Energy Revolution balances 3 million travel miles from 2018 festivals & tours with Solar for Schools

Energy Revolution is a charity with a mission to help the live events industry tackle the negative environmental impacts from fossil fuel travel to events. In 2018, it helped its members, from a growing number of festivals and their audiences, suppliers and touring artists, to balance or ‘offset’ the carbon emissions from over 3 million average car miles to events – the equivalent of 962,274 kg CO2e.

100% of balancing donations from 2018 will to go to Solar for Schools, an initiative that puts solar panels on the roofs of schools in the UK, allowing them to produce low-cost clean electricity, while also educating children about the importance of a low carbon future.

New Energy Revolution members in 2018 included: Download and Reading festivals, produced by Festival Republic, who have long championed festival sustainability initiatives. They donated £1 from every car-parking pass sold to Energy Revolution. Artist, Novo Amor joined the charity in 2018 to balance the CO2 from his 2018 European and North American tour travel. Festival travel provider, Tuned in Travel joined last year balancing 100% of the CO2 from passenger travel to events. Ticket agent, The Ticketsellers, who have worked with the charity from the start, have continued to support the project by introducing their clients to travel-balancing and making it simple for them to join by embedding a travel carbon calculator into the ticket-buying process.

Since it was founded in 2015 Energy Revolution has supported its members to balance over 8.4 million average car miles – that’s more than 2.6 million kg CO2e – with donations in previous years supporting reforestation and wind turbines in India and community-owned solar and wind projects in the UK.

Energy Revolution’s original aim was to help their members balance 10 million travel miles by 2020, but, with growing commitment from the industry and more festivals, suppliers and artists joining the movement, they are on track to reach the goal ahead of schedule this year. Ultimately the charity aims to create a grant-making legacy fund, which can support on-going work to reduce carbon emissions created by the festival and touring sector.

The post News: Festivals and Tours turn travel CO2 into Solar for Schools appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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In the final blog of a three part series contemporary artist and researcher Sonia Mehra Chawla writes about the research she undertook in Aberdeen in June 2018 to inform an upcoming residency with Edinburgh Printmakers.

Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places – Talking about ‘scales’ and the urgency of the contemporary moment

Location and its influence on my artistic inquiry

My artistic practice is concerned with notions of selfhood, nature, ecology, conservation and sustainability. My art spans many other disciplines and areas, and I often find myself questioning, dissecting and re-imagining spaces that exist at the interface between art and science, nature and culture, production and perception, self and the other. My work over the past few years has often been a result of sustained collaborations with Scientific and Research Institutions, Non Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations and Trusts in India, as well as interactions with fishing, farming and agricultural communities, indigenous people, and tribal communities of rural and semi-urban regions of India.

In my opinion, local dynamics are worth worrying about, and localities can make a difference. Many of the individual phenomena that underlie environmental processes such as population dynamics, economic activities and resource use, for instance, arise at a local scale.

As a cultural practitioner and researcher it is imperative for me to consider how local places contribute to global changes, what drives those changes, how do these contributions change over time, how and where scale matters, what are the interactions between macro-structures and micro-agencies, and how efforts at mitigation and adaptation can be locally initiated and adopted.

These are also some of the vital questions that I attempt to address, probe and analyse through my research.

Exhibition view of Sonia Mehra Chawla’s film ‘Altered Growth: Inner Life of the Transformed’, from ‘The (Un) Divided Mind, International Art+ Science Residency at Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi. (2018) Image credit: Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi.

Interconnected processes & locale specific answers to global changes in climate

Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes. The current and ongoing phase of my artistic practice marks a close engagement with the present and future of India’s agriculture, with a focus on the impacts of climate change and salinity on rice ecosystems in coastal regions of India. This includes research on both indigenous and transgenic rice in India, climate adaptation and mitigation, and food and nutrition security.

Rice is one the most consumed foods on Earth. It is a staple in many countries including India where a large part of the population depends on the grain for sustenance. In fact, more than 90% of rice is produced and consumed in Asia. An enormous portion of rice production is lost to various abiotic stresses such as drought, flood, and salinity, and biotic stresses such as diseases and pests. In addition, changes in global climate are likely to make things vastly complicated for rice production in the future.

Essentially, fragility resulting from adverse environmental conditions linked to climate change, fundamentally alters the linkages between agriculture and nutrition outcomes. When margins are slender, vulnerability to adverse climate is magnified.  Sometimes this is a chronic and steadily worsening process that encourages migration with its own consequences, or even worse consequences with catastrophic climate events. Food shocks are a part of this. Then again, without the right kind of sustenance and security, climate refugees, people who are internally displaced today may become asylum seekers, refugees, or international migrants in the future.

Agriculture and rural development, on a local scale can make a strong contribution to meeting the global challenge of addressing large movements of refugees and migrants.

Again, if I look at my research on the impact of climate change on rice production and increasing sensitivity of rice to salinization, and because salinity tolerance in plants is a multi-genic trait, (which means that a single gene cannot confer the ability to be saline tolerant) there isn’t a single answer to the problem. The key idea then, is to raise a crop for locale specific as well as regional areas, which would provide locale specific answers to global changes in climate.

Work from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s ‘Scapelands’ series. Medium: Photopolymer etchings on archival paper. Printed in the UK in collaboration with London Print Studio. The research, production and International Residency at London Print Studio in 2014-15 was supported by British Council India and Charles Wallace India Trust. Image credit: British Council India.

A living vicious cycle of depredation

I have been exploring the fragile and endangered coastal and mangrove ecosystems along India’s Coromandel and Malabar coasts for over half a decade. The mangroves in India are over exploited and are declining and degrading rapidly. India has already lost over forty percent of its mangroves during the last century.  The Mangroves around coastal mega-cities in India like Mumbai for example, form a fragile ecosystem, and time and again, the rains in Mumbai and the disaster that follows has demonstrated the consequence of tampering with the ecology of these sensitive ecosystems.

The mangroves provide a preview of the challenges ahead for ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots across the planet. ‘Scapelands’ and ‘Critical Membrane’ are extensive series of works that I created between 2012 and 2018 on coastal and mangrove ecosystems of India. While ‘Scapelands’ explores the rich mangrove biodiversity of India, ‘Critical Membrane’ speaks about vast landscapes of loss, exploring past histories, politics, economics of consumption, and livelihoods and systems in flux. Documented extensively in degraded mangrove belts across India, these decaying ecosystems speak volumes about a living vicious cycle of depredation that is the tale of 21st century globalization.

Details from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s site specific installation ‘Residue’ at Yinchuan Biennale 2016. Image credit: Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China.

Through my work I hope to explore the relationship between the presented history and the contemporary moment and address such questions as: What does the current prominence of these works say about this moment in India’s history and society? How do the struggles of the past resonate with the protests of the present? Do these works represent a watershed year or a seminal moment in the representation of the nation’s history and culture? If so, what is the larger significance of these works and this historical moment?

A human centred approach – Connecting global, national and local standpoints

India is a supporter of climate justice. There is an urgent need to respect and protect human rights, and the rights of the most vulnerable while supporting the right to development, where the burden of climate change is fairly allocated and dispensed. Global warming is after all, not just environmental in nature, it is a political, social and ethical issue as well, which connects the local to the global, and developing nations to the developed nations of the world.

What we require most in a time of crisis is a human-centred approach.

There is an urgent need for a combined effort in mitigation and adaptation. Historical responsibilities matter and those who have greatest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and maximum capacity to act, must act in more meaningful ways to completely cut emissions.

Adapting to climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity. We need a cultural shift in our value-systems and ambitions to build a sustainable future block-by-block. There is an urgency to explore more inclusive, more flexible and more effective approaches to social transformation. A cultural shift provides a space for collective, improvisational and reflective modes of acting on, and thinking about a world of differentiated, multiple and uncertain futures, creating an emotional engagement and understanding needed to motivate meaningful change.

The artistic project (2018-2020)

I was invited to undertake the research arm of an artistic project with Edinburgh Printmakers in Aberdeen in June 2018. This research will inform an intensive print residency at Edinburgh Printmakers in spring 2019, and the outputs from this residency will be presented as part of a solo exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers beautiful new home at Castle Mill in 2020.

Edinburgh Printmakers will transform the former North British Rubber Company HQ- Castle Mills, into a vibrant new creative hub opening to the public in 2019.

Choosing focus areas

I hope this artistic project will serve as a platform and starting point for dialogue and conversations around some of the significant and pressing issues of our time such as the future of energy, the future of our oceans and marine life, society’s dependence on fossil fuels, just transitions, the global challenges of energy transitions, carbon reduction goals, as well as the human dimension of crisis.

End of Part III

This is the third blog of a three part series. Read Part I and Part II. 

Sonia Mehra Chawla is a contemporary Indian artist and researcher. She completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from College of Art, New Delhi in 2004-05. Her artistic practice explores notions of selfhood, nature, ecology, and sustainability. Sonia works in a variety of media including photography, printmaking, drawing, painting and video.

Sonia was a British Council India & Charles Wallace Scholar to the United Kingdom in 2014-15, for research in printmaking, and is currently the recipient of an International ‘Art+Science’ Grant Award instituted by Khoj International Artists’ Association India & the Wellcome Trust UK/DBT Alliance for 2017-18. She has recently been awarded a six-month Fellowship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany for the Art, Science and Business Program. Her works have been exhibited at the Institut Fur Auslansbeziehungen, Germany (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations), Tate Modern, London, Essl Museum of Contemporary Art, Austria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China, Goethe Institut, Mumbai, India, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, India, ET4U Contemporary Visual Art Projects, Denmark, and Today Art Museum, Beijing, China.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India.

Further reading and information:

The artists’ official website: http://soniamehrachawla.in/

Edinburgh Printmakers: https://www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/

On Turning Toward: ‘Critical Membrane’ by Sonia Mehra Chawla, Heather Davis looks at the work of Sonia Mehra Chawla, as part of her look into Four Figures of Climate Change, July 2017

http://theo-westenberger.tumblr.com/post/162458052219/on-turning-toward-critical-membrane-by-sonia

Down To Earth, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/

‘The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable’, by Amitav Ghosh. Published by Penquin India.

‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’, by P.Sainath. Published by Penquin India.

‘Ecology without nature: rethinking environmental aesthetics’, by Timothy Morton. Published by Harvard University Press.

‘Soil, Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an age of Climate Crisis’ by Vandana Shiva. Published by Penguin Random House.

‘Water Wars’, by Vandana Shiva.

‘From Green to Evergreen Revolution: Indian Agriculture, Performance & Challenges’, by Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by Academic Foundation.

‘In Search of Biohappiness: Biodiversity and food, Health and Livelihood security’, by Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by World Scientific.

‘Oil Strike North Sea’, by Mike Shepherd. Published by Luath Press.

‘The Klondykers’, by Bill Mackie. Published by Birlinn, Edinburgh (2006)

‘Old Torry and Aberdeen Harbour’, by Rosie Nicol & Particia Newman. Published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd, UK.

I am grateful for conversations and interactions with:

Dr. Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. Colin Moffat, Dr. Leslie Mabon Sass, Alison Stuart, Erik Dalhuijsen, Nicola Gordon, Dr. James Howie, Gemma Lawrence and Dr V.Selvam.

I am grateful to Edinburgh Printmakers. I extend my warmest thanks to Sarah Manning Shaw, Alastair Clark, Judith Liddle, and the brilliant team of Edinburgh Printmakers for their unfailing support, and look forward to a significant and meaningful collaboration over the next two years.

Contact:

soniamehrachawla.in

soniamehrachawla@gmail.com

admin@edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

The post Guest Blog: Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places (Part III) appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico

Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture features art, music and literature.

Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture explores the beauty and mystery of our world’s ice, and reveals the necessity of ice to our human survival. The project explores the traditions and cultures of people connected to ice from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, and raises vital concerns about climate change that can no longer be ignored. As climate change affects the weather and composition of our planet, our ice continues to melt. This reality affects all of us, regardless of where we live.

Ice Culture celebrates the physical and spiritual nature of ice. Ice has soul. It has a song. Ice radiates; it glows. It’s precious. Ice is a resource. Ice Culture showcases ice in all of its forms, from majestic glaciers to ice-carved musical instruments.

The diverse collection features art, music and literature by artists living and working in countries such as Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Germany, Norway, Japan and United States.

Check it out at www.blackcoffeevinyl.com.

Share your news!

This story was posted by Black Coffee & Vinyl. Creative Carbon Scotland is committed to being a resource for the arts & sustainability community and we invite you to submit news, blogs, opportunities and your upcoming events.

The post News: Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico

“Improve Scotland” is the captivating winning entry from the “Creative Minds” competition held in November 2018 which saw Creative Industries students from Fife College set a 48-hour challenge to produce imaginative creative works responding to climate change impacts in Levenmouth.

In the film, Improve Scotland’s intrepid reporter Chris Peacock takes to the streets – and shore and local amusements arcade – of Levenmouth to ask the locals what they think of Levenmouth, its river and climate change. The video tackles the big issues: How can we adapt to the future impacts of climate change? And are there polar bears in Fife?

Creative Minds competition

The Creative Minds competition was held as part of Levenmouth Adapts, an eight-month project promoting climate ready decision making and the value of creative approaches to bring about change.

The competition involved 1st year Creative Industries students from Fife College being taken for a field trip which included visits to the Levenmouth seafront, River Leven and the CLEAR Buckhaven orchard (a community-led regeneration and food growing initiative). They then had 48 hours to develop a creative work which addressed the themes of place, future and climate for Levenmouth in a thought provoking way.

Four teams each worked through the day (and night in some cases) to produce their entries which were put to a  judging panel of Natalie Taylor (project artist), Joe Hagg (Adaptation Scotland), Carolyn Bell (Resource Efficient Solutions, Fife Council), John Wincott (Environmental Services Coordinator, Fife College), Vikki Wilson (Fife College), Dougi McMillan (Director of Creative Industries, Fife College) and Gemma Lawrence (Producer, Creative Carbon Scotland). The judges were impressed by all four entries, but were particularly taken with the winning entry, which received a £200 prize. Funding for Creative Minds workshop was donated by the Fife Council Communities and Neighbourhoods department.

In the next stages of the project students will be invited to share their work and perspectives on the future of the area with partners including the Fife Environment Partnership. The Levenmouth Adapts project sees Nathalie Taylor working across different aspects the project as an embedded artist, with the Creative Minds competition being a key aspect of the work that she is involved with.

Levenmouth Adapts

Levenmouth Adapts is run in partnership with Adaptation Scotland, Creative Carbon Scotland and Fife Resource Solutions/Fife Council. The project is funded by the Scottish Government’s Adaptation Scotland programme which is delivered by sustainability charity Sniffer.

Find out more about the project on the Adaptation Scotland website.

The post Watch: “Improve Scotland” the winning entry from Levenmouth Adapts’ Creative Minds competition appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico

In their current state the UK’s peatlands are a source of around 20 million tonnes of CO2 (equivalent) per year – this is the same as the yearly emissions from electricity use in two and a half million homes. A new short film premiers possibilities for achieving a brighter carbon future.

The Carbon Farmer – a sci-fi mocumentary, set roughly 100 years from present day – follows the story of a man whose family have been working the same upland farm, based on peat soils, for generations and have radically evolved in the face of climate change. In a world where tax payer’s money is used to subsidise work to maintain the health of peatlands for numerous public benefits, he and his granddaughter show what could be possible in future – what we could gain, and what we could manage not to lose. Concepts that are, at present, no more than ambitions of conservationists are shown together with plausible advances in technology and agriculture – such as hover bikes and ‘blue’ rice.

Richard Lindsay, Head of Environmental and Conservation Research at the University of East London said: “The Carbon Farmer reveals a whole new avenue of opportunity for farmers of the future. Farming for carbon means that wet agricultural land which has traditionally been regarded as ‘difficult’… is instead transformed into prime carbon farmland which also provides multiple benefits for the whole of society”

Collaborative approach

A collaboration of organisations, including: IUCN Peatland Programme; The Wildlife Trusts; the National Trust for Scotland; The National Trust; Moors For The Future Partnership and Beadamoss® Micropropagation Services, supported independent Filmmaker and Ecologist Andy Clark to present a best-practice concept to share through this film.

Stuart Brooks, Head of Conservation and Policy for the National Trust for Scotland, said: “We hope the Carbon Farmer provides food for thought for our policy makers and heralds in a new era of sustainable peatland use. The national governments of the UK have all committed to peatland conservation and support the IUCN UK Peatland Strategy. This is very encouraging and makes the prospect of the Carbon Farmer more fact than fiction.”

The film release follows the recent Committee on Climate Change report that acknowledged the magnitude of greenhouse gasses currently released from the UK’s degraded peatlands, and also called for reductions in the production and consumption of UK beef and lamb – something which reportedly angered British farmers. The Carbon Farmer suggests a positive future for sustainable agriculture – both in upland peatlands and in the lowlands. The film supports the ideas of ‘payments for ecosystem services’ as a basis for environmental management – a proposed alternative to the current Common Agricultural Policy – and explores alternative cropping solutions for lowland peatland agriculture (referencing (the currently fictional) ‘British Blue Rice’) alongside traditional grazing.

The film ends with the call to action: “Climate Change is not science fiction; our policy on it should not be either. The UK’s peatlands are currently so degraded, they are a source of around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gasses annually. Prioritise peatland restoration for climate, and provide a cascade of public benefits.”

Main image credit: Andrew Clark

Share your news!

This story was posted by The Top of The Tree. Creative Carbon Scotland is committed to being a resource for the arts & sustainability community and we invite you to submit news, blogs, opportunities and your upcoming events.

The post News: New film ‘The Carbon Farmer’ appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico