry about vague language based on differing carbon emissions models.
I worry about adequate transparency.
I worry about small successful programs becoming engulfed in flashier ones with better photo ops but less track record.
I worry about all the ways movements have tripped on ourselves in the past.

End of Day 9 Copenhagen Day 8 COP15 Narrowing my Focus

2009-12-15T09:12:00.000-08:00

My focus has narrowed down for the next 30 hours to being in the right place at the right time, being a conduit for what's going on and what I have to present and maybe, just maybe getting some good rest.

The title of my Press Conference was:

SOS Gulf to Gulf Gulf Degradation Internationally and a Model for the Role of Art at COP15

Then I changed it to:

Art can help build the capacity and facilitate adaptation needed at COP15;
SOS Gulf to Gulf is a virtual model for the role of art

I changed the body of the text to first clarify the role of art.

Confirmation has arrived for delivering my press conference 3:30 PM at COP15 Bella Center and I have access to a badge to get into the Bella Center tomorrow afternoon. The press release & info sheet is completed. Now I just need to get from the morning workshop I'm leading at the North end of town to the Bella Center on time, look & act presentable (despite my bad cold and no chance to wash my hair), deliver my materials, present clearly & convincingly, get something to eat and then find my way back (to a new venue) by 5: PM in the evening to show my films. We have changed the venue for fear of violence at Christiana.

Day 9 Copenhagen Day 8 COP15 Day 2 workshop on Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism

2009-12-15T04:45:00.000-08:00

The seasons's first heavy wet snow is falling in Copenhagen. There are reports of violence against the demnstrators on the part of the police but I have no details. This is the first day I have no access to the Bella Center. Many have given up and gone home. The NY Times, from who Andrew Revkin is depating for a life in academia, reports that China & USA are at an impasse. There was an announcement of an intercession by Ban Ki-Moon for all parties to discuss calmly ("can't we all just get along?"). The press office is trying to help me make an alternative time for tomorrow to re-schedule my press conference and I'm waiting to hear back.

The third day of my workshop on Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism, has been really exciting. We began yesterday, by my outlining how my theory developed, how it works and how it could applied to any problem solving.

Today, we focused on three problems brought to the workshop. Fabian, one of the Climate Pirates who brought 5 ships to Copenhagen, saw his colleagues surrounded by the melee of violent police on the way to the World Culture Center where we are working. He perceives that the police are deliberately sustaining the high tension of the situation by making arrests and quick releases.

Andrew, from the University of Copenhagen, perceives that the rigidity of separations between scientific disciplines makes it impossible to great a useful knowledge base. Oleg is concerned with the empty spaces between gathering places that create social isolation.

Our task in this second day, was to overlay these individual concerns with the larger matrix of the earth, global warming and my theoretical approach and begin to see new constellations that lead to solutions. We generated about 20 large drawings and tomorrow will move on to the problem of identifying one small point of leverage, a "trigger point," which will allow us to move to a position where we can heal the disruptions that concern us each.

Bad news, good news

2009-12-14T10:09:00.000-08:00

The bad news is that most NGOs will be kicked out of Bella by Wednesday and that means I may not get in for my scheduled press conference Friday, because I will need a secondary badge, almost impossible to come by. I went off to the press office for clarifications. The word is that of all the thousands of observers, only 1000 will be let in Thursday, only 90 on Friday. The mood at Bella is very angry, as am I- well, really frustrated and anxious. One reason we are all being bumped, is the size of the entourage with each leader. Most (but not all) press, had I gotten credentials in time (November 30- but no one had any idea this would be an issue then) will be allowed in. They have refused my credentials as submitted too late.

More bad news: Andrew Revkin's last day at the NY Times as their premiere environmental science reporter, will be Dec 21.

The good news is that the EPA just announced in session that it will start enforcing the Clean Air Act, enacted but not enforced under Bush. This means emissions standards can be reached far above the 17% level officially announced. Congress can then go on & debate legislation but emissions sources will be shut down: an end run around conservatives.

Drought and Floods: our responsibility

2009-12-14T08:17:00.000-08:00

Adaptive management techniques for drought in South America, extreme precipitation in West Africa with disaster relief agencies: soap, blankets, visas to cross boundaries: launched plans 6 wks before floods rather than after calamity. Red Cross/ Red Crescent co-ordination to dialog with forecasters.

Recommendations:

Create climate sensitive societies
Accelerated urgency requires working together

ACMAD (www.acmad.org) since 1987 responding to Africa droughts (African Center for Meteorological Development) despite minimal planning (presenter delayed in security line, being represented by another panelist).

Obviously, more & more in COP15, I'm seeing that agencies, scientists & volunteers are doing lots about adaptation. But what is emerging more & more is the self- centered apathy of many individuals in the Northern developed countries about demanding legal, regulatory changes. Policy makers can't be blamed any more if the electorates doesn't care and make their concerns known to legislators.

Gaps need to be bridged between people on ground & policy makers. Some case studies encouraging but big divide remains. What is the actionable strategy to get the best results? How prioritize research? How to make allocations? Co-ordinated action can reach scale (as usual, art not included).

Asked why, when discussion is about outreach, there isn't more outreach to contemporary artists, who are very concerned about these issues and can do this bridging of gaps? Response from Italian- engaging a filmmaker from NYU, Parsons School of Design. Pablo Suarez, from red Cross, said, "we have no $ but would be interested in what you'd propose."

Day 8 Copenhagen Day 8 COP15 Notes on energy and coastal impacts

2009-12-14T06:19:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of my 3- (half) day workshop on "Trigger Point Theory as Aesthetic Activism," in the world Culture Center in Copenhagen. Making progress with participants on exercizes to identify and locate primary conceptual and physical concerns in relation to global warming and hope to build on these ideas over the next couple days.

Went on to Bella Center. Protestors have swelled to about 5 different groups and about 500 people on the way in. Lines long for those still registering. Inside, it's like a NY subway of packed people. More protestors inside. Most moving was the silent line of young people holding flags from every nation and the signs: "We Stand With Africa." Got lunch, in a packed cafe area and spilled my roll on the way out trying to navigate the crowds. Space has become hard to negotiate at the Bella Center: an analogy to the coming world populations overload an migration pressures away from coastal regions? I'm waiting for a session on US coastal community impacts of global warming. Most of the reports from island nations so far, have been from southern nations that will be entirely subsumed. North, aside from the issue of impact on LDC, effects are less dramatic.

Now sitting in at the US Center on roadmapping future energy sources & developing smart grids to capture various natural energy resources, as solar from Africa but even carbon emissions. Representative from Sweden saying 60% of energy is lost in transport and can be used more efficiently by addressing the systems, Connecting the education of women in Least Developed Countries to more efficient fuels. China lobbying for coal. India confronted as only 29% efficiency. Asserting their goal is 60%. Italian lobbyists for biofuels: sugar cane (most destructive crop to habitat).

Moderator asking panelists to name biggest obstacle to greenhouse gas emissions. No one responding. Finally Italian saying we need a framework of common rules to work together. Chinese asking for more innovation. UK: act on 400 options. Sweden: we're stuck in old thinking; see possibilities. Norway: must address deforestation & step up energy efficiency do alongside carbon storage. Germany: efficiency of developed countries and economies of scal to bring LDC.

John Strickland from Dept of the Interior with EPA & NOAA, Tom Armstrong senior advisor Dept of Interior. Overview: climate change coastal impact internationally: biodiversity, human population. Need better tools to fully know impact. Using adaptive management, helping American Indians & Alaskan Natives- playing catch up after many years in absentia (Bush). Dept Interior: manages 1/5 USA, manages 500 Mil acres surface land, half protected. USGS carbon storage analysis: 90 bil tons stored in plants & soil (deforestation issues). Goal: do no harm.

Protection = preserving buffering vs development. co-ordinating information and science, responding to a Secretarial order for regional centers, landscape co-ops at ecosystem management. Off-shore waters critical. Fast-tracking solar & wind projects. Managing intercontinental shelf first regs permitting wind power off shore in East. Carbon footprint reduction part of strategy. Coast from upper Maine to Baltimore relatively low. Cape Hatteras, however, very vulnerable. North Carolina washing out. Developing landscape scale restoration of Everglades task force: significant progress (65 threatened species). Important daylighting in "river of grass" to restore natural tidal flushing, fresh water.

What is striking me is how much they accomplished below the radar even while Bush was in power & how quickly Obama has moved forward with environmental mandates without much attention.

United State Geographical Survey (USGS) on Gulf of Mexico: loss of dune barriers for barrier islands, making restoration efforts: Gulf Coast Restoration Strategy. Major loss of wetlands: 34 sq miles for past fifty years due to channelization & flood protection vs tidal flushing. Now trying to reverse, starting with mapping to focus efforts at implementation. 56 mil acres held in trust for Native Peoples; acknowledging special knowledge & working with. With melting ice, larger waves, exaggerating erosion.

Goals are trying to share knowledge- wildlife without borders, tech assistance, collaborating on mitigation with ocean pollution, wetlands loss. USGS shared internationally to monitor losses working w/ West Africa, ie., Senegal reforestation w/ "Whispering Pines (what about monocultures?)."Monitoring mangroves in India.

Skypeing in from Washington DC John Wilson & Jeremy Martinich US EPA on estuaries. CRE case studies (we keep losing the phone connections but they were persistent). Looking at Baltimore- challenge of diversity: rocky highlands, beaches to swamps. Invasion of changes of life cycles, intenser storms net loss TK & economies regardless of emissions: retreat. Still can't predict timing & certainty; lack of adequate co-ordination. Relying on past inadequate to planning for future because of rapid & unpredictable change due to climate change. Inadequate $ support. Lessons learned previously from- 28 estuaries (NERR) programs. Climate change must be integrated into all other decisions. Must be locally directed based on priorities from each community- scale of individual properties. Start with existing priorities. communicate & support for adaptation essential- part of planning & implementation- start as early as possible. Rapidly evolving.

I have too many questions to ask all of them- for example, how direct local planning if local residents deny importance?

Jeremy on adaptation in estuary programs: Casco Bay, Maine vulnerability in Oyster Bay, New Hampshire. Comprehensive adaptation & stakeholder communications- lobsters- listening sessions & establishing priorities. Most support around icons, as lobsters. Ice disappearance (ice out change of 2-3 weeks on Lake Sebago). Involving public in listening sessions (answer to my question about engagement?)

Stormwater infrastructure problems, ie in New Hampshire. Mapping reveals inadequacy and trying to retrofit infrastructure. Economic issues in Delaware- costs of protections, ecosystem services lost. Prioritizing what to protect, value as salinity moves up estuaries= modeling & habitat equivalency- changes in spatial distribution, cost of restoration vs cost of replacement. Cost benefit relationships to conservation & adaptation. Charlotte Harbor, Florida. Punta Gorda protecting sea grass, xeriscaping, comprehensive plan, restricting fertilizer use, green building & drought protection. redesigning shoreline to account for habitat migration, ie seawall levels: Read: "Synthesis of Adaptation Options," "Climate Ready Estuaries: 2009 Progress Report."

Dr. Batton: Climate Change adaptation & mitigation for humans & wildlife co-ordinates all agencies. Interagency & deep marine resources organized by Obama ( despite Republicans apparently). In Calif. dealing with fresh water loss: levees- soil lost 25'- reintroducing native wetlands to raise soil surface 4' & sequester carbon (what about impact of water irrigation from Colorado River & Mexico?).

Dr. Armstrong on scientific assessment projects (SAP study 3.4, 4.1) re: sea level rise on east coast. Exacerbated by glacial subsidence. Significant changes similar to So Pacific. Not just thermal dynamics but tectonic subsidence, geomorphology, tidal surges, plant types & buffering capacity. Challenge of scale on local level.

My question (only one they had time to answer: what about species migration (lobster)? Strickland gave example of monitoring/ controlling Pika species migration paths in West- didn't really answer my question. Took his card after session, to ask about policy & be directed to technical people.

Just spoke with someone from Shell: formerly working for their sustainability program, quit so they can look at themselves in the mirror (minimal progress, 30-33 people killed annually, stupid, selfish choices re: developing countries.) Asked not to be identified,

From Amy Lipton of Ecoartspace

2009-12-13T06:41:00.000-08:00

Andrew Revkin on facebook about the need and
role of ethics in the debate:

Ethics: Crucial Missing Element in Negotiations: Duties and
Responsibilities, Not Just Narrow National Economic Interest

http://climateethics.org/?p=320

Day 7 Copenhagen 12:30 PM Susanne and her friend wait out her contractions while the world waits for progress

2009-12-13T03:48:00.000-08:00

Three hours later, Susanne gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Why do I include that information in this blog? Because the youngest will be the greatest victims of climate change in this new world and we must never forget that. With the joy of birth comes the responsibility to see things change.

Subankhar Bannerjee pinning audio on Sarah James

2009-12-13T03:37:00.000-08:00

Sacha Kagan's border work

2009-12-13T01:03:00.000-08:00

Along with yellow police tape (printed in the USA with the text "THIS IS NOT A NATURAL BORDER"), and flyers asking people to question their relationship to borders, strung along the street, these 'wet" signs indicate danger. This work, installed in the midst of an immigrant neighborhood makes a relationship between immigration, global warming and psychological impact. Far from the crowds of middle class protestors, the efforts towards engagement between passersby and Sacha's modest team, as flyers are offered explaining the work, highlights one more border between peoples of the world and one more opportunity to disregard borders and connect.

Day 7 Copenhagen Framing Art Now Here

2009-12-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

On Dec 12, 2009, at 9:28 PM, Suzaan Boettger, Ph.D. wrote:

Aviva – I hope you’ll be able to view and send your descriptions of the pertinent art exhibitions in Copenhagen. Have you seen the below, or has anyone read a review of it?

‘(Re-) Cycles of Paradise,’ at the UN Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, December 7–18, 2009. The exhibition is organized by ARTPORT making wavesand commissioned by the Global Gender and Climate Alliance.

I gave this request from Suzaan a lot of thought last night. I have commented on the beautiful ARTPORT show in an earlier blog. I always like Subankhar's work, basically the same thing he showed at the Weather Report show but installed more simply & smaller. I will write about the work of Sacha & Oleg, the people I'm closest to here. Thursday, I will try to get to some films. Friday afternoon, after my press conference, if there are no important sessions scheduled, I might get out to museums, etc.

But the "pertinent" environmental work is NOT in art exhibitions here. if I were to review good "environmentist art" in Copenhagen now, none of it would be in a museum or gallery. That is NOT where the cutting edge of thinking or production about the relationship between life & art is in my opinion.

My task here is NOT to recapitulate the same old tired frame of perception that has been recycled for the past forty years or to comment on art as a comment on art. I have a clear task as an artist: to reframe the critical discourse about art in terms I find most meaningful, based on what I perceive as a human being in my times, in order to reframe what it means to be human today. It is our frame of perception that need to recreated in order to change our behavior.

"Environmentalist" art that excites me and the reason I do the kind of work I do now, is the same reason, as a very young artist, I was drawn to & worked with Robert Rauschenberg & Allan Kaprow, the Bread & Puppet Theatre, was inspired by Alexandro Jodowrowsky and eventually worked with Judy Chicago. Long before I met them, from a much younger age, I had traditional training and went thru Cooper, Cal Arts etc. My movement to less static versions of art in the mid-sixties was deliberate, intuitive and educated. The movement back to static perception can be a comment in itself but that is not what I'm seeing in conventional exhibitions.

My own work and what excites me as an artist today is not individual star-based art in an even more static room, addressing audiences remotely perceiving a mediated experience. This is not to say I don't think installations, paintings, whatever don't have a place but they aren't RELEVANT here and now in the way they are being presented. Many people, like Alfredo Jaar this year, stand out at times. But my time here is a precious opportunity. It is focused on change. I make no distinction between formal art and international politics in that word in this context. Maybe it is ultimately myself doing the most transforming.

The best art I see here and now is in the engagement with a larger, sometimes invisible group that is responding to the most pressing present situation: how to get a binding agreement, how to express the pain of delay. And maybe it's the latter that makes static art in static space so difficult to concentrate on here.

This situation is extremely painful to those losing land, home, life while others, as the USA conservative party enforces delay. I have seen nothing in formal exhibition that powerfully conveys that reality.

The closest was watching and listening to Sarah James at ARTPORT, while Subankhar filmed her. And that unframed moment would not be considered "pertinent environmentalist exhibition" by many. Subankhar is the art star. But in that situation, his status and technical skills were at the service of a much more dramatic event: the testimony of a beautiful woman (not by any conventional standards: she is short, large and gray) in beautiful dress, saying and singing beautiful things about a beautiful world we are relentlessly, often casually, utterly destroying. The frame for that event was their personal relationship and the entire world's eyes on this city and awareness of delays in COP caused by the developed countries. Judged by the limits of the literal exhibition space, or conventional modernist formal perceptions, it was a native woman in costume being filmed by the important photographer Subankhar Bannerjee in the beautiful ARTPORT gallery, surrounded by excellent work, elegantly displayed.

But that was NOT the frame of perception I brought to the event nor the one I would want to see blessed. The fact that the curators had the prescience to foresee the power of that situation is a positive comment on them, comparable to Ronald Feldman picking up Mierle Ukeles in the early seventies for the Feldman Gallery. The difference is that Sarah James' moment with Subankhar can't be hung on a wall or packaged for export.

What makes the "exhibition space" dead, in this context compared, say to Sacha Kagan handing out elegant yellow and black leaflets, in an immigrant neighborhood, far from the hundreds of thousands marching, about our relationships to borders, is it's disconnect from actual life events. It isn't the fault of the artists or any of the curators or the buildings where the exhibitions are mounted but it does render their appeal minimal, NOW.

To sum up, in response to Suzaan, art that has power and allure for me, is framed, deliberately or incidentally, by life events, not by an exhibition space. I am trying to draw attention to another kind of framing.

Day 6 Copenhagen Chilled to the Bone and Soul-warmed

2009-12-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

Came home about an hour ago, after helping Sacha & Oleg set up their installations for tomorrow. They chose locations far from the mainstream demonstrations to reach a working class neighborhood with many immigrants.

It's below zero here and I'm still chilled to the bone. But reports arethat there were over 100,000 in themain demonstration. The TV news showed demonstrators sitting on the cold asphalt of the road in this weather, hands handcuffed behind them. Oleg, who rode by them on his bicycle coming home, said they had arrested about 900 and they had been sitting there, practically motionless in this bone-chilled weather, with no bathroom or other facilities for hours, as the police ate pizza close by.

This evening, the newscaster described the demonstration as peaceful, like a party. Why then these arrests? The Precautionary Principle at work? Apparently the police cut the demonstration in half and fairly randomly arrested anyone wearing black. In NYC, they wouldn't be able to STOP arresting people if that's the criteria. Apparently, people who live along the site where the arrests were made, have opened their windows and are playing music to hearten the demonstrators.

A traditional party for the NGOs was scheduled at Bella Center tonight. It feels too cold to go out again but I am warmed by the idea that local people wanted to hearten those who stood up for their beliefs, even if they had to sit in the cold road to do so.

Day 6 Copenhagen Action Inaction: art's role in Moving us towards a Binding and Just Treaty

2009-12-12T01:05:00.001-08:00

I know it must look from the outside like nothing is happening here and be frustrating to many who can't see what's happening. But I can tell people that more is happening than you can see from the outside. The action Tuvalu took Wednes has enormous repercussions because it threw down the gauntlet to all the "Parties" of COP.

The work of many at COP is to move forward regardless of the COP portion of proceedings (the distinction is that this is a gathering where we can all learn from each others projects in side events and social gatherings and develop a consensus about the legal "norm" for agreements. COP is the Conference of the Parties that puts that norm into formal legal agreements). The interval since Wednes has allowed attention to the language (which is why I've worked with the Ethics group) that will create international and ultimately trans-national legal precedents. If the impasse is sustained until the leaders arrive next week, then they will have to put a layer on Kyoto that will be the Copenhagen amendment.

Ed Morris blogged about the frustration with inaction in Copenhagen. But what I see from inside COP15 is plenty of action, just not obvious and dramatic. The urgency of activism inside and outside is slowly filtering thru to the meetings. Ethical action will be the result of years of work from the Ethics group.

The Ethics group work on language I've been tracking and involved with may seem nitpicking but it is the patient persistent work that will move events forward towards a just binding agreement. My engagement as an artist here is to be part of a team discourse that has no big drama-spectacle but does design our future.

The leader of the Ethics group, Don Brown, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science and Law at Penn State, was the lead lawyer for the Superfund under Clinton. They have been working on this problem for a long time and it is filtering thru to all the other groups. As far as the American position, as Kirk Junker, another member of the Ethics group, Chair of the American Law division at the University of Cologne put it, Americans respond to morality. that's why Carl Rove got Bush elected. It can be used to leverage the good. And incidentally, for Americans, this is why tort reform is the most dangerous thing the right can do to the left right now in the USA. Tort reform is where a plaintiff can ask that a law be reconsidered.

Art that allows itself to be at the service of old notions of art is not where I think we will make the new world that needs to respond to new conditions. I have spent some time here (at COP) explaining that my ideas aren't about art as entertainment, decoration, illustration or art as a tool (tho it can be all those things too). This is a new approach to artmaking for many. It is grounded in the history of conceptual, activist and performance art. Just as the climate changes are going faster than any of us can track, as artists, I think we are running to stay ahead of the curve. Sometimes that run is the art.

From the point of view of my approach to art, it is about finding the one small trigger point in a situation that will catalyze a larger effect and then putting my attention, as an artist, there. I am getting press credentials Monday, which will entitle me to attend the meetings with the leaders. That is where all this work will be tested. I feel like all I've done this past week, all I will do in the three day workshop/performance I'll lead at the Centre for World Culture, outside the conference, will prepare me to have some understanding of what will happen by the time Obama arrives at the end of next week.

Having my own press conference the same Friday he arrives and framing what I will present in a larger movement of ecological art in response to our times, is my one opportunity here to express another point of view based on what I've observed here. And after all, it is that observation that us artists are trained to do. As far as I know, it is the ONLY event where an artist will address the policy community here and I will do it thru the media. Just wish for me, please, that I have the time & skill, to bring them into the room and then fire their imagination once they are there.

Wengari Maathi

2009-12-11T09:03:00.000-08:00

I stayed long enuf at the Congo event to hear Wengari say: "supporting this region supports the entire continent of Africa."

Tried but couldn't get a good photo shot. She was entirely surrounded by entourage & fans. She looks a lot more tired than when I met her a few years ago. But maybe I do too.

CONGO BASIN Reforestation (COMIFAC)

2009-12-11T08:04:00.000-08:00

Notes on PRESENTATION BY VARIOUS MINISTERS:

30% of earth is forests
20% of carbon emissions come from cutting down forests
15% of all carbon sinks for human activity are in forests
95% of emissions from developed & emerging nations
Investment now very small (miniscule and whomever is smart enuf to invest will benefit greatly if anyone wants a hot tip) compared to costs to entire biosphere later

Broad consensus emerging
Germany providing significant funding to help Congo, hoping to set an example, facilitation for 2 years (Minister of Germany)
Local implementation part of plan
Ask finance ministers of other countries to help
Grandchildren say our grandparents were at COP and saved forests
Cameroons timber is 25% of export

(I'm in an impossibly uncomfortable position on the floor listening & typing in this packed room, sweating because it's so hot with all these people- Special Effects of Africa at COP)

German pilot project in Cameroon with partners in Bolivia mapping land use changes, measurements of damage factors & biomass emission acountings
Doing GIS workshops in Republic of Congo, Gabon financed by European Space Agency
Practical evaluation of carbon stock to develop capacity
DRC initiatives preparing for REDD
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA): mapping baseline definitions for Congo Basin. Goals: show methodology for reference res to help implementation. Is REDD appropriate? Macroenonomic economic analysis; focusing on impact of internal infrastructure (traffic corridors) drivers & international trade effect, meat consumption, agricultural development/production as it becomes an exporter at the cost of forests resulting in deforestation projected to 2030. Looking at impact 0n food prices (rising). Equipped now to evaluate value of REDD.

Speakers switching between English, French, German. Drums outside (start up for Fossil awards?)

Preparation for monitoring & reporting in Congo & Gabon. $200,000 committed
Surface area 342,000 km 2,900.000 population
22471271 (not sure how to translate these numbers) hectares total forest area
(just asked person in front of me to move packback so I could extend feet- much better but back still quite unhappy)
1/4 of basin based on maps on screen looks like protected & certified forest areas

Tasks:
institutional arrangements & stakeholder analysis
deforestation & degradation mapping

Synergies with donors & stakeholders to avoid duplicating efforts

Principles:
Participation
Transparent
Unique with a consistent plan
Robust science
Regionally integrated

(I just got a chair when the woman next to me left: heaven. What a wonderful invention chairs are)

Conclusions: we need to identify what was accomplished and how to make the achievements durable. We need financial help from other countries.

Questions later. Too bad. Room had to be vacated at 6:PM and I have another commitment.

CONGO BASIN reforestation application of REDD protocol

2009-12-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

The Best Light is in the Bathroom

2009-12-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

Serious Camera

2009-12-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

Day 5 COP15 daily life at the COP

2009-12-11T06:39:00.002-08:00

I tried to get a good shot at lunch, of how long the line was and how varied the people but the lighting was difficult. Suffice it to say, there was a tall African Arab man in a blue flowing dashiki and turban sitting not far from another African in silver robes. Behind them were four short Peruvians in traditional costume. Every imaginable language is being spoken. There are 192 nation states represented and all the NGOs in the world here. The lunch line, starting at 1:45, took till 2:30 to get thru and then I had to find a table. When I final found and cleared a little spot, the table got bumped three times by people rushing past to meetings: once by an Arab man who apologized, once by another who didn't and finally by two British girls who also apologized. by then, half my tea had spilled over half the table. Still, it was my first quiet, peaceful moment so far today.

Right now, I'm sitting in the press section of the Plenary, about to go hear the end of the Amazon side event. I sneaked in a bit ago because there's no session in progress. The advantage is plugs for our computers so we dont use up battery. The COP is still suspended over a binding agreement.

This morning I rushed out the house so early, I had barely navigated in time past someone's half digested meal in the street, presumably from a hard night's drinking, to get into the COP in time for the press conference. the walk to the above ground, sleek metro is a 45 min walk each way and I'm rolling my suitcase with my laptop and essentials the whole way. It's really noisy on cobblestones and gravel but I walked so fast, I've cut the time to twenty minutes. Despite my hurry, I stopped, when I saw a huge flock of birds pass over. It was still too dark to get a good picture but they were magnificent.

On the way towards the bathroom, I saw an express package had arrived- my new blackberry and an eyebrow pencil sharpener- the essentials of life here. But disks I'm waiting for an comfortable shoes still haven't arrived, so a frantic note went out to Daisy Morton, my unflappable assistant, to track them.

I didn't have time before I left to grab breakfast, but rushed past Mai & Oleg as I said "gud morn," for a quick shower before heading out. I now have my own room, in the basement, because the twin teenage boys have gone to spend time with their neighbor. It's relatively unfinished, so I feel somewhat monastic. Perhaps appropriate for my mission and the first event of the day.

Two stops to the Bella Center, out the train with all the other COP people coming from the same direction, I take the elevator to the street level and join the crowds entering past the demonstrators of the hour and the police who check our credentials before we enter and then again before we enter the main room. Then we go thru airport style security. The police are very friendly, helpful & nice, even if they do have a mandate to arrest troublemakers and hold us for 45 days. Inside, after checking coats, everyone is rushing around and there are so many pieces of luggage on wheels, as mine, that they often get entangled. No matter what stress we're all under, however, people are generally punctiliously courteous, friendly and patient. Luggage gets untangled and we move along.

After the press conference, went looking for Don Lehr, the press person for the Ethics committee, who secured them an interview with Tiome magazine last night. Stopped along the way at various booths, hearing about unfunded critical conservation programs in Nigeria and Ethiopian efforts to slow down forest burning for charcoal (encouraging people to plant their own sustainable groves rather than burning down important habitat).

In the afternoon, I ran into Marda Kirn, and we compared notes. She gave me advice for my press conference next week: "be gentle. We all sound so angry & self-righteous. No one wants to listen." She has been here less than 24 hrs and already gotten press credentials and met with one of the presidents of something. What an operator to learn from!! So far I've collected about 50 business cards. I've and collected more information than I can sort. So I'm not complaining about my own ability to negotiate. One of these blogs will be a random list of critical information.

This evening, dinner maybe with the Ethics people and then home and the trudge back along the deserted streets, hoping it doesn't rain again. At least I have an umbrella with me today.

It's 4:15 and I missed the Amazon. Guess I'm more tired than I realized. 15 min and I can make it to the Niels Bohr room to hear from the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research about new assessments, multi-gas emissions and geo-engineering (a horror in progress). Wonder what the room mood will be.

2009-12-11T03:59:00.002-08:00

2009-12-11T03:59:00.001-08:00

2009-12-11T03:57:00.000-08:00

2009-12-11T03:56:00.000-08:00

2009-12-11T03:55:00.000-08:00

Day 5 COP15 Visuals

2009-12-11T03:51:00.000-08:00

Day 5 COP15 Typing from Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change Press Conference

2009-12-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

Besides facts, figures, references to the COP15 text, entire tenor geared to help the press tell the story.

First question: ethics of media re: leaking of documents causing disruptions
Answer: from Nancy Tuana: focus on big picture and explain larger perception, data subject to investigation. Put more attention to educating people about science to contextualize info

Question; to Don Brown: justify 17% target of USA & refusal to pay reparations re: adaptations; moral & legal liability re: damages
Answer: disconnect between science and agreements. Ask nations explain their position
John Rosales: ethics issues (such as these) compelled (ethics group) to write white papers about these situations

Question (mine): how advise media to negotiate corporate control of media conflict of interest?
Answer: Reporters can examine duties & responsibilities of nations to ask logical follow up questions, are they denying responsibilities to others? Ask questions to not let people get away without ethics. No ethical system justifies narrow economic interests. We want to know if there is denial in regards to effect on others?

Question: do only nation states have obligations? ie. representative from Youth Forum offered to pay $.25 a day to off set reparations and take individual responsibility?
Answer: We need a discourse on obligations of individuals, duties to reduce fair share of emissions and contribute to reparations. COPs don't take pressure off individuals. Members of Ethics group and others can expand self of self with students in teaching, religious communities

Day 5 COP15 Before Ethics Press Conference

2009-12-10T23:29:00.000-08:00

First mission of the day accomplished: I got into the Bella Center without incident by 8:30 AM. Beside literature, I was handed a tiny, delicious nutrious roll by "Time for Climate Justice" announcing a public event in City Hall Square 11:30 AM Sunday. A little further in, Greenpeace handed me a card for a Climate Demonstration Saturday 1:PM in Christiansborg Slotsplads. Last night, I heard that both Sacha and Oleg had put up installations in the city at various locations. At 8:30 AM the mood seems extremely purposeful and somewhat tense. It's clear in the USA & the conference, the battle lines are shaping up between the well-organized, corporate right and all these faced faced, earnestly lined friendly people working themselves to the bone for survival of the planet as we know and love it. A classic good guys bad guys and there will definitely be some losers.

Day 4 COP15 End of the day

2009-12-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

While we worked in the Ethics Committee, we were mostly in a news bubble, drafting, editing and discussing. Tomorrow, back at the Bella Center (if they let us in), we will know more of where the issues are with the islands states and whether COP has resumed. This will all bear on the mood of reporters and how they receive the press kit, which has gone out.

By the evening, I was exhausted and it was pouring rain. I stopped at a hairdresser's to buy some conditioner and got into a long conversation with Eva, who runs the "Haircut," across from Oleg's side street and ended up letting her wash and blow dry my hair, which felt like blissful luxury. We chatted about COP, Bush, her last trip to NYC, where she ran the marathon in about 4.5 hours and outstripped her husband and dog walking. For about an hour, I felt human and relaxed in a way I haven't felt in weeks. When I got back to Oleg's, Suzanne still hadn't gone to the hospital. Oleg cooked us dinner and I helped clean up.

Tomorrow, the press conference begins at 9:30 AM, but because we don't know how they will decide to deal with the overage of observer status participants, we all plan to get there an hour earlier. It's been a long day and I'm headed for bed.

Day 5 Copenhagen Day 4 COP15 in the Ethics Committee at the Gentofle Hotel

2009-12-10T05:06:00.000-08:00

In the Ethics Committee meeting I had to struggle with language. As an artist, I was thinking relatively simplistically: art is about human values/ quality of life and that is an ethical issue.

Don Brown, the leader of the group asked, how does "our" message differ than social justice and the thousands of folks talking about it now. And because a press conference is called for tomorrow, it has to be phrased within the text for Document 14. At the 2005 Nairobi COP a whitepaper was produced and now they want to produce another whitepaper. Allocation and trading are 2 of the foci. They asked us to state what struck us so far. I said, the discrepancy between human & corporate values.

Kyoto was about trust, they explained. Now the whole process on trial. So, the question is whether starting all over (framework questions) is the ethical issue. This relates to the Montreal COP (?! about which I know nothing). Environmental diplomacy is up for question. The person next to me has just said that what is in question is whether the market based approach works (in response to my question). Related questions are how does the burden get shared and from what sources and how allocated: "adaptation." So now I understand two words in this new context: allocation and adaptation.

It's very hard for me to follow this conversation. It's a group of about 15 people. Each phrase evokes associations and questions I'm trying to sort out. There's little chance to ask questions because they are under a deadline gun. I'm struggling to recall everything I can pertinent on their terms. So I lose key phrases in between.

Don says the unique hook is responsibilities, ie., as I suggested, to Tuvalu, et al, not narrow economic self-interest. I spent several hours helping to edit the press release and then clarifying adapation at lunch and after- which is really just who gets the $$ to deal with global warming, why and how. The editing process nails down the implications of language, phrasing and clarifying examples. Our final draft of the press release got worked on this afternoon by their PR person. The audience is initially the media to get them in the door and give them a more detailed paper, so every phrase is judged for whether it is both a good story and clear or whether it is backstory data. The pivotal point always comes back to how negotiating language can reflect a just approach to the problems, which then gets broken down into subsections, like water, etc. The reference document was 176 pages and wiggle room was a series of brief phrases in brackets taht mean it hasn't yet been ratified.

How to Be an Effective Part of COP

2009-12-09T15:05:00.000-08:00

After the exhileration of demonstrations and the Fossil Awards, I met with Marilyn Averil and Gillian Bowser. Marilyn is a COP veteran. She explained to me how things work. How China didn't offer to cut emissions but rather a percentage of their emissions in relation to their Gross National Product, meaning they can increase their emissions by three times or more. She broke down what each country had offered based on knowing the language and history. It sounded bleak for Tuvalu and Kiribati and all the rest of us.

In the evening I went to dinner with the folks from the Ethics committee and asked them how artists could be part of COP. They asked me back why I thought artists deserved a place at the table? I replied because we are the glue that holds society together. They asked me why it was a COP issue? I answered because culture dissolves in disruption such as global warming will cause. They asked me why artists should be treated as any more disproportionately affected than any other group. I said, because we are the most marginalized and disenfranchised part of society now, but all of human life depends upon us. It is just unaknowledged, as slaves once were and women still are in many countries.

They clarified the legal, polticial and economic arguments to me that had to be made to prove that what I argued about art/the humanities is actually the case, because the United Nations is a legal entity. Artists/ humanists have all the pieces, we just need to put them together. Tomorrow, they invited me to their meeting and I will go and learn more.

Meanwhile, COP is slowly being closed off to NGOs, as we feared, because they permitted too many of us to register (and maybe they didn't enjoy the demonstrations as much as I did?). 34,000 are registered for a 15,000 capacity space. They have instructed us to only shown up if we have essential business. This week is the only week NGOs can participate in meetings. Next week is heads of state and then the meetings will be sealed off, altho side events will continue.

Day 4 Copenhagen, Day 3 COP15 NEWS FLASH!!!!!

2009-12-09T09:35:00.001-08:00

To wild applause, from about 250 people who all seemed to have cameras, Tuvalu won the first ever "Ray" Fossil award for being a ray of light and insisting on a specific and binding agreement.

At the end, the Fossil folks did a cancan with the Tuvelo representative.

Haves and have Nots: Due Process at COP15

2009-12-09T07:27:00.001-08:00

The African Theatre group last night told a story of a reindeer migrating to Africa because of the changing climate. Along the way, women are encountered, who manage the world very well despite difficulties, inc the difficulty of men who appear as gullible buffoons when offered money by slick corporations.

As I listen to the conference of parties (COP) negotiating about projects that will be jointly supported, I am thinking about a question Suzanne asked me a couple nights ago: how do they decide and negotiate? As I write, they are discussing how to protect forests and that hinges on the definition of forests. I had answered that it was a combination of human relationship, mandates from thier countries, rules and the mood of political opinion. There is no question in my mond that this group is being affected in it's procedures by the latter. The tenor of the conversations ahve changed since the morning. There seems a more conciliatory tone. Presumably it is no accident that delegates haven't yet returned at 5:PM.

Now, the first observer representative is addressing the conference. It is a business group representing, oil, gas, etc. They are asking for representation equivalent to nations. That was something predicted about ten years ago: that corporations would demand and take power equivalent to nations, which covertly, obviously, they already have. So maybe this is about "making (that power) things transparent." One of the interesting side political positioning stories is how various entities are using COP15 to extend individual agendas that have no direct bearing on the rule or issue under consideration but will ultimately have enormous impacts on global warming mitigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/science/earth/09cost.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

2009-12-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

This is a good description of the financial issues at stake. But I have to say the overall mood from poorer countries is anything but calmly accepting of the limited funds suggested. Their dignity, lives and lands are at stake.

Day 3 COP15 atmospherics

2009-12-09T06:44:00.001-08:00

It's like being at an enormous party, with many different clusters of types of people and events. There is the feeling of constantly shifting mood overall, as tho the conference were one large animal. Right now, the mood seems to be alert and high energy. Partly it's the demonstrations I think, partly the consensus building that it's haves vs have nots with major moral loading.

I haven't had a chance for lunch today, but there was someone with a huge cart of wonderful organic apples in the hall going into the plenary at 3:, selling them for 5 kroners (about $1.) and I sat down on a low wall between one of the open restaurants (there are many & most are organic) and the walkway, near someone from Africa working on his computer and numbers of others talking and eating.

I'm sitting in the front row towards the center of in front of the division between obervers and the delegates- about 30' away. The President and other main people are seated at a white covered table about another 100' ahead. People are constantly going back & forth with various devices, media equipment, etc. behind them are two enormous screens projecting the speakers. To my far left, there is a bank of about 15 translators with little reading lamps in presumably soundproofed gray framed cells.

From time to time, a lot of people put on their ear phones to hear proceedings in their own language. I haven't done that yet, but probably should have so I wouldn't miss anything. Each of us has our little cluster of stuff around us: water bottles, back packs, notebooks- paper and mechanical and of course cell phones. Generally, people are extremely courteous and friendly..

Earlier there were some passionate objections to proceedings without sufficient transparency. Now they are discussing projects for clean energy.

Saudi Arabia, which has been interrupting at every turn, just said, in a somewhat whiny tone, that all they have is oil and that's why they are asking for reparations. That was the first time I heard what sounded like a sincere statement from them. Maybe it's getting to them that at the conference they have become a laughing stock and something of a pariah- well, of course except for the countries that support them.

Tuvalu Heros

2009-12-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

Tuvalu representing island states and making coalition with 350.org. These folks were just a few feet from the doors into the plenary, made a LOT of noise and had a big crowd around them. Island states and indigenous groups, inc Canadian Tar Sands folk seem to be making coalitions. It's very easy here because s many as we all are, the builing is still relatively small & everyone is passing the same places.

2009-12-09T06:33:00.000-08:00

Kiribati dancer performing at COP15 to packed and enthusiastic audience (with apologies for poor lighting).

COP15, Kiribati, Tuvalo & Tar Sands

2009-12-09T03:56:00.000-08:00

The attendance at the Kiribati event was packed with standing room only. The islnders gave out shell necklaces, danced, pled, sang an incredible song about a lost frigate bird looking for her island, vanished beneath the sea. the said they were proud but had limited resources and spoke for all island nations: they want to stay on their land and not burden the world as refugees but they need millions of dollars they don't have.

There are demonstrators everywhere today in the conference. In the morning going into the Plenary All along there have been events and lots of people in costume, but today, they are everywhere. Major events include press conference about indigenous peoples and the Canadian Tar Sands. Major demonstration in support of Tuvalo with 350.org as you enter the Plenary.

President announcing COP15 consideration of the island states report. Still under way with no agreement. CMP continues. the unspoken agenda is now being shreiked: the developed countries are destroying the small nations, young people of the world and countless non-human species with impunity. Will they get away with it?

Day 3 COP15 Binding Agreements Issues Confrontation

2009-12-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

Came in on the Plenary discussion of whther or not to have a binding decision on agreements to emerge from this COP. Islands nations testifying. Barbados saying that the most most vulnerable countries are at the mercy of the largest, developed countries. (audience applause) declaration that COP should be suspended unless we agree on this point.

Saudia Arabia predictably "strongly objecting" and switching to English to make this point, asking the President to rule against them. India standing by absolute protocol, apparently in tandem with Saudi Arabia. Reminding me of an off the record aside Monday from one of the carbon scientist laughing dismissively at some "concession" from India. Someone speaking now from Burkine Fasso in French- too busy trying to read the credit (small on the screen) and thinking I don't know if that's a country and haven't heard of it- to catch the content. India replying that they have lots of islands and that's why they want to move forward (and apparently disregard all the other islands and have no restrictions on their own behavior).

President ruling in favor of Tuvalu, etc island states to consult with all the island states to get consensus. Kuwait saying they belive in the President's wisdom. Confusing whether some of these statements from the more secure states are about face or content. The are saying "not to waste time" which I take to mean they are in the camp with India & Saudia Arabia. Venezuela speaking in Spanish saying no paper will save us it's a matter of political will. (Applause again but I think the audience missed the point that Venezuela is also in the Saudi Arabia camp.) Tuvalu asserting the morality of addressing the issues seriously (this time I clapped hard enuf - with others- to hurt the ears of the person (Japanese?) next to me. Algeria, in French, taking dissent with Venezuela. Chad, also in French. I couldn't understand their position because it sounded so equivocal (alliance issues or my misunderstanding his heavily accented French?). China now speaking in Chinese. Apparently choice of language has become a political statement. I can't understand a word: 50% of the world can. Finally a phrase in English: "at least 40% (carbon emissions reduction- confirmed by the man next to me, apparently Chinese not Japanese)." A radical position compared to the USA but by when? Culture Futures yesterday was saying 80%. Saudi Arabia in Arabic looking complacent, belligerent and tired.

President looking very tired. Barbados, in English, speaking again to the need for attention to the island states. Saudi Arabia, et al are argeuing that the island states want to hold things up with new proposals. Barbados, Marshall Islands, clarifying they want tranparency and serious discussion, not delay. Clearly this has become a legal battle of terms that could be the turnign point of the conference. Tuvalu again: clarifying formal consideration of an amendment under existing protocol. Kenya speaking but like Chad, they sound neutral. United Arab Emirates also sounding neutral. President announcing the consultation will begin & they must report back at 3:. Tuvalu again refusing the ruling because it will be informal and not transparent and demanding suspension of COP. Big murmurs in audience. Silence on screen and obviously heavy conversation at the podium. President ruling to suspend consideration and revert to 3: plan.

Progressing forward to CMP. The island nations have apparently lost this battle.No? Yes? Tuvalu asks for floor again asking for clarification. President confirming suspension of COP till 3:.

Now considering joint implementation. I'm confused about the legal implications of this ruling and move and will have to clarify the implications. But it seems to imply that that the country delegates are now excused and the committees are now addressing the Plenary about how to deal with stakeholders and initiate and monitor projects.

Day 4 Copenhagen- other blogs on COP15

2009-12-09T01:25:00.000-08:00

Ed Morris of Canary Project is doing...
all about art at COP 15 http://www.good.is/post/The-Culture-of-COP-15/

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/8/we_are_having_a_hard_time
Also this story of the 15 year old from the Maldives.
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/8/would_you_commit_murder_15_year

You can find Sacha Kagan's diary at the Webmagazine of Cultura21: http://magazin.cultura21.de/piazza/english
events he will cover are:
On Sunday 6th and Monday 7th: the ASEF (Asia Europe Foundation) workshop on Arts, Culture and Sustainability: Building Synergies between Asia and Europe (18 invited experts + ASEF staff)
Monday to Wednesday: the conference Culture|Futures: The Transition to an Ecological Age 2050, organized by the Danish Cultural Institute with the help of other organizations including Cultura21 Nordic (about 200 participants from the cultural sector and eco-design/engineers)
Thursday 10th to Saturda

- ASEF blog in Copenhagen (http://connect2culture.blogs.culture360.org/)
- Official blog of the Culture|Futures organizers (http://culturefutures.ning.com/)

Midnight Day 2 COP15

2009-12-08T14:59:00.000-08:00

Sarah James singing prayers for her peoples in the Arctic at the gallery last night...

For tomorrow at 1:PM, the smallest nation in the world, Kiribati, has created and extended a special invitation to COP15 delegates, to attend a talk about what it means to be in the front lines of global warming. The subtext is, "to be in the line of destruction and be so small that no one might even notice, so please be so kind as to witness our experience." I've never even heard of Kiribati. I feel like I'm going to a pre-wake. And I will definitely be going. As a citizen of the developed nations, I can at least have the courtesy to bear witness.

Tonight, after the work at Culture Futures to create detailed protocol to present to COP15, we went to two? three? more events (this is the point in a conference like this when times, places, etc begin to blend and blur. I have, after all been on the road since Nov 10. But there's still another ten days to go). The last event, "(Re-) Cycles of Paradise" at ARTPORT was the most impressive. Assembled by several curators, Oliver Orest Tschirky, Corinne Erni and Anne-Marie Melster, it was in a remote building that looked like it had been around for a few centuries, down a dark alley. Artists included Subankhar Bannerjee, Kim Abeles, Charley Case, Meschac Gaba (Benin), Anita Glesta, Nnenna Okore (Nigeria/USA), Frances Whitehead and Insa Winkler. There was also music and a dance-theatre performance by the African Theatre representing animal and human impacts of global warming. The space was grand: fabulous ceilings and all the art, ecological, had political content- specifically gender related but including men.

It was a beautiful show but what stuck most in my mind, was beautiful Sarah James from the Arctic Circle, what we call Anwar, in full Native dress, long grey hair streaming loose down her straight back, speaking of what is happening to her people, to the bears, to the caribou and singing a welcome song and then a prayer. I thanked her for her presence and told her how painful her stories felt to me because there was so little I could do. She nodded and said, "pray." I promised I would.

The most difficult part of COP15 is listening to these stories, knowing my relative helplessness- not passivity but limitation and still celebrating the beauty. Dinner after Culture Futures, another gracious affair, was a roomful of people who are lead administrators from Africa, South East Asia, etc etc and many of their stories are different than those we tell in the west. A gentleman from Sudan told me he would tell me the good news about Sudan. I wanted to be open but couldn't get past my mental images of raped women. I sat with Marco Kusumawijaya and we spoke about what it meant for him to have weathered the political storms in Indonesia and responded in his work. I said my hunch was that what he has gotten used to in Jakarta, the instability, was what the rest of the world would come to live with as global warming proceeds to destabilize nations.

From time to time, I hear news of the outside world: demonstrations, bland news reports of the proceedings. This whole city feels like for better or worse, it is the whole world now and the whole world is here. The people I meet are utterly committed. The external events are just as serious as the internal ones.

It was late when I headed back from the gallery. I left with Sacha Kagan, Nadezhda, the curators, Insa, Subankhar and a couple other artists. Sacha, Nadezhda and I went on to the train station when they split off to have some late dinner. I navigated the train and metro by myself back to "Ama" and walked home along deserted streets.

It's 12:28 AM and Oleg is still out working on the next event. Suzanne says the baby has dropped.

Guest Post from Gloria Orenstein

2009-12-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Reading your blog brought back so many memories to me of the Mid Decade Conference on Women that I attended there in 1980 . With artist Susan Schwalb,, we wrote a proposal to create THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF WOMEN ARTISTS, and we were funded by the U.S.. We held it in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek , and invited women artists such as Betsy Damon for performance art and Betye Saar, and many many others,too numerous to mention, from the NYC art scene. We also created a film festival of work by women and I coordinated some international women's readings. Present with us to participate in the readings were Audre Lorde, Robin Morgan, and Esther Broner. Susan and I shuttled between the Amager Center , the political happenings, and the Glyptotek, where the director even danced around Betsy Damon's installation. I spoke with Susan on the phone the other day, and I sent her your blog. She, too, was filled with memories of the excitement we all felt in Copenhagen that summer. She wanted me to remember the artist Karen Park, who died a few years ago. She gave a big reception/party for the artists., and was such a lovely woman. There were women's art shows all over the city---and big manifestations on the way to the UN. There were also panels about the femininst publishers (worldwide) that existed in 1980. Exchanges in manuscripts took place, and many contacts were made. Susan I reminisced about how---without any internet or even a computer, we got connected with women from everywhere who participated in this gathering. We worked in close collaboration a group of feminists in the arts in Copehagen, and THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF WOMEN ARTISTS turned out to be a great success. Some of the smaller shows, like the postcard show---where women could submit art the size of a postcard---(walls were filled with these amazing images)---small shows like that traveled to other venues. We loved Copenhagen, and I was particularly
impressed with the fact that my host family had five children, and the woman owned her own business--and could do that because of the Danish childcare system. When I fell in the rain, I experienced the Danish medical care system-the most beautiful treatment, and all free. I was living in a dream, and now , from this perspective, it really feels more like a miracle that we did all that without the trappings of today's tecno-savy world. If Copenhagen could speak, it would certainly have many tales to tell--and now some about your own experiences there as well. Our gathering had a lot of drama, fist-fights among feminist publishers, many other things---but it was so exciting to arrive there and find women from around the world involved in all the feminist arts. and politics. ( Susan Schwalb was the Arts Representative to the early Houston conference in 1975. ) The UN Mid-Decade Conference on Women was such a high. We feel so fortunate to have shared such momentous times together in Copenhagen with lovely dinners on the water. Enjoy your time there as well, and may the Tikkun happen over and over.

5: PM Culture Futures & COP15

2009-12-08T07:44:00.001-08:00

Spent the after noon hashing out language of recommendations from Culture Futures to COP15. Sat with Pooja Sood from Khoj International, who was the moderator for our group, which concentrated on the cultural vs political recommendations. We were joined by Ed Morris, from the Canary Project, who stressed the importance of accountability. Now we're reviewing the sticks projected on the wall from each group.

Forced many of us to define what we mean when we fight for a position or against one, for example, funding support or eschewing the term "sector" as in cultural sector because it implicitly privileges the economic contribution of the arts. This will all go up at various venues, as video on YouTube.

In between met & was interviewed by Braden Smith (www.open.ac.uk/creativeclimate), working aon fascintaing project tracking changing attitudes towards global warming over the next 10 years.

2:PM Day 3 Copenhagen Cultures Futures & COP15

2009-12-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

It took a while for me to get into the process of this alternate conference and maybe we had to get a bit further down the line from the children. It's dialog on a scale level that would be impossible with COP15, which has apparently swelled to 36, 000 people (meaning some of us won't be able to get in now).

Some of the range of presenters have included Maria Rosalie Gerrudo, working with children and exquisitely aware that if she crosses the political line, she'll be murdered; and on the other end Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen, who has created a whole universe about electric cars (www.co2race.org.). I really loved Alison Tickell of Julie's Bicycle, making being an artist greenable (less flying, less plastic, better freighting).

We had a lively discussion after wards that was over all too soon. What I'm interested in, is how to connect the dots between different kinds of practices, circumstances and geographies all working together towards solving the problem of global warming. We've had a delicious lunch (I'm eating a bit too well here) and are moving along towards recommendations for COP15.

Children & Global Warming; green mapping

2009-12-08T01:30:00.000-08:00

COP15 emphasizes that children will be impacted more than any other group by climate change. Just watched an affecting international group of kids presenting their interpretations. Some have been to the Arctic as part of CapeFarewell. I cringe. I think of how the Hudson River School of Art introduced heavy industry to the pristine river in c.19.

Now watching greenmapping in Indonesia with Marco Kusumavijaya, Chair and Director of Jakarta Arts Council. It is hard for me to sort out my feelings about work that is essentially illustrative, no matter how well done. But he makes a connection to the politics of public space. Much of his work is educative, esp with children. What interests me most is when artists collaborate to catalyze new ideas and approaches that change things. But where do you draw a line to prioritize between introducing children to green city planning and solving global warming?

Day 3 Copenhagen Culture Futures Conference

2009-12-08T01:06:00.000-08:00

Have escaped the Bella Center and attending the conference organized by Oleg, sponsored by a combination of the Danish Cultural Institute, Asia-Europe Foundation (www.asef.org) and the British Council and numerous other significant entities. It's 10: AM here and I've already met artists and administrators from all over the world. This is the alternate to COP15. some of those I met include Pooja Sood, from Delhi, with whom I worked on the first Virtual Residency in 2006, but had never met in person before and Anna Marie Orru, working on sustainable infrastructure in Ethiopia.

We started with some introductions. One was from Jens Lysdal, who commented that Denmark is not so climate friendly as she looks. He paraphrased Thor Pedersen, Chairman of Parliament in Government, who announced yesterday that he was always happy to return to his big house with all the lights on.

Now back to the presenters.

10:45 PM Back at the Koefoed's After Reception at City Hall

2009-12-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

Food at the reception...

MOST FUN TODAY was today at 6:PM when we all gathered for the giving of the fossil awards. Huge crowd, singing, booing the awardees, laughing.

Kseniya Lvosky, Program Leader for Climate Change at the World Bank, told me she expects a treaty agreement of 25% reduction in emissions a few months after COP15. Richard Damiana, Lead Environmental Economist for South Asia Sustainable Department of the World BAnk was more skeptical.

the people at http://www.popcop15.com/ are taking a poll on whether or not a treaty will come of the conference. I said my hunch was a treaty was irrelevant. It would be a question of how mad the little/poor countries will get with the developed countries that are destroying them.

I told the woman from the South African delegation that I was sorry about George Bush. She said, "well then, start raising money for us."
I told Susan, from Rwanda, that I was glad they had joined with other African Nations in demanding restitutions and holding firm to radical changes.

The food was delicious. City Hall was splendid. The bus driver on the way back, took us all the way around town back to the Bella Center. I had a long conversation with Vincent O'Hara, Senior Editor of RTT News, Global Financial Incentives and repeated some of my recent conversations. On the metro back to the Koefoed's, Alison Gannett, a firend and colleague of Jim White's, was wearing an enormous ski and the sign: "Save Our Snow." She had walked 250 miles from one city to another wearing the ski and the sign.

Just sent a mailing that began with:

"After Katrina, in 2005, I announced I had decided to stop flying as a protest against global warming. November 2009 I broke that vow and flew to Europe to engage, as an artist, with global warming policy makers."

Returned home lugging about 50 lbs of books and articles to read (literally. Tomorrow, I head out to see events outside the conference, including ARTPORT, making waves, which includes work by a number of friends, as, Insa Winkler, Subankhar Bannerjee, Kim Abeles and a number of people whose work I donn't yet know..

2:45 PM COP15 DEC 7, 2009

2009-12-07T05:40:00.000-08:00

At the close of the open sessions, I watched an interesting exchange between Papua New Guinea (PNP) and the African & Arab states. PNP was anxious to move into a discussion of jow they are being impacted. Three times they requested some wya to talk at this point. each time, they were shot down by the President & the other states. Clearly the little countries, most impacted are having a hard time being taken seriously, despite what the opening Plenary speakers say.

Watching the Arab and African states was very instructive but confusing. Some, as, Saudi Arabia, made a point of speaking their own languages, so they were clearly addressing their own constituencies and being self-referential. Somalia gave a long & passionate speech about needing aid to deal with global warming. The delegate from Palestine requested permission to speak with other world leaders, preeumably a political positioning request.

From there I went to the US Center, where they were giving out (bottled) water and organic sandwiches. There was a lot of literature, a NASA film which didn't seem very informative and some milling people of indeterminate affiliation.

But in the next room, I hit informational paydirt: current research on the effects of short term black particle emissions on the Arctic: MAJOR and unregulated. The reason this is so critical is the albido effect: soot particles grey the snow, clouds and ice and these particles are deposited from long distances. In response to my question, I learned this will be addressed as a transnational regulatory question with various agencies, inc the IMO in the next week. Elena Kobets, a researcher from St. Petersburg, Russia, showed vivid maps of the effects of agricultural burning, esp from Russia and the Eastern Europe. I didn't catch everyone's name, but several points stood out: Southeast Asia is the worst source of black particle emissions in the Arctic, vividly demonstrating that no nation is an island, or rather, that we are all sinking islands in a chain of effects. Re: my earlier rant about the Arctic becoming a pleasure dome, the greatest danger of particle emissions is from traffic there: trucks, shipping, etc off-road and on-road. Problem is the treaties: without treaties there's no hope of enforcement and many countries, inc the USA, won't sign treaties (yet).

PRIMARY Particle Sources:

Power
Industry
Residential fossil fuels
Residential solid fuel (woodburning)
Residential biofuel

The good news is that there is the hope of progress over agricultural burning and filters are available for wood stoves. It's a start.

Time for the IT sessions.

Guest Post from Shai Zakai, Director & Founder, Israeli Forum for Ecological Art

2009-12-07T05:29:00.000-08:00

The following post about Tikkun, came in as I was sitting down at the Plenary. I thought it a useful mediation for the goals of the conference:

Tikkun is an optimistic word, it means that you can fix what is not functioning right. that it is fixable. Tikkun Olam on the other hand is more abstract, because how can you repair a whole world. ( Olam=world).
Judaism has adoptted the concept of Tikkun, in the spiritual level, to convey the message that human can always make Teshuva from their bad behaviors.
Every act we do on this planet begins with a lack of something- we eat because we are hungry, we sleep cause we are tired.. Does Tikkun needs to be better than the situation before? or exactly identical to the situation before it was spoiled?, the Gmara talks about it a lot. One of the ideas is that tikkun is a state of mind. the desire for better, while knowing that it is merely an essential part of the world which refine it and brings fragrance into it. I think of eco-art now, after 15 years of work, merely that.

The Tikkun is a force within us.
we can choose to develop it and be the person who can repair..
Try to think of the Tikkun not only as an act directed towards something that has happened in the past which needs Tikkun, but as a present, continuous situation.
The world according to the bible was created with faults; the flood, adam's sin, the snake, Hava. in its foundation, the world is not complete right from the beginning.
People are born with faults as well. if the world was perfect, there would not have been a place for Tikkun.

This is our place in world, otherwise we would not have a place in this world. All ideas for improvements is what makes the world a better place, and create the biggest changes. The Gmara talks about the idea that ideal state where everything is perfect does not exist in this world, what does exist , is a strong will to do the Tikkun, walk in the path of tikkun, as an essential part of this world. The trees are doing Tikkun every fall. i wish i could do the same. The idea that the creation is happening every day, and is not history, is essential to the idea of Tikkun.

The unfinished creation gives us the hope to v\create a Tikkun always. We can actually start fresh every day.
it is in a physical and spiritual level as well.
If our being is in a state of Tikkun, everyday, thousands of doors are opened before us, for better worlds. May-be one day i will enter in one of them, or create a door for someone else.

Guest Post from Oleg Koefoed, Culture Futures

2009-12-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Mannequin in Danish Design showcase before completion of display...

Here are some words from the launch of Culture Futures, that you may want to put in your blog:

Today, about 150 persons have made their way to Statens Museum for Kunst, the Danish National Art Gallery, for the launch symposium of Culture Futures. This symposium is the kick-off of a project that has been put together by a lot of different organisations within culture mainly, but also some other actors such as the city development company, Arup.

All morning, the team around the event, to which I belong as the representative of our small organisation, Cultura21 Nordic, part of a larger one, Cultura21 International, have been rather calmly getting the last details in place in order to host this event. The day today is, in many ways, a day of thanking partners and paying respect, which in itself is of course an action oriented towards the past. But at the same time, there are elements pointing towards those futures which the title of the project addresses.

The director of the cultural sector of ASEF, Dominique Guichard, spoke today of the ability of artists to "deceonstruct and reconstruct reality", and thus to be able to see the future and give indications as to how we might turn towards it and head into real change. The Malysian poet Cecil Rajendra spoke fervently in beautiful, but strong tones about the lies and destruction directions that the world has been taking for decades, even centuries. Following Rajendra came the talk of Arup's Peter Head, on the transition towards an "ecological age". If artists envisage the future, Head envisages certain very important elements of that future. Although there are elements in Head's approach which might be criticized for not questioning sufficiently the systemic models in for instance the economic field, there are definitely ambitious and eye-opening elements in Head's talk. Having heard him talk to artists in London in September, I know that his talk makes a sound impression on many of them. Not only because of his call to a deep cultural change, empowered and inspired by artists - although this probably helps to win their hearts. But their minds are also attracted by Head's many examples of city development which could entrail a positive change process.

I would still hold on, however, to the doubt regarding whether if Head's approach goes far enough. I am personally not too sure that we will see the success of the political and economic system, supported by a benevolent though engaged community of artists, in combating the trouble that we are in, if we do not dig deep enough to alter the systems on a structural level and alter deeply the way in which different sectors work together. There is a need, as far as I see, of taking Head's recommendations and looking deeper in the cultural looking-glass, so that we can understand not how to get to what he (and the Chinese prime minister) call the ecological age, but what the future looks like in which this has already become a fait accompli because we have found new directions for our civilisations, new processes for our societies, and new reasons for living at all, beyond the alters and idols of wealth, territory, competition and consumption. I hope that the next days of cultural actors responding to Head's invitation to help shape an ecological age will show that their communities, our communities, are capable of looking beyond the invitation and into new politics, new metaphysics, and new cultures.

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Hope the tone is not too radical, it is written as I listen to Peter Head himself..

10:AM Plenary 2 COP15 Copenhagen December 7, 2009

2009-12-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

Bhutan in a huddle on the big screen. Panning over the delegates, palpable excitement.

10:15 Still waiting for events to begin. Chatting with Karine Peloffy: Sustainable, Humourous & Innovative Thinking, about to take her first UN job on the environment, about CapeFarewell and whether artists should visit the Arctic. I'm strongly against it, altho I'd be thrilled to go. If I could go to the Arctic without carbon emissions, environmental impact to the ecology... turning it into a gentrified Disneyland with artists int he usual vangaurd to beautiful places..

Karine is opening interesting URLs: PlosOne; Open Access: "Oil in the Western Amazon."

10:28 We still haven't begun. The room now looks pretty packed. An imposing black woman in a vivid lilac purples silk thing and head dress just walked past the seated woman delegate from Azerbaijan in a tweed suit. It looks like 40-50% here are women.

10:29 the room is quieting.

10:42 We have begun. Clapping. References to and a film about the impact of climate change on children obviously geared to the first world: a child (white) awakens from sleep in a desert, flees opening crevices, loses her teddy bear, is approached by a tornado, a tsunami, clings to a tree, googles to Africa, world leaders describing migrations of climate refugees, ends with the child saying, "please save the world." More clapping.

Danish Girls Choir enters, in bronze and black, singing acapela. Harp. trombone in counterpoint. Instrumentalists and director men. A crowd of pretty, innocent, earnest faces and sweet voices. Audience attentive and quiet (no chattering). Sounds like folk music based sound. Several soloists folded in with the pure soprano (and one alto) typical of young girls. More clapping

10:58 Silence, panning delegates sitting at the main table. Prime Minister Rasmussen introduced with clapping. Until 2001, Denmark had a great reputation on climate issues but since then, with a new administration, they have withdrawn from investments in wind energy, etc. Nonetheless, he's asking for effective solutions, speaking to Denmark's determination to address the urgency of the problems. He is asking for political will, asserting that we here do all have the determination for significant, immediate action (despite the recent announcement from Saudi Arabia that they are just here to protest the climate change hoax and demand $ reparations) and calling on ordinary citizens for the ultimate responsibility (right: change a light bulb before the Tsunami). Concluding with a list of how Copenhagen has limited the carbon footprint of the conference (ie., tap water vs bottled) contributed money to fund climate scholarships. Ending remarks about qualities needed to inspire hope: courage, etc.

11:11 Mayoral address, Ritt Bjerregaard, beginning with a reference to Coca Cola's greenwashing "Hopenhagen" PR stunt (yuck. A bad sign of how corporations rule?): "let's turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen. Quoting Al Gore, "if you want to go first, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." References to progress towards carbon neutral, ie bikes (yes, there are armies of bikes, whole families.)

11:17 Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, Chair IPCC. "Warming .. is ... unequivocal... due to anthropogenic consequences.... Sea level rise 17 cm = island states, Bangladesh: every storm surge = threat to life." Article 2: stabilization of ghg emissions or- consequence- loss of ice, increase of heat, cyclones, loss of water, sea level rise of 7 meters. 20-60% species in danger of extinction. Causes include urbanization; coming desertification. 20% of 2 billion in way of river floods by 2020 75-25 million will be subject to water stress. Reduction of agriculture by 50%. Seas acidified serious impact on all marine life. High benefit cost measures to address issues now. First world must finance and act to mitigate: 3% of GDP. Limits must be achieved by 2015. Still may not be enuf. Holding Denmark up as an example for wind energy (but what about the Danish political retreat? Purchasing windmills from China of such poor quality that the Chinese don't use them and not supporting Danish companies). References to stolen documents from East Anglia to discredit IPCC, summary of IPCC review process. Conclusion: thanking for trust (makes me think of the EU negotiator who said it was all about trust).

11: 32 Yvo de Boer, Exec Sect of UNFCCC, opens with account of 6yr old boy surviving cyclone, flood, losing parents, brother, drifting all night: "(this) is what we're here to prevent. The time has come to deliver. ' 'Make a xmas cake: layer 1: capacity building, layer 2: financing $10 bil per yr. Icing: shared commitments.' Focus on the practical. Responsibility on developed countries (implicit message to Obama, China, India). 6 days before ministers. 2 days before world leader: endorsement must come the 18th. "The time has come to reach out to eachother: ...deliver."

11:38 Conclusion of opening of the Conference of the Parties (COP) & more clapping. speakers exit. Short break.

11:45 President of COP. "Conference... set directions for several decades... simple human solidarity.. fundamental changes of economic systems.. a historic moment for entire planet. We are are taking part (in history) ... let us see above our particular interests... to serve whole mankind.. to reach this goal."

11:50 Elected President COP15 Connie Hedegaard approaches: tall, thin, all energy, "let's get it done. This is the time to deliver. It is doable. I base my confidence... on my meetings with governmentas and ministers. The science is clear, The solutions are abundant. Political will, will never be stronger (USA conspicuously absent from list of countries making commitments)... we need money for mitigation, implemtation, adaptation... compromise, agree, find concrete solutions, use every skill available... to those that hold back... fearing economies will suffer... a global deal will drive drive energy security.... the time has come. It must be comprehensive. It must be immediate. Look eachother in eyes on September 18th.... open the door."

12: Organizational work begins.

Day 3 Copenhagen, Official Day 1 COP15

2009-12-07T00:50:00.000-08:00

Woke to a bleary gray morning and the three year-old happily eating breakfast and got out the door by 8:AM, an hour later than I'd planned. At the entrance to Cop15, someone was handing out flyers: "Stop the Global Warming Hoax Which Will Lead to Genocide," to which I replied, "o, please, give me a break," and next thing I heard was the cheerful drumming of Friends of the Earth. Told them I was glad they were here and went on to join the crowd entering and passing thru security (like an airline).

Couldn't connect with Marilyn Averill, the UCB co-ordinator in time to pick up one of 4 tickets to be in the main room for the plenary speakers, but did get into Plenary room 2 in time to set up and connect my laptop.

Bright lights have just gone on in the room. It's three minutes to the first speaker, the Danish Prime Minister, Lars Leokke Rasmussen. I'm sitting between a delegation of young people from Oxford University Environmental Change Institute on my right and delegates from Denmark and Ecuador on my left. On the screens, about 75' ahead, there are close-ups of the delegates in conversation, milling around. We are being asked to take our seats for the welcoming ceremony.

Evening day 2 Copenhagen

2009-12-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

A long and exhausting but exciting day. Registered & checked out everything I could- spent 6 hrs. Walked into the Bella Center with the Avaaz folks about 10:30 AM and chattered away with people on line from Senegal. Atmosphere felt electric with energy & determination. Now have my official badge with my photo and a public transportation pass. Remarkable number of people under thirty here- maybe 30%? People from all over the world, every possible physiognomy and clothing.

Lillian Ball asked about the significance of Obama's visit. Everyone I spoke to is buzzed about Obama coming. They feel it's symbolically critical and therefore heartening. Obama's coming towards the end is esp significant because a lot of footwork will have happened first. On th other hand, any agreements that come right out of the gate will be, as someone from honeywell put it: "lipstick on a pig." The real work will happen later, incrementally and without drama. Obama's visit will be the same day (the 18th) as my press conference so I may have a very small audience but I'll have a lot to say.

Met & chatted with the friends of the Earth People and the Fossil people who will give out "fossil" awards to those most deserving of being designated a fossil starting tomorrow at 6: PM. Cased the huge complex, checked out the press rooms and the deserted upstairs design showcases. Shot the naked white mannequins in barely lit windows down empty halls and the ubiquitous press people setting up and testing their impressive equipment. Had lunch (good). By 3:PM, people, inc me, were looking a bit peaked and withdrawn into their computers and agendas. 1500 laptops set up all over the center for use= 1 for each ten people. I'll bring my own tomorrow. Came back to the Koefoed's. Had rushed out so fast this AM, I forgot to ask for a key & had left my phone inside so I checked out the neighborhood (dogs, children) till someone showed up, thanking my lucky stars that it was neither raining nor snowing & delivered the fruit I'd picked up on the way back.

Tomorrow the real events at COP15 start at 10:, The COP15 people said be there before 8:AM to get in. Translation: convince the children here to turn TV off by 9: PM and wake up about 6:30 AM.

Morning day 2 Copenhagen

2009-12-06T01:20:00.001-08:00

Woke to sounds of Mai, the adorable three-year old, being fed breakfast by Oleg and dim Danish light and finally dagged myself out of bed at 9:AM. Oleg estimates at least 3,000 homes in Copenhagen have been opened to at least 10,000 visitors for the conference. I imagine there will be many bleary faces at reisgtartion today. An extremely pregnant Suzanne and I discussed their life here and what I could bring back from the market tonight. It feels like this conference will be quite different than conferences such as the College Art Association in the USA, where we all stay in expensive hotels in our intellectual bubbles. In awe, I pulled out my official letter from INSTAAR (Institute for Arctic & Alpine Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which I earned from my on-going collaboration with Dr. Jim White, the director, which is the golden fleece I'll take wth me to the Bella Center in just a few minutes. I'm leaving with Oleg, who is en route to a planning meeting for the Cultura 21 Nordic actions. I've invited him to blog an account later.

In the back of all our minds is a recent law passed by the Danes, which gives permission to the police to arrest anyone they consider suspicious for 12 hours and anyone they consider REALLY suspicious for 40 days without contact. Everyone I know is anxious to make clear peaceful statements but inevitably, there will be others with another agenda and I fear how innocents may be caught up in that, even myself.

Got two intersting responses from Gloria Orenstein & Lillian Ball already. To be continued later. We're leaving now.

Day 1 Copenhagen

2009-12-05T14:17:00.000-08:00

Last night, went to hear Native author Drew Hayden Taylor speak at Leuphana University about the power of humour: the trickster, in conveying messages. Left Luneburg at noon, after breakfast with Volker Kirchberg, Sacha Kagan (founder with Davide Brocchi of cultura 21, who brought me into the fold to show with them all at the Venice Beinalle in 2007), cultural sociologists and Nino Ruschmeyer, politician. Volker made us a fabulous omelette with a youghout curry sauce and banana bread. We spent two hours discussing strategies to effectively engage with media and then left for the train.

My seat mate going north was one of the EU negotiators. We spent a couple hours discussing the process by which he learns about the values of his partners and creates an atmosphere of trust, ie., with the Russians (?!); about wetlands restoration projects in Byelarus and top down vs ground up empowerment strategies. About 3:PM we all disembarked from the train and the entire train and all us passengers got on the ferry to cross the North Sea. Arrived at 6: PM to a warmer city than I'd anticipated, after the ride up from Germany, watching the landscape flatten and turn aquatic. I was picked up by Kajsa Paludan and Nadezhda Savova of Cultura 21 Nordic and I3C (International Collaboration of Culture Centers) respectively, and we proceeded by bus to Oleg and Suzanne Koefoed's home, where he served us another lovely meal. Oleg, co-founder with Kaysa of Cultura 21 Nordic, and my host to do three days of workshops here, cooked the bread and vegetarian lasagna. I've never been feted by so many talented male cooks in a row at one time.

At dinner we discussed the mapping of various stakeholder entities coming for COP15. After dinner, we mapped all the interest groups that will be present inside and outside of the main conference in the Bella Center, their target populations and relationships between entities and where they will be active geographically in the next two weeks. The schematics revealed how much of the audience relationships for NGOs, artists & activists are self-referential, whereas the corporate stakeholders have a well-designed and networked strategy. had a long, complex discussion applying what I'd learned on the train to the possibilities for allies and strategies that cross-over to some unexpected terraine: the design of discourse as art.

Copenhagen is an island (Amasgar) created on fill. At dinner I learned Oleg's sons recently had a special class explaining how it will revert to marshland and ocean thanks to global warming. Tomorrow, I head over to the Bella Center to register with my observer status and join the other 15-20,000 official attendees. Oleg says it's a 15 minute walk and 5 minute public transport ride. It's midnight here and there are three teen-age boys still watching TV in the large living room where I will bunk for the next few days before having my own private room. I've been warned that the beautiful three-year old will join me in my singing practice in the morning. My head is full of images, ideas, feelings: I can only hope to be functional by the time I arrive at the Bella Center. I might be entering a shamanic altered state of consciousness.