COP15

Marcus Brigstocke’s #COP15

Just in case you’d missed the BBC’s Now Show clip, here’s the transcript. Brigstocke was one of those on the 2008 Cape Farewell expedition.

The delegates came and the delegates sat
And they talked and they talked till their bums all went flat
Then a delegate said of the country he knew
“We must do something quick but just what should we do
So they sat again thinking and there they stayed seated
Sitting and thinking “the planet’s been heated”
“I think” said a delegate there from Peru
“That we all must agree on some things we could do
Like reducing emissions at least CO2″
So they nodded and noted then vetoed and voted
And one of them stood up and suddenly quoted
“It’s the science you see, that’s the thing that must guide us
When the leaders all get here they’re certain to chide us”
So they sat again thinking about what to think
Then decided to ponder what colour of ink
To use on the paper when they’d all agreed
To be selfless not greedy McGreedy McGreed
“But how do we choose just what colour to use”
Said a delegate there who’d been having a snooze
“We need clear binding targets definitive action
We must all agree clearly without more distraction”
So they sat again thinking of targets for ink
But the ink in their thinking had started to stink
And they started to think that the ink was a kink
In the thinking about real things they should think
“If ze climate needs mending then zis is our chance”
Said the nuclear delegate sent there by France
“We need to agree on one thing to agree on
Something we all want a fixed guarantee on”
“Yes” said another who thought this made sense
Some value for carbon in dollars or pence
But the mention of money and thoughts of expense
Had stifled the progress and things became tense
The fella from China with a smile on his face
Said “Who put the carbon there in the first place”
“Wasn’t us” said the U.S then Europe did too
Then a silence descended and no words were spoken
Till a delegate stood up, voice nervous and broken
“Is there nothing upon which we all can decide
Because on Wednesday my chicken laid eggs that were fried”
“We all like a sing song” said the bloke from Down Under
But then the great hall was all shouting and thunder
Policemen had entered and were wearing protesters
Who they’d beaten and flattened like bloodied sou’westers
The police had decided to downplay this crime
With prevention detention and beatings in rhyme
The Greenies who’d shouted and asked for a decision
Were now being battered with lethal precision
All sick of inaction and fed up of waiting
All tired of the endless debated placating
They’d risen up grating berating and hating
So the police had commenced the related abating
Ban Ki-moon put his head in another man’s lap
And was last heard muttering something like “crap”
But the chap next to him said “It’s more like it’s poo”
So the great hall debated not what they should do
But how to decide between crap cack and poo
“It is poo” “It is cack” “It is crap” “We agree”
Which was written and labelled as document three
“I think if we all find one thing we agree on
Then maybe Brazil might be left with a tree on”
So they sat again thinking of trees and Brazil
And of glaciers which had retreated uphill
And they thought of the poor folks whose homes were in flood
But less of the protesters covered in blood
They pondered the species so nearly extinct
It’s as if they all thought that these things might be linked
“We need a solution we need action please”
Said a lady who’d come from the sinking Maldives
The others all nodded and said it was fact
That the time must be now not to talk but to act
Then Obama arrived and said most rhetorical
“Action is action and not metaphorical”
“Wow” they all thought “he must mean arregorical [sic]“
“I love it when Barack goes all oratorical”
“But the problem I have is that Congress won’t pass it
“Bugger” said Ban Ki then “sorry” then “arse it”
Then Brown said “I’ve got it now how does this strike you?
It’s simpler when voters already dislike you”
He suggested the EU should lead from the front
So The Mail and The Telegraph called him something very unpleasant indeed
So the delegates stared at the text with red marks on
Ignoring the gales of laughter from Clarkson
No-one was satisfied nobody won
Except the morons convinced it was really the sun
And they blew it and wasted the greatest of chances
Instead they all frolicked in diplomat dances
And decided decisively right there and then
That the best way to solve it’s to meet up again
And decide on a future that’s greener and greater
Not with action right now but with something else later

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

HQ Copenhagen » HEADQUARTERS, PART 2 – FROM JANUARY 8TH AT 17:00

Headquarters reopens in Gallery Poulsen on January 8th at 17:00.

Headquarters, part 2, will be a total installation including works made by *HQ members and documentation of their activities during COP15.

The exhibition will run until January 22nd.

We look forward to seeing you at Gallery Poulsen.

HQ Copenhagen » HEADQUARTERS, PART 2 – FROM JANUARY 8TH AT 17:00.

Land Art Internet Coma

Thanksgiving long past, and holiday feasts ahead, but I’m already stuffed, thank you, with this years’ steady eco-art diet of Land Art adventures and COP15 coverage. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed with art-nerd-glee. There is such a thing as an information coma, I swear.

The art-and-landscape dishes started churning out of the Nevada Museum of Art kitchen with its LAND/ART symposium way back in June: that event kicked off a summer-into-fall series of lectures, performances, exhibits and tours that made NMA the best excuse to want to go to Nevada since Burning Man. Later in the year Land Arts of the American West, a field program directed by Chris Taylor, took some lucky followers on a tour of renowned site-specific installations and Land Artworks. Unfortunately, some of us had to stay at home with our Winnebagos, experiencing most of the glory over the internet.

This month, while the delegates at COP15 tried to negotiate our way into a non-binding middle ground, Ian Garrett and William Shaw told us what artists were doing to mitigate the damage. There’s great coverage of actions, protests and memes by Shaw on the RSA blog– Garrett did comprehensive exhibition coverage and interviews for CSPA. It seems the artworks that struck the most resonant chord were also political actions: New Life Copenhagen, The Yes Men’s fake press release, actions that addressed COP15’s inaccessibility and ineffectiveness. Comedian Eugene Mirman voiced a couple of unanswered questions. The philosophical culmination is GOOD COP, an alternative Bella Center installed at Gallery Poulsen Contemporary Fine Arts in Copenhagen, where everyone from Daryl Hannah to Bill McKibben got some time on the mic to make their international declarations. If the dialogue keeps running this fierce, I’m not worried. That is to say: Burp.

Go to the Green Museum

Success for New Life Copenhagen Festival during COP15

Success for art festival during COP15

NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN was a great success and expects to continue during COP16 in Mexico

During COP15, the untraditional art festival NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN has hosted the free hospitality of more than 3.000 climate guests from 108 different nationalities. Activists, grassroots, scientists, diplomats and delegates have lived on couches and in guest rooms in Danish homes for the past two weeks. This vast cultural meeting makes NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN the largest free private housing project worldwide in relation to an international summit or conference.

The social success of the summit

The organizers behind the project, Wooloo.org, is very satisfied with the outcome. The large cultural meeting went by and large without problems, and the reactions from the participants have been overwhelmingly positive.  Wooloo.org states:

Most of the hosts chose to spend a lot of time with their guests. The hosts showed them Copenhagen, discusse climate politics, cultural differences, food and so much more. They sat and talked all night, and the younger participants went out at night – some of them even started dating. Others have already made plans to visit their guests in their home country next year.

A social experiment

The objective of the art festival was always to create something more than a free hospitality project. Wooloo.org says:

Instead of inviting artists to create art pjeces for a traditional museum, we have chosen guest hospitality and meetings between people as our exhibition platform. The purpose of the festival is to create a foundation for new ways of living together. Individual solutionas are not enough. As a society we need to live of lives radically differen if we are to succeed with the climate changes.

With this objective as a starting point, the artist group Superflex asked participants to make an absurd choice to decide if they wanted a climate-friendly death if they were to die during the summit. Signa made a special guest- and host book for all participants where particpants could evaluate each other’s lifestyle patterns, and the activist duo The YesMen encouraged everybody to take a pledge to never drink Coca-Cola again.

The success continues in Mexico

Already now, the world is looking ahead to the next climate summit in Mexico (COP16). And the organization behind is already very positive about implementing NEW LIFE as a way of welcoming climate guests and once again examine new ways of living together by the hand of a series of challenging choices and happenings developed by Wooloo.org and other artists.

NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN is the largest private and free accommodation project worldwide ever in relation to an international summit. NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN is funded by the Danish Arts Council, Nordic Culture Point, the Danish Arts Foundation, the City of Copenhagen, People’s Climate Action, Tryg Vesta and the Danish Society for Nature Conservation.

For more information:  www.newlifecopenhagen.com / www.wooloo.org