In a three-way discussion, James Murray-White, Lola Perrin and Paul Allen explore Paul’s experiences at the COP23 climate talks in Bonn. Their video interview is a valuable insight for those of us who couldn’t be there in person.
700 words: estimated reading time 3 minutes+ 20 minutes video
One weekend in November, filmmaker James Murray-White and composer Lola Perrin travelled to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales and met with Paul Allen, Project Director for CAT’s Zero Carbon Britain research. With live questions from a Facebook audience, the three discussed the highs and lows of COP23 and what is possible in the transformation to a post-carbon world. This is the short video of their conversation.
Lola Perrin
“I followed COP23 quite closely on Twitter, watching live video events, and reading blogs and Facebook posts from attendees. What could be possibly be missing from this list… Mainstream media? You’re right. Despite the very survival of our civilisation being at risk, mainstream media seemed not to care very much about COP23 during the whole two weeks of the event, with very little coverage of the work going on in Bonn. Yet it’s vital to know what happened at COP23 so we can make our strategies on how to work towards making COP24 a success.
“Holding a Facebook live Q&A with Paul was a good opportunity to find out more about what went on in Bonn and share that conversation with others. Before the interview started, we made the decision to keep it short. Although we could have spoken for an hour or more, by keeping the film to fifteen or twenty minutes, we felt more people would watch the whole of it, and perhaps we would take care not to be repetitive. This was a good decision; on listening back I think the conversation is concise and to the point. People sent in questions in advance or also during the live video feed.
“And as a bonus, we sat in my favourite room at CAT – although it was cold it didn’t matter much; there was an aroma of wood in the air, and gorgeous views of slate on one side and forest on the other – an inspiring environment for sharp, hopefully positive, thinking.”
James Murray-White
“I’m delighted that Doing Nothing is Not an Option –TippingPoint’s 2016 conference at Warwick Arts Centre — gave me the opportunity to meet inspiring creative activists. This recent weekend is just one example of a positive outcome from that gathering: travelling to Wales with Lola to interview Paul at the awesome Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth, and then hosting the video of that here on ClimateCultures — created by Mark, who was such a key part of DNNO’s organisation.
“The issue of climate change is tough and throws up daily challenges — in seeing its effects, trying to communicate ways to respond, and simply by carrying around the knowledge of human impact upon planet Earth. But here is a small example of a few folk coming together to discuss, dissect and communicate, and then using this platform to put our efforts into the world and explore practical, creative and positive opportunities rather than spreading doom and gloom. I’m grateful for it, and for the warm, committed people who I’m proud to call my friends in this shared effort.”
Find out more
You can read about the challenges for next year’s talks in his recent ClimateCultures post, The Beating Heart of COP24.
A psychotherapist and writer committed to the rewilding of human nature, exploring the correlation between despoiling our natural world and the desolation of the human spirit
A composer, pianist and collaborator on keyboard conversations about climate change with economists, lawyers, scientists, artists and other thinkers across the world.
COP ClimateCultures Callout
Were you at COP23 or related events here in your community? Do you have experiences, arts ideas or creative suggestions about what we can take from COP23 - or what was missing - and could help make COP24 what we need it to be? Use the Contact Form to send in comments or contributions for more COP-related posts and content here at ClimateCultures. And check out our 'Questioning the COPs' creative challenge with Paul's recent post, The Beating Heart of COP24.
Paul Allen, Project Director of the Centre for Alternative Technology’s Zero Carbon Britain programme, shares his reflections after taking part in the COP23 climate talks in Bonn, and looks ahead to the cultural challenges for COP24 next year.
1,010 words: estimated reading time 4 minutes
We humans live by our values, shaped through communities, experiences and culture. Our communities and our experiences are increasingly compelled to engage with climate change, but can our culture also grasp it?
At the next year’s UN climate summit, we will have reached a point in the negotiations where all nations must raise their ambition if we are to deliver on the Paris Agreement. As we prepare, it is vital we recognise the influence of culture; in helping us grasp exactly where we are in the world and the scale and speed of the actions we must take. The arts and creative community, in many ways the beating heart of culture, has a powerful role to play in this.
From the bubble of forgetting where we are …
From shifting seasons to wild weather, communities across the UK now experience both the large and small effects of climate change in their own back yards. On top of this, as we watch the global news, we see increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as forest fires, floods, hurricanes and droughts, hitting communities in other parts of the globe. But then, as the news ends, and normal TV returns, the characters in our films, soaps, dramas and reality TV series simply never discuss this. They never take any of the actions we know we must all take; they never discuss any of the changes we know we are seeing. This creates a bubble in which we have forgotten where we actually are in the world, where we can ignore what we know we need to do, and where we never witness the positive co-benefits that rising to our challenge could offer.
To make matters worse, every time contemporary culture tells a story of human interactions set a decade or two into the future, we paint it against a background of ecological collapse and zombie-ridden dystopia. Turning us into zombies works well to dehumanise society in ‘collapse’ scenarios, so making the mass-extinction narratives more palatable. Be it a novel, theatre, film, a TV or the gaming world, any future setting is dark — and a whole new generation is now growing up within this, transforming the way we think. We have shifted from that exciting 1960s vision of progress and anticipation, to a dark, uncertain and fearful future; which makes us easier to manage. If we only tell future stories set against chaos, collapse and devastation, no one can imagine positive solutions, so nothing happens.
So, as we move towards COP24, with its urgent need for ambition, it’s time to re-think the future. Evidence-based art, firmly rooted in the reality of where we are and what we must achieve, can bring to life exciting new stories. In stories of a future where humanity has delivered on Paris, and is enjoying the co-benefits — what would change and what would remain? What would we be doing, wearing or eating? How would we get around? Where and how would we spend our holidays or leisure time? What will drive our happiness in this new chapter of our story?
To visualising a climate safe future
A decade of Zero Carbon Britain research from the Centre for Alternative Technology has clearly demonstrated that we have all the tools and technologies we require. Powerful research is now emerging from across the globe at an accelerating rate, offering the hard data and confidence required to visualise what a climate safe future might actually be like. Rather than an unresolved technical challenge, it is increasingly accepted that what we actually face, is a mix of political and cultural barriers.
In the run-up to this year’s COP23 climate negotiations in Bonn, I was heartened to see Julie’s Bicycle working in collaboration with the UNFCCC to offer a weekly spotlight on arts and cultural responses to climate. It is now time to build way beyond the scale of arts engagement achieved at COP21 in Paris. As we prepare for COP24, our cultural community needs to engage deeper with this process. This does not necessarily mean being on-site during the negotiations; ongoing engagement connecting local and community actions with the global process is every bit as important.
Since the Paris Agreement, mainstream UK media has barely engaged with the COP process, so few are able to connect with what goes on. Surely progress in providing a safe niche for future generations is every bit as important as the latest X Factor or Bake Off? So, to help explore new approaches, in the run-up to COP24 I am seeking collaborations across the creative community to build on our Zero Carbon Britain work, and have pulled together a short film to offer a glimpse into my engagement with COP23 in Bonn in November this year.
Questioning the COPs? Space for creative thinking...Bali, Berlin, Bonn, Buenos Aires, Cancun, Copenhagen, Doha, Durban, Geneva, The Hague, Kyoto, Lima, Marrakech, Milan, Montreal, Nairobi, New Delhi, Paris, Poznan, Warsaw... We've had 23 'Conferences of the Parties', with next year's in Katowice, Poland. Where, when and how would you hold the COP where the world celebrates delivering on 'Paris 2015'? Why there? Sketch out a 'creative timeline', mapping out how you think we might get there...
Share your thoughts - use the Contact Form, visit the ClimateCultures Facebook page or write a response on your own blog and send a link!
Dramatist Julia Marques previews ClimateKeys, a visionary global initiative from fellow ClimateCultures Member Lola Perrin. Julia considers the space it offers for more relaxed, but still urgent, sharing of thought and dialogue on the predicament of our times.
1,790 words: estimated reading time 7 minutes
ClimateKeys, as with climate change, has spread and become a world event. This can only be seen as a reflection of how connected we all are as humans on this beautiful planet. COP is coming, and so is ClimateKeys. In these keyboard conversations around the world people will be afforded the space to think about climate change, and the opportunity to talk about it with others. Thus is the combination of music and speech; using music as an introduction to the topic gives people the chance to think about this all-encompassing phenomenon as well as settling us down into a state of relaxed (rather than frantic) thought in order to have a more positive dialogue about climate change.
“I’m in ClimateKeys because the power of this format lies in the unique capability to attract both music lovers and environment enthusiasts, and then engage in a language that is less jargon ridden and more public.”
– Shruti Shiva (ClimateCultures Member), speaker in India
“Two years ago, my country was hit by catastrophic floods . . .”
The London launch of ClimateKeys — next Wednesday evening, 25th October — is a gala of music and speech. Ten pianists will perform, interspersed with three sections of the spoken word. Hannah van den Brul, who has herself written academically about music and climate change, will discuss ClimateKeys’ collaborative efforts with experts to spark conversations about climate change, as well as the “glocal” aim of local keyboard conversations happening across the globe. ClimateKeys is also honoured to have Kye Gbangbola and Nicole Lawler, the parents of Zane Gbangbola, as its special guests for the launch, who will speak about their campaign for the truth about the death of their son as the result of landfill poisons coming into their home during the 2014 floods in the UK (with suggested links to climate change). Guest Speaker Sir Jonathon Porritt will refer to the diversity of speeches, ranging from re-orienting communities and behaviour modification to inter-disciplinary solutions and climate change art – a real reflection of how climate change touches all aspects of society and human life. Porritt will also draw a connection between the London launch and a ClimateKeys concert taking place simultaneously in Bosnia where Professor of Climatology and COP delegate Goran Trbic will emphasise the importance of international common aims in order to build on the Paris Agreement. This not only highlights the significance of the event and the topic to that country, but also demonstrates the interconnectivity that climate change brings with it; our actions will affect others, including ourselves.
“I’m partof ClimateKeys because I know the arts and creativity are tools for positive global change.”
– Becca Farnum, speaker in the UK
“I tried to find pieces to perform that will stimulate the imagination of the audience and get them more aware of the UN climate change conference, COP23. Music has the power to enter mind, creating windows into the soul and the spirit.”
The fact that pianists have come forward to take part in ClimateKeys is, in itself, no small achievement. Concert pianist training can necessarily go hand in hand with a self-focussed approach which favours a concert being purely about a pianist’s mastery of the instrument. However, the power of climate change to bring people together and push them out of their comfort zones and normal routines is such that here we are with over 60 concert pianists to date ready and willing to give up the spotlight and share the stage with speakers and even audience members. This is to be applauded. But this also means that the road to ClimateKeys has not always been a smooth one. On average, only one in every fifty pianists contacted responds. As such, ClimateKeys is still missing a world-renowned concert pianist. An international piano star joining ClimateKeys would make the initiative more visible on the world stage (visibility itself being a barrier to awareness on climate change as it is arguably tricky for anyone to actually “see” the climate). If there are any climate change activist-musicians out there who know of such a pianist, then kindly connect them to Lola Perrin (lola@climatekeys.com).
“Part of the reason I am interested in this project is to be able to bring an informed discussion to the fore: it seems to me that many people form an opinion without exploring the topic and I welcome the opportunity to inform, myself first, on what I feel is an issue that affects every single person who shares this planet.”
– Eriko Crino, pianist in Canada
“I hope that together we can make the change, to leave our children a planet of hope and joy of life!”
– Marija Ligeti Balint, pianist composer in Serbia
In contrast to the pianists, speakers have been coming in thick and fast. It seems as though there are climate change experts across the disciplines who sense the potential of this forum for positive conversations about climate change and they embrace the invitation to give a talk without the use of projection or PowerPoint: a ClimateKeys principle, in order to avoid academic presentations. In the words of George Marshall, “The single most powerful thing an individual can do about climate change is to talk about it,” and this is what ClimateKeys proposes to instigate. Some of the best thinkers in the world are on board with the concept, and are keen not only to give talks in a cultural context, but also to facilitate genuine conversations (not Q&As) with the audience. This only serves to strengthen the resolve of all involved and heighten the excitement of this particular artistic response to COP23 and climate change.
“ClimateKeys brings together two of the interests closest to my heart: communication through music and care for the environment.”
– Sachit Ajmani, pianist in India
“Musicians havebeen given the gift of a platform and we can choose whether or not to use it.”
When I spoke with Lola about her project she said “It’s always brilliant when pianists come forward, they all say the same thing, they’re really concerned about the environment and it’s great to know they can do something about it through their piano work. Then the long road starts. Finding a venue, looking for a speaker (I do this for them in the majority of cases), sorting out the publicity.
“What I’m really, really concerned about is the distillation of the ClimateKeys format which is carefully designed to feature the audience participation. I worry I will alienate pianists if I’m too dogmatic about the concert format, but I’ve now decided that the dogma is really important. They must know that it’s only a ClimateKeys concert if it follows the core principles. So I’ve recently created a document to physically post (yes – using the postal system!) to each pianist to draw their attention once again to my principles. I’ve also included a specially written overview of how we get to zero carbon by around 2040 – principally guided by the work of Zero Carbon Britain and Sir David King. This is because I’ve had to put a lot of my music activities on hold in order to find the time to get my head around climate change solutions, and I can’t possibly expect the pianists to find time to do this. So I hope my document will be useful to them.
“I’m collecting a range of memorabilia from each concert and this includes summaries from the pianists to describe how the concerts went, I hope all this will go towards a future post which will be full of the different experiences the performers had.”
“I’m in ClimateKeys because I love nature and animals and it is great to express my concerns about nature issues through the language of music. For me the occupation with nature is essential. It is a bridge between music and spirituality.”
– Anna Sutyagina – pianist in Germany
“The tides are much higher in Florida than they used to be, especially in Miami. Even conservatives are talking about climate change . . .”
– Bezerra Gastesi – piano duo in the USA
With over thirty concerts in nine countries throughout October and November 2017, and over one hundred concert musicians and guest speakers in twenty countries currently signed up, ClimateKeys is a truly “glocal” affair. The appeal and the need for alternative ways of considering climate change are apparent from this response. We are all creative beings, and we all create in different ways. This is why scientific data appeals to some and art appeals to others, why numbers attract some and music attracts others. ClimateKeys is part of the new artistic collaboration with science that opens an alternative way to action on climate change, and the launch is the first step on our journey to increasing our environmental awareness and positive response to climate change.
You can read about the story of Zane Gbangbola at Truth About Zane.
For a UK perspective on the 2014 floods mentioned in the post, you can see a Met Office piece and report. And you can find out about the work of Zero Carbon Britain at their website.
A climate change dramatist, activist and communicator specialising in social and cultural aspects of climate change who has worked in the nonprofit and media sector.
Questioning our conversations? Space for creative thinking...
Julia quotes George Marshall: "The single most powerful thing an individual can do about climate change is to talk about it," and this is the response that ClimateKeys inspires (and ClimateCultures invites). What was the most recent positive conversation you had about climate change, and the most negative? What made the difference? And what can you create with one other person - a story, an image, a sound or song or a setting - to make (both) your conversations more positive?"
Share your thoughts - use the Contact Form, visit the ClimateCultures Facebook page or write a response on your own blog and send a link!
Filmmaker James Murray-White returns, fresh from a trip to Hull, City of Culture 2017, to bring us his review of the remarkable and immersive performance of ‘FLOOD’, a production that’s “exploring our humanity and responses to the world”.
1,540 words: estimated reading time 6 minutes
This past weekend I happened to be in Hull, City of Culture 2017, and stumbled upon an extraordinary multi-media and immersive piece of theatre about climate change and the human condition. ‘FLOOD’ is a year-long project, written by James Phillips and produced by Slung Low, a theatre company based in Leeds that ‘specialise in making unlikely, original and ambitious adventures for audiences.’ And they excelled with this production, told in a dock on the edge of Hull.
Part climate change drama, part biblical parable of human foibles and virtues and community self-determination, and chiefly a story of humanity telling its story in and about a “city by the sea”, ‘FLOOD’ is a captivating, urgent, and sometimes mesmerising drama, told in the water it tells of.
Setting it and performing it in the dock – with the audience clustered round the railings looking down into it and the action happening on a floating set tied together and sometimes coming apart, with little boats navigating to and from them, and even actors in the salty brine, “near drownded” — makes this a literally immersive piece, engaging the audience’s senses while we huddled and shivered as one in awe, and a lot of sadness.
“A drowned girl but….”
The drama takes us into several characters’ experiences of sudden, violent change. It’s held by a central character, who we come to know as Gloriana. We first meet her as she’s ferried into dock by a fisherman and his son, telling of “one net empty of all fish. In it, one hundred life jackets. Orange like those migrants leave on beaches. One hundred life jackets and a girl. Curled pale naked, just bandages on hands. A drowned girl but….”
Gloriana is very much living flesh and blood, but after her ordeal has resurrected into a reflection back upon each characters’ motivation and input into life. She’s received by Jack, an officer in a detention centre, and their lives become interlinked. Gloriana meets Johanna in the centre, described as an Iraqi Christian; and then Natasha – former Overseas Minister and now Lady Mayor – and her daughter Kathryn. These and the fisherman and his son Sam all hold the drama fast and furiously, bound to each other as water to land, and sea to sky, as humans caught in trauma, seeking salvation.
The drama reaches into our current migrant crisis, and the ex-Minister’s role is partly to provide an exploration of guilt and political responsibility around this issue. This theatre piece took place in a city covered in statues to its former ‘great and the good’, from Ferens and Wilberforce to De La Pole, all of whom are honoured but who all might now be seen to be culpable in the light of current political thinking, be it on votes for war, whaling, lack of action on carbon measures, or similar. The presence of a character who has sanctioned wars, who now has the opprobrium of her daughter and protestors outside her house and who takes a role as a leader when the floating islands become a necessity, opens up a whole strand of moral dialogue, guilt, and responsibility. Like writer James Phillips, I’ve also spent time volunteering at the Calais Jungle, where many thousands of refugees have headed in the hope of getting to the UK; once you witness such a place and hear some of the stories about fleeing atrocities, both human and climate-caused, then the full spectrum of humanity gets peeled back, and any response is a response.
A thing worth living for
Once the characters are afloat on the islands, bound together in tents, nailed together with pallets and bodged together as a refuge, then we see three different and distinct camps. The first, led by Johanna, uses faith to hold itself together, even evolves to sending out missionaries in boats to proselytise that faith to other survivors (which then horribly backfires). The second, led by Natasha, is titled Renaissance as a bastion of ‘law and order’, despite the Government in the South falling and power being shown to be nothing other than what we construct it to be. And in the third camp Sam, the fisherman’s son, gains power by violence and control; torture and murder dominate on his island. None of these three options appeal to me – so I would be a lone wolf, snaking between them all in my kayak, bartering fish in exchange for human contact and a little piece of the values that each offers.
Gloriana lives, and is either revered (by Johanna) or feared and hated (by Sam), and tries to reflect back to every character their inner nature; including Kathryn, with whom she falls in love. Her journey as a presumed fleeing migrant, with letters carved into her fingers and signs of torture upon her body, to death in the water, resurrection in the net and then becoming an angel upon the water — and literally sailing off into the rising sun — is the redeemer’s journey. The arc of the entire play is that all we have as humans is love. Faith may sometimes help, and faith will bring troubles upon us, but love will give us something worth living for. An unusual thread of lost love between the fisherman and the Lady Mayor brings an extra complexity that weaves within the narrative.
The night I saw FLOOD was the omnibus event, so we saw part two on the water, were herded to a nearby marquee to watch part three on a screen, then returned to the dock for part four. This helped to engage us further, pulling us together with the bribery of heat and tea and food, reminding us of communality and needs, while the characters were suffering the greatest calamity known to humankind.
Part one of this epic had already been screened online, and I understand that part three will be available for a limited time on BBC iPlayer, and clips are on the FLOOD website. So the scope of the production is being mediated both live and online and I hope it reaches a wide audience, as it needs to be seen. Standing watching the drama — encompassing back-projection onto water, water sprayed as rain above the actors, fire on stage, and the constructed encampment-islands amidst the water, as the characters become migrants on the world’s seas — is a visceral experience which will forever bind me to the story and the experiences being told. That is very different to watching anything on a screen, but the two ways of experiencing this drama make for a very powerful and urgent experience.
For me personally, as a graduate from Hull University’s drama department, which I left many years ago to head off into a career in the arts and became disillusioned by a theatre system that seemed dull and even unconscious during the 90’s and noughties, seeing this production in Hull, amidst a vibrant year of culture — stimulating and prodding and exploring our humanity and responses to the world — is joyous and so exciting.
The bigger picture, well — where will we go from here? As creatives, mediating dialogues and inquiry across artforms, as leaders, as animals within a system, and as a species afoot in the world? We may be bringing the rains down upon our heads, and there may be individuals or systems we can follow, and there will always be love.
“One dawn sailing far out towards the rising sun.Where we are we should not be and yetWhere we are, we are, and on we must go,What new world lay ahead we did not know,Eyes facing front, vanishing world behind.”
- FLOOD, by James Phillips
And the last line of stage directions from the play: ‘A little boat disappearing into the light’.
Find out more
The BBC’s showing of Part 3 wasn’t available at the time of publishing this post — but it’s the BBC, so it will no doubt be round again before you know it! Check out the episode page on their site.
You can see ‘FLOOD — the story so far’ on YouTube.
You can explore some of the issues around sea level rise, coastal change and flooding affecting the Humber region, including Hull, at the EU FloodProBE site.
A psychotherapist and writer committed to the rewilding of human nature, exploring the correlation between despoiling our natural world and the desolation of the human spirit
Questioning the camps? Space for creative thinking...
"In FLOOD, the people divide into three camps -- faith, law and violence. Snaking your way between these camps and more, belonging to none, what tangible things would you kayak between them to show each a broader way?"
Share your thoughts - use the Contact Form, visit the ClimateCultures Facebook page or write a response on your own blog and send a link!
Film-maker James Murray-White captures the energy and inspiration of a busy summer learning, engaging others and sharing their stories, recalling four very different events: a climate visuals workshop, a regenerative activism retreat, a performance and a coastal encounter.
1,810 words: estimated reading time 7 minutes
“I pondered all these things, and how people fight and lose the battle, and the thing that they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other people have to fight for what they meant under another name…..”
– William Morris, A Dream of John Ball, 1888
I’m writing after a stimulating Masterclass on Climate Visuals, run at the Thomson Reuters HQ in London by the Oxford-based climate NGO, Climate Outreach.
Visual language & regenerative activism
The event was titled ‘Catalysing a new visual language of climate change’, which is no small task, and by the day’s end the 30 or so participants had run the gamut of emotions examining a wide range of images, discussing them in small group exercises, and hearing from climate photographers and editors about finding and choosing stories and images.
I principally work with moving images these days, though my first creative medium was photography, and this masterclass again brought it home to me the importance of analysing images for human/non-human content, and how a story is told through the visual image.
Telling the story of climate change, with its impact upon the world and its tragic impact upon humans, often the world’s poorest and most vulnerable of society, needs to be done sensitively and with compassion; and the day kept coming back to both the ethics of featuring people caught up in the effects of climate change, and to the importance of understanding how the image and possible caption and accompanying article can find an audience. As journalists and creatives working to create change, we can ofttimes never know how an article, an image, a film or a play will land in the audience’s imagination, or what it may trigger.
“Women learning how to use a solar cooker. Solar cookers can help to reduce deforestation and carbon production bringing cleaner air locally as well as lower carbon globally.” Photograph: UN Development Programme 2009 – Creative Commons Source & text: Climate Outreach Climate Visuals Portal http://climateoutreach.org/climatevisuals/
Climate Outreach’s Research Director, Adam Corner, opened the day by setting the scene and mapping the landscape, through a diagram of the ecosystem of imagery: its generators and users. The NGO has excelled in its research in this area, outlined in a set of seven principles for climate change communication, from showing ‘real people’, through to ‘understanding your audience’. An ongoing debate, which continued with a colleague on the train home, was the use of polar bears in early and current images to represent the alienating effect through habitat destruction of climate change.
In any day-long course, or masterclass, there is always so much knowledge to share and stories to hear, and this was no exception. Climate Outreach and its dynamic team have been engaging deeply with this medium of knowledge transfer and change and, crucially, are creating the network to shape the future through careful and deliberate image choice and placement to sway opinions and support crucial debate and journalism.
At the other end of a spectrum of group dynamics, I was fortunate to attend a week-long retreat on Dartmoor in July titled ‘Regenerative Activism’, run by a team from the Buddhist Ecodharma centre in Spain.
This was a powerful group-learning experience – we were taken on a deep ride through our experiences as activists of all kinds and given powerful tools to support ourselves, understanding power in our groups and those we may stand against: burnout, privilege, inner criticism and everything that may stand in our way.
The week was at times challenging, but a crucial, urgent, regeneration. I was privileged to be in a group that included climate activists who have risked their lives and gone the extra mile for action and laws on climate change worldwide. Tried and tested exercises gave us all the chance to see and reflect upon our work and the passion that drives activism, testing this from many sides to see and feel both the flaws and the glorious altruism that drive our need for change, whether from hurt, weakness, or something else within. I’d highly recommend the work of the Ecodharma team – they are deeply engaged individuals who use the buddhadharma to enhance and enrich lives where they can.
The retreat was managed and hosted by a wonderful group of skilled meditators who offer retreats ‘freely’ to enable anyone to grow.
Back to my work, motivations and the place I work within, and the City of Cambridge remains a sphere of education, growth, and a catalyst of climate and social justice knowledge.
Pivotal — life in a flat land
It is a place of tradition and growth, but we live on flat land: an entire region of this tiny island that is highly susceptible to floods. The image below is a projected map of East Anglia, with coastal erosion taking away a huge swathe of Fenland from the Wash; cutting through Kings Lynn, Downham Market, Peterborough, the area where poet John Clare explored the treasures of nature, Chatteris, and the prime agricultural lands right up to the gates of the newly-titled ‘Silicon Glen’ that is Cambridgeshire. Only from the Ivory towers of academia will we be able to look out upon this once fertile landscape.
In the city, Pivotal is one initiative trying to bring together town and gown to find solutions and share experiences on climate and social justice, mainly using the prism of the arts. We’ve had lots of successful events and a mini Festival to find ways of engagement.
Pivotal is teaming up with many of the NGOs across the county who also look at issues of environment, community and sustainability, such as Transition Cambridge, Cambridge Carbon Footprint, Fulbourn Forum and other village parish councils and groups, to run a season of films, events and speakers in February 2018: ‘Films for our Future’. Watch this space for a full timetable. We’re finding that teaming up with all the expertise and crossover here, while learning from similar festivals in Totnes and Reading, brings a world of resource and energy into one concentrated space – to make change happen.
On darkness and doing
Over in Reading, I got to see Festival of the Darkness director Jennifer Leach’s performance piece Crow recently: “Whoah”, is all! This is a creation myth that hits you in the stomach; with searing sadness, and an eternity of tension between the figure of Crow and Hollow Man, I felt a personal sense of despair in looking at our humble humanness not felt since seeing a Samuel Beckett play. There are moments of beauty, and real insight: clowning; a chorus that observes, entices and engages. Crow’s mother, who sways through, brought up some grief for the loss of my mother this year, as well as a sadness at the sly dexterity that is at play amongst humans: we can love and laugh, cry and die, and can try to resolve and understand issues, though still we maraud and pillage natural resources as if we own them, and howl at the terrible consequences.
Thinking this thought further, I’m delighted to share that following our highly successful provocation at the life-changing TippingPoint Doing Nothing is Not an Option conference in Warwick last year, where so many of these connections were made and interlink across culture and activism, stage designer Andrea Carr and I have been talking about reprising our Doing Nothing is Sometimes an Option event – giving participants an opportunity to dump all their baggage at the door and enter a space of rest, mindful exploration and tuning in to sensory being. Participants at DNNO might well remember the glorious prism that showed up for us. Watch this space for more!
During a filming project recently, I visited the Norfolk village of Happisburgh, which has suffered the most extreme coastal erosion of our entire island, and successive governments ‘giving up’ on their efforts to protect the land from the violent surges. After an hour of filming in the iconic lighthouse, as the volunteer warden locked the door and I packed up cameras, I asked him “So what’s your take on the erosion here?” He pointed to the field we stood beside, and angrily responded “This was entirely flooded just three years ago. The next time the sea will wash into the Broads and contaminate that. These houses won’t be here. This lighthouse will be beaming its light as an island in the sea.”
This close-up and personal engagement with the reality of change, in the midst of doing other things, reinforces for me the need to keep making connections, writing and filming these issues, finding images and creating footage to highlight all the stories of our time. I went from this conversation to the church, and met a church warden who had moved into the village some seven years ago, in full knowledge and sight of the potent destruction of the sea defences, some of the cliffs and some of the property in the community. For her, faith and church involvement sustains.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence; it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” – Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light, 1988
In the theme of spiritual inquiry and the buddhist practice of cultivating bodhicitta, I dedicate this writing to all those affected by climate change over the past few months, in the USA, India, and worldwide. May all beings find peace.
James also mentions fellow ClimateCultures Members Andrea Carr and Jennifer Leach, and you can find out about their work through the links, and in the ClimateCultures Members Directory.
A psychotherapist and writer committed to the rewilding of human nature, exploring the correlation between despoiling our natural world and the desolation of the human spirit
Questioning what sustains? Space for creative thinking..."James' post ends with an image of a stranded lighthouse and a note on faith. For you, what sustains your engagement with 'the reality of change, in the midst of doing other things'?"Share your thoughts - use the Contact Form or write a response on your own blog and send a link!
