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.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Art at Poulsen
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.
Day 12 Copenhagen, Day 11 COP15 and The Good COP15 Press Conference
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. :).
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. :).
Thursday, 17 December 2009
On Trigger Point Theory and Activism
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.
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.
Day 11 Copenhagen First Real Snow
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.
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.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Page Two of the Press Release for the December 16 COP15 Press Conference that never happened and the role of art in climate adaptation
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)
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)
More Video on Protests- this time INSIDE Bella Center
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/a-bouncer-at-the-gate/
Communications with the Media Center in response to my query about options
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
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
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