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January 11: Greening the Arts Panel at APAP Conference, NYC

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The Initiative just got word of a “Greening the Arts” panel relating at this year’s Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference in New York City, being held at the New York Hilton at 1335 6th Avenue, this Sunday, January 11th, from 9:30 to 11:30.  The panel features five speakers from the UK, Canada, France, and Belgium with experience and expertise in greening the performing arts venues, and is moderated by Brian Allenby of Reverb. Information from the British Council’s website and the APAP website follows below:

Greening the Performing Arts: Here and Abroad

Featured Speaker:
Ben Todd, Executive Director, Arcola Theatre (London)

Facilitator:
Brian Allenby, Manager of Operations and Education, Reverb

Discussants:
John Hartley, Arts and Ecology Strategy Officer, Arts Council England; Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Artist; Neil Woodger, Acoustician, ARUP

In what ways does the presenting field benefit from engaging in the greening movement? Who are the leaders and what have they learned from integrating environmental initiatives in performing arts programming and presenting? This session features the work of individuals and organizations, both in the United States and United Kingdom that have demonstrated the effective integration of greening policies and outcomes in performing arts initiatives.

The British Council brings a distinguished group of international experts in the emerging field of arts & environment to New York as part of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters annual conference.        
With unique experience managing environmental reporting and performance, arts professionals from the UK, Canada and Europe can meet with you to explore the hows and whys of sustainability in the performing arts industry.

 EVENTS        

These free events are open only to registered attendees of the Arts Presenters membership conference in January 2009. See the conference website for full details on these and other sessions.
 Greening the Performing Arts: Here and Abroad
Sunday, January 11, 2009
9:30 AM – 11:30 AM
An APAP Professional Development session - see details in MyPlanner on the conference website.        

In what ways does the presenting field benefit from engaging in the greening movement? Who are the leaders and what have they learned from integrating environmental initiatives in performing arts programming and presenting? This session features the work of individuals and organizations, in the United States, Canada and the UK, that have demonstrated the effective integration of greening policies and outcomes in performing arts initiatives.

 TREETOP SESSIONS

Is your venue, festival, consultancy, production house or service body keen to engage with the most important global issues of the day?

Thinking about environmental sustainability in your business operations and public programs can help you demonstrate your responsibility in a new way to the audiences, partners and cultural communities you serve.

Join us at the Arts Presenters membership conference in 2009 for a series of ‘green consultation’ sessions: intimate Q&As with international colleagues about how they approach environmental issues in their arts work. Feel free to bring specific questions or problems you’d like ideas on how to solve.  

Even if you’re at the very beginning of thinking about environmental challenges and how to tackle them, this is a great opportunity to learn about both immediate and long-term practical solutions.

Email us to sign up for one of the consultation slots below – please include your name, title, organization, contact email and telephone in your message. All consults are held at the British Council Booth 309 in the Rhinelander Gallery of the Hilton, unless otherwise indicated. See bottom of page for participant biographies:

CHRISTOPHER CRIMES
Director, Le Domaine d’O

Christopher Crimes was born in England and moved to France in 1974, becoming a French citizen in 1979. Initially trained as a language teacher, he originally worked for a national resources center for the French Education Service. In 1982 he became Administrative Director of La Maison de la Culture in Le Havre (now known as Le Volcan). In the following years Christopher served as a manager and director for several major theaters and arts venues in France including La Filatureand Le Quai, which he opened as Director in 2007.

As of January 2009 Christopher will be Director of Le Domaine d’O in Montpellier, a historical site devoted to cultural events, and will focus on projects around arts and the environment including the influences of sustainable development.

GUY GYPENS
Artistic Director, Kaaitheater

Guy Gypens served as financial director of the Belgian dance companyRosas for many years and was involved in the founding of P.A.R.T.S., the dance school of the influential European choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.  He now serves as co-artistic director of the Kaaitheater in Brussels.  

The Kaaitheater was established in 1977, originally as a biennial international festival. Since 1987 its work has extended to full seasons; the Kaaitheater presents theater, dance and concerts, with a special emphasis on innovative work and productions/co-productions with national and international artists.

JOHN HARTLEY
Arts and Ecology Strategy Officer, Arts Council England

John Hartley is Arts Council England’s Arts and Ecology Strategy Officer, supporting the development of practice and infrastructure in the face of changing contexts. John led on developing ACE’s self-assessment toolkit to help arts organizations implement effective energy management programs. Implementation of the program can reduce energy usage and carbon emissions, potentially reducing energy costs by up to 20% 

John also works on the Arts Council’s Arts and Ecology partnership with RSA, is on the GLA steering group for Greening London’s Theatres and the DCMS Climate Change Project.  Previously John has worked in the visual arts, architecture and interdisciplinary arts teams of the Arts Council’s National Office developing, among other things, ‘Art in Industry Placements’, through action research with industrial partners across the UK, India, the Americas and Asia. He is also a practicing artist, directs a collaborative experimental music group and has co-written a book published by Transworld.

NATHALIE HEBERT
Programming Agent – Circus Arts, la TOHU

Following a number of years’ experience in the circus arts – as an aerialist, choreographer and producer – Nathalie co-founded the Davaï Project, an agency specialising in circus and the production of circus-cabaret. After her retirement from the stage she worked with Cirque Éloize and the Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, developing a particular interest in outreach programmes and audience development. 

She joined la TOHU in 2007, enthusiastically taking on the challenge of programming circus arts and developing an audience for contemporary circus within an organisation which places a strong emphasis on the environment and the community.

A non-profit organization founded by En Piste (the Canada national association of circus arts), the National Circus School and Cirque du Soleil, la TOHU is a circus arts training, creation, production and performance center. La TOHU’s mission not only involves making arts and culture readily available to local audiences, but also informing and raising environmental concern among its visitors.  The organization is located in the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex, the largest urban landfill in North America, and actively participates in environmental activities to renew and revitalize the site. 

BEN TODD
Executive Director, Arcola Theatre

Ben Todd brings scientific expertise to his role as Executive Director of London’s Arcola Theatre. He completed his PhD on the Modelling of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for Power Generation at Cambridge University Engineering Department. He has worked in R&D, technical and strategy consulting on both commercial and government projects. As well as managing Arcola Theatre, Ben works as a technology broker for theLow Carbon and Fuel Cell Knowledge Transfer Network run by the UK Technology Strategy Board.

Arcola Theatre aims to become the world’s first carbon neutral theatre venue and to create the first center for new energy technology in the arts. The theatre intends to install biomass heating, solar panels, fuel cells and state-of-the-art energy saving technologies throughout the building alongside a dedicated work space for arts and science professionals to collaborate.

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Neuroscience and change

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Matt Grist who writes the RSA Social Brain blog put up this post before the weekend:

Neuroscience
is expanding massively. There is much fear that this will somehow
herald a new social determinism, an anti-progressive agenda where
people are marked out as winners and losers by the kind of brains they
possess. The comparison case is genetics (although obviously
neuroscience is not separate from genetics). After the genome
was mapped, all sorts of anti-progressive implications floated around
for a while – refusing life insurance to people with ‘bad’ genetic
profiles and so on.

Does neuroscience have anti-progressive implications? I’m going to argue in as far as the facts are so far in, no, not at all – quite the opposite.

Matt is pulling together a lot of research that suggests the brain is much more than just a hard-wired piece of computing equipment. New science says it has has much more plasticisty than was assumed, firstly in the negative sense – that poor environmental conditions, in the meaning of poor well-being – restrict the creation of neural pathways, but also more positively in the sense that our brains don’t appear to simply compute decisions in our own self-interest but also act on emotional stimuli. In other words cultural factors can play a part in how our brains come to a decision on how to act. The idea beloved of those who see humanity as a race of cliff-bound lemmings, who can’t stop the urge to relentlessly over-consume because this is hard-wired in us is, perhaps, looking more dubious…

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Hunting the American Experience

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{Opening Day 1938, 2009, Mixed media, oil on canvas, by Donnie Molls}

Donnie Molls has a series of paintings based on hunting photos currently on display at Carl Berg in LA. I caught the opening of this and despite the overly crowded room, I found these quite captivating.

Culled from his family’s photo collection, they reflect his upbringing and say something about us, the animals we choose to hunt and the role images play in constructing our personal and collective history.

Here’s a bit from the gallery website:

By choosing not to contemporize the image and reinterpret them with current social and moral values he creates works that force the viewer to acknowledge a shared human history of man’s relationship to nature. 

{Fred’s Elk, 2009, Mixed media, oil on canvas, by Donnie Molls}

Also worth checking out if you head to Carl Berg are the time-lapse photos of John Mullin.

> More at carlberggallery.com
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Carthage College Aims for Green with New Performing Arts Center

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Excerpted from Lighting & Sound America Online, November 13, 2007:

HGA Architects and Engineers has completed schematic designs for a new environmentally-friendly performing arts center for Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The subject of theatre arts is central to Carthage’s liberal arts curriculum. In recent years, growth in theatre, theatre production, musical theatre, and technical theatre classes has increased the need for updated and expanded theatreand theatre-support spaces at the college.

                        

The 62,000-sq.-ft. complex will include two performance spaces. An intimate 400-seat proscenium theatre will include a full fly loft, orchestra pit, and trap space. This theatre will support all the theatre department’s drama, theatre dance, and musical productions. The expanded capabilities also will improve the quality of visiting productions. These will include professional touring groups, guest speakers and simulcasts events.

Complementing the main theatre, a 150-seat black-box space will provide students with flexible space for experimental work. Technical theatre training will be accomplished in separate shops for set design and production, custom design and construction, make-up art, and lighting design.

All of these spaces are open to the main circulation “spine,” giving the casual passersby a view into the artistry of theatre production. A third-level rehearsal hall is sized for blocking out a main stage production. With a view of Lake Michigan, the rehearsal hall will double as a campus-wide special events space. Front-of-house spaces will provide the audience, students and visitors a welcome lobby, reception area, box office, and concession area.

Located on a pivotal site, the Performing Arts Center will become a gateway at the main campus entry. The selected site is covered with mature oak trees and slopes down toward the Pike River nature preserve. Reinforcing both Carthage College and HGA’s commitment to the environment, no trees will be removed. The building is being designed as a truly green theatre, with sustainable materials, high-efficiency mechanicalsystems, and alternative energy sources.

The project is scheduled to open for the 2011 academic year.

 

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Green is the New Peach: Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit

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The green economy is ready for take-off, and most Americans are jumping aboard Obama’s sustainable bandwagon. Will theaters join in the movement?  Imagine that you’re a non-profit arts organization competing for funding in a sector where financial resources are quickly dwindling. And that you’re based in a major American city plagued by drought and situated within a community that has just begun to realize its role in our growing environmental movement.

When Theatrical Outfit in Atlanta, GA embarked on a search for a new home in 2003, the company settled on the building right next door.  Its new facility was formerly one of Atlanta’s most cherished restaurants, Herren’s. Theatrical Outfit’s use of the space is inherently green, in that it utilizes an existing space for the new building; but the restaurant-turned-theatre also carries rich historical and social meaning.  Herren’s was the first restaurant in Atlanta to voluntarily desegregate, and in fact, the first African-American couple to dine at Herren’s are now Theatrical Outfit subscribers. The building’s rich history matches Theatrical Outfit’s mission to present work indigenous to the culture of the American South. I can’t think of a better setting to tell stories of Atlanta’s past, present, and future than in a space that was once a leader in progressive social interaction among Atlanta’s important cultural groups.

Once Theatrical Outfit decided upon their new space at Herren’s, they were approached by a local donor who had been funding various green building projects throughout Atlanta. Theatrical Outfit voiced their commitment to explore green building to the anonymous funder, who was donating through the Kendeda Fund. Along with the anonymous donor’s $1 million dollar pledge, a gift of $1.4 million from two board members enabled the company to purchase the old restaurant. A three-year capital campaign raised the additional funds toward the $5 million required to build green. When the Balzar Theatre at Herren’s opened in December 2004 it was America’s first LEED-certified theatre. The building has earned a LEED Silver rating and the company’s management staff was able to keep their promise to the anonymous donor.

Locally supplied materials and recycled content constitute approximately 33% of the total material cost of the building. Additionally, all adhesives, sealants, paints, coating and carpets emit low or no volatile organic compounds. For example, the building’s carpeting was made from recycled glass. More than 75% of the demolition and construction waste, by weight, was diverted from the landfill.

The theatre utilizes a HVAC system that provides clean (and quiet) air to the facility by measuring the amount of carbon dioxide expelled by the audience, bringing in more fresh air as required, so the audience does not become oxygen-deprived and stays comfortable. Patrons using Theatrical Outfit’s restroom facilities will find light sensors, low-flow toilets and waterless urinals (with signage educating patrons about the purpose of the devices). Rainwater collected on the roof in a 7500-gallon tank is used in place of fresh water for toilet and sewage systems.

When purchasing concessions, patrons do not receive a plastic bottle or aluminum can. Instead, Theatrical Outfit serves soft drinks out of 2-liter bottles which are then recycled when empty. The City of Atlanta doesn’t pick up materials for recycling, so the company has developed an on-site recycling center where items are separated and transported to a local recycling conversion center. Additionally, patrons are encouraged to recycle their programs at the end of each performance.

Located in between two nearby public rail stations and with two county bus systems dropping off patrons directly in front of the facility, Theatrical Outfit was able to thrive in a time when rising fuel prices kept many Atlanta citizens from attending cultural programming. With a staggering person-to-car ratio, many in metropolitan Atlanta still view the act of driving into the city as part of the greater theatrical experience. The staff at Theatrical Outfit is exploring ways to increase patrons’ use of public transit, especially with the nearby downtown revitalization that enables safe, convenient mass transit options. Staff at the Balzar are already working toward reducing their own car travel, thanks to bicycle storage and shower and changing facilities for bicycle commuters.

The management team has further helped their employees reduce car transit by instituting a monthly “Green Day”, when staff are encouraged to work from home and save the round trip drive into downtown Atlanta. The Green Days are planned around holidays and breaks in the organization’s programming. On each Green Day, the building’s heating and cooling are turned off to further increase energy savings. The organization’s Green Days have been a cost-saving hit with management and staff. When they are working on-site, the administrative office space is built with massive windows to utilize daylight, with personal lighting at work stations to decrease energy normally utilized for overhead lighting.

Theatrical Outfit’s artists have commented on the positive benefits of working in a green theatre. For example, skylights in the company’s rehearsal hall, which help save on energy costs, provide actors a much-needed connection to the natural world outside. Accounting for efficient lighting when building the new space has led to a 25% reduction in energy use compared to comparable structures.

Building green enabled the marketing team to pursue additional public relations opportunities beyond the simple arts feature stories and production reviews. The increased exposure the theatre has received from local newspapers, national arts organizations, green building websites, and curious eco-artists has helped quadruple their subscriber base in a period of only three years. Thanks to local colleges and universities, as well as a successful $10 student ticket program, the company is seeing its audience trend younger each season. With a majority of young Americans identifying themselves with green living, arts organizations who present works in green spaces may beat out the competition. With 118 theatre companies in Atlanta, any edge (green or otherwise) is crucial. 

The majority of Theatrical Outfit’s programming deals with issues of civil and social rights. While the company doesn’t necessarily seek out plays and musicals that explore green living, they certainly look for opportunities to educate patrons about local ecological issues. During the company’s fall production of “Big River”, the company provided information about Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a local non-profit dedicated to preserving the most heavily used water resource in Georgia. Theatrical Outfit is a shining example of a forward-thinking theatre positioned ahead of the curve to ride out this current wave of fiscal and ecological uncertainty.

Links:

“Green News” at Theatrical Outfit’s website

BuildingGreen.com’s overview of the Balzer Theater

The Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Building Technologies Program overview of the Balzer

“Visions of vibrancy come to life downtown” in the Atlanta Business Chronicle

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ETC Gives the Green Light

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From the ETC website, 11/21/08:

ETC (Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc.) has not only led the entertainment- and architectural-lighting industry in technical innovation but is leading in green practices as well.

The company’s environmental policy is ‘committed to fostering a healthy, safe and sustainable global environment.’ ETC meets and exceeds compliance with the European Union’s WEEE (Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive — practicing proper recycling of all products, including the disposal of electrical equipment. Within the ETC factory, reusable containers are used instead of disposable ones that produce further waste. ETC also adheres to the European Union environmental-safety directive RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances), which regulates chemicals used in electrical and electronic equipment.

On a product level, ETC strives to develop greener, more energy-conscious lighting solutions. The new ETC architectural line, the Unison® Paradigm™ lighting control system, was engineered to regulate energy: detecting occupancy in rooms and automatically lowering light levels in vacant spaces, operating on a programmable timed-event schedule, and through ‘daylight harvesting’ — a light-detection capability that lowers electric lighting levels in response to incoming natural light.

ETC’s Source Four® fixtures are known globally for their high energy-efficiency. The Source Four spotlight has become the most efficient tungsten fixture for entertainment lighting — given its patented high-performance lamp (HPL) and dichroic ellipsoidal technology. ETC’s 575-watt Source Four fixtures shine as brightly as competitors’ 1000-watt fixtures — using 40% less energy. ETC also produces a full range of Source Four HID fixtures with high-intensity-discharge lamps that last up to 10,000 hours longer than other lamps, while maintaining over 90% efficiency.

ETC’s products and systems are helping customers and their buildings achieve the distinguished Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating. The largest LEED building, the silver-certified new Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, is equipped with ETC’s Unison system as well as over 100 Source Four fixtures. The Grand Rapids Art Museum, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the first art museum to achieve Gold LEED certification, also benefits from green-minded Unison control.

ETC has gone greener on the homefront too: the recent 78,000-square-foot addition at ETC’s Wisconsin headquarters was designed with minimal environmental impact in mind.  ETC’s Unison Paradigm system is used throughout the headquarters to maximize energy efficiencies. In the new construction, thick, heavy-duty metal panels were chosen to reduce excess material consumption. Software connected to the factory’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system was deployed to regulate energy use during peak hours to minimize overall energy consumption. ETC also installed a receiving dock equipped with an air lock to prevent temperature-regulated air loss. Doors, windows, and even asphalt materials were recycled during the construction process. The new addition uses electricity-frugal fluorescent lighting and contains eight huge skylights for optimal natural lighting — reducing need for electric light.

ETC’s property too is greener than ever, recently re-landscaped with almost 170 newly planted trees that will surround the headquarters with a canopy of natural dimming. In addition to tree planting, ETC is reducing future paper waste internally. The company has started a huge effort toward a ‘paperless office,’ in which all paper records will be transferred into electronically-archived copies. The project will take over a year to complete and will convert over three million pages of data into electronic format. All existing paper will be recycled.

Even ETC’s 2009 product catalog too is eco-friendly. The new cover is made from 100% recovered cotton, from textile-factory waste, and the catalog’s pages are made of FSC-certified paper — 30% recycled fiber and chlorine-free pulp from timber-managed forests.

Other links:

ETC products help Las Vegas’ Palazzo achieve LEED status

ETC to expand Middleton factory

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ProTech Announces GreenScene

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Reprinted from Lighting & Sound America Online, October 2, 2008:

Protech Theatrical Services Las Vegas announces its plans to re-direct its product lines to manufacture “green” products. “We will be making every effort to use recycled, organic, and natural materials and methods to create a new line of products that will be made of raw and recycled materials that will reduce our carbon footprint and make a difference to our planet,” said Will Brants, president of Protech and now GreenScene. “It has been too long that we have taken part in the wasteful use of our planet’s precious resources,” he added.

Revealing his first new GreenScene products at LDI in Las Vegas, Brants reports that virtually all stage equipment is manufactured from steel, castings, aluminum, plastics, and nylon, a high percentage of which are recyclable. Protech’s challenge was to implement a higher percentage of recycled raw materials that could be manufactured and performance-tested to conform to stringent industry standards. Brants and his R & D team worked for the last 16 months to find new manufacturing methods and new sources and expertise.

Brants took his mission to his own manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, which reduced their landfill output by 90%, by placing recycling bins on site and training employees. The plant also switched to all recycled paper products, energy-efficient lighting, and more efficient air conditioning.

One challenge faced was to find recycled materials that were certifiable, at a reasonable cost. “I even contacted DuPont and, to my surprise, they responded to me and were very cooperative and willing to support my efforts to find sources for recycled nylon right here in my own country,” Brant says, adding that he is issuing a challenge to the industry: “What are you doing for your planet?” He calls for an open forum to solicit ideas from anyone who knows of new sources for raw and recycled materials and new technology to continue to reduce our collective carbon footprint.

Links:

 

 

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Staging Concepts Goes Green

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Reprinted from Lighting & Sound America, October 3, 2008:

Staging Concepts, the maker of stage risers and modular staging pieces, reports that it has begun offering products that can be built using eco-friendly materials. The benefits of the materials range from wood certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) to steel with a recycled content value as high as 100%. These products can contribute towards satisfying several LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) credits.

In addition, Staging Concepts, Inc. has become a member of the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council). The USGBC is a 501(c)(3) non profit composed of leaders from every sector of the building industry working to promote buildings and communities that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy place to live and work.

Links:

 

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Elenira Mendes: it’s not just about trees

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Tonight we’re hosting the Chico Mendes Legacy discussion at the RSA. Before he was murdered, Chico told Elenira that if he were killed, she was to take on his work. Which is quite a burden to carry, because as a girl, she witnessed her father’s death at the hands of thugs hired by local landowners. But she did go on to found the Instituto Chico Mendes to keep her father’s ideas alive, and she’ll be here tonight to talk about her father’s legacy.

I interviewed her last week for the main RSA Arts & Ecology website. The great thing about Chico Mendes’ work is that it wasn’t principally about saving the rainforest at all. It was about creating a decent existence for the forest dwellers of the Amazon, the rubber tappers like Mendes and his family, who were being pushed off their land by agribusiness, and murdered if they objected.  It was about people. Mendes was visionary enough to know that preserving the rainforest was crucial to preserve the local economy. 

One of the reasons why most people don’t give two hoots about environmentalism is that a lot of people in the environmental movment don’t get this. They see people as the problem, not the solution. It’s one of the reasons why so little environmentalism has much traction. Yet.

Elenira Mendes made a point along these lines.

 Unfortunately not
all who defend the environment today are focussed on these populations [the forest dwellers].
There is much talk about saving the forest, but people forget that
there is human life in it. There are communities and human populations
living in the forest that need support, need better living conditions.
Environmental organizations need to remember it is not a big only a big
forest with many trees and animals. It is populated. It has traditional
populations, such as indigenous people, those who live and work on the
river banks, and the rubber tappers and small producers that need
support, incentives and investment. If we create the conditions for
these populations to continue in there areas, automatically, the forest
will be preserved. 

Read more here.

(For that matter, enviroment doesn’t just mean the rainforest either.)

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Class war

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In the hospitality room last night before the Chico Mendes Legacy event. Matthew Taylor buttonholed guest speaker Charlie Kronick about the new Greenpeace Heathrow strategy. Kronick is Director of Climate Strategy for the organisation.

“Yes, today I’ve just become a beneficial landowner,” Kronick announced, offering to sell on a chunk of his newly acquired Heathrow plot.  It’s a strategy to try and at least delay the bulldozers, giving a little more breathing space to build on the growing public disquiet about the way the whole planning process has itself been bulldozered through.

Matthew Taylor told Kronick  his was a much more effective protest than the Heathrow disruption by Climate Rush the night before, or the even more disruptive Plane Stupid protest earlier this month at Stansted which some believe is bound to alienate everyone who is delayed, particularly the hard pressed holidaymakers who’d saved all year for their break. Kronick disagreed, as you’d expect.

After Kingsnorth and Stanstead the debate about what the most effective way to galvanise public action is taking shape – although it’s not a very pretty shape. Very typically, Brendan O’Neill of Spiked picked furiously at this scab last week by accusing the airport protestors of  “class hatred”.

These posh activisits, descended from baronets, lords, inventors and
aristocrats, are keeping up a long tradition in which ‘mass
tourism’ has attracted the ‘class-contempt of killjoys who conceived
themselves superior by reason of intellect, education, curiosity and
spirit’. What we saw at Stansted yesterday was not remotely
radical or edgy – it was unabashed, undiluted, unattractive class
hatred.

Class war! Suddenly it’s not just the economy which is making us feel like we’re back in the 1930s. Rising to the bait a little too eagerly, George Monbiot ripped into O’Neill yesterday in a column This is indeed a class war in The Guardian, possibly giving O’Neill precisely the kind of response he was after:

At the core of the campaign against a third Heathrow runway are the
blue-collar workers and working-class mums of the village of Sipson,
whose homes are due to be flattened so that the rich can fly more. If
wealthy people don’t like living under a flight path, they can move;
the poor just have to lump it. Through climate breakdown, the richest
people on earth trash the lives of the poorest.

Yes, this is a
class war; and Brendan O’Neill and his fellow travellers have sided
with the toffs. These Marxist proletarian firebrands are defending the
class they profess to hate. Bosses of the world unite, you have nothing
to lose but your planes.

So there you have, both eco-campaigner and eco-cynic eagerly rolling up sleeves and claiming to be on the side of the proletariat.

It would be a little too pat to say that both could probably take a tip from Chico Mendes, who really did have the workers on his side.

Photo: Elenira Mendes talking at the Chico Mendes Legacy last night.

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