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Planet Plus Funny: Auto Tune the News.

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If you thought Melissa Etheridge was heart-wrenching in An Inconvenient Truth, wait until you hear Katie Couric sing.

Seriously: Auto-Tune the right clip of  Couric, and you’ve got a new song of earth-savery. Or so prove the antics of Auto Tune the News.

Auto-Tune is that glorious software that makes Britney spears sound like a robot Ella Fitzgerald. It uses a phase vocoder to make singers sound more on-key (and futuristic) than they actually are.

The brilliance of Auto Tune the News is applying the technology to news anchors and their stories. It could be a simple prank illustrating how easy it is to sound like a pop star, but the editing of the “songs” actually illustrates how intertwined and interdependent the issues are, from climate change to race to drug regulation. All of the issues blur together in a hilarious top-40 tune.

For a different kind of hilarious reality check,  watch the Keep it Green Girls ride the bus. They do tamer things on Planet Green, but if you ever hunger for some green-meets-concrete, here ya go.

Go to the Green Museum

Arcola Theatre Relocates and Renews

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Reprinted from Building Design: “UK’s first carbon-neutral theatre planned for Hackney” by Elizabeth Hopkirk, September 9, 2009

The Arcola Theatre in Hackney aims to relocate to a 2,000sq m site next to Dalston Junction station and create a 350-seat theatre built of sustainable materials including straw bales and doors salvaged from skips.

Engineer Arup has given 18 months worth of pro bono work for the proposal while the London Development Agency has awarded a £60,000 for a feasibility study subject to Hackney Council approving the site.

The overall concept, which can be scaled up or down according to how much money is raised, includes an expanded main theatre with two smaller studios, an eco café, gym, learning centre and park.

A key element is an enterprise centre with offices and laboratories for entrepreneurs and technology and product design firms.

Arcola chief executive Ben Todd said the feasibility study could be completed by December, with work on the new theatre starting in 2010 and completing in 2012.

Todd, who trained as an engineer, said: “The theatre will literally be built from straw bales, rendered to pass fire regs and be weather-proof.

“Doors from old schools and hospitals that don’t match are a nice example of the reuse, recycle attitude and are important to the texture. If we end up using steel and if most of the project comes after 2012, it would be a nice idea to recycle some of the Olympic stadia.”

Hackney Council is due to discuss the plans next week.

Go to the Green Theater Initiative

PAID COP15 YOUTH LOGISTICS COORDINATOR Closing Date 17th Sept

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Now looking for a suitable person to fill this position ASAP as there are now less than 3 months until Copenhagen.

Please spread the word and recommend to anyone you know who may fit the criteria.

Specific Responsibilities will include:

  • Aid global youth initiatives with logistical support for their presence at COP
  • Support in helping plan a pre-COP Conference of Youth (COY)
  • Serve as a bottom-liner to several already-established projects in need of support (eg, such as the Global South Youth initiative).
  • Daily tasks would be office-based in Copenhagen consisting of logistical support and communication, greatly strengthening the International Youth Climate Movement.
  • Closure report and creation of the Standard Operations Procedures (SOP) of the YOUNGO for COP15

Commitment
The coordinator should commit to:

  • work for the movement as whole, not one organization or region
  • respect the procedures established and ensure transparency,
  • create a constructive and supportive environment
  • take consideration of geographic and gender representation in all decisions

Eligibility
The coordinator must meet all or most of the following criteria:

  • Past International Youth Climate Movement experience
  • Familiarity and experience with the UNFCCC process
  • An institutional endorsement from a relevant NGO or similar organization
  • Passion and undying organizing enthusiasm
  • Competency in reading, writing and speaking in English and one other UN language
  • Recommended: experience in organizing an event of 200+ people
  • Recommended: independence in living, travelling, and working
  • Recommended: English + One other language

Location
The position will be located in Copenhagen, sharing office space with the GCCA, though working independently and supported by the BottomLiners Team of the International Youth Climate Movement. The coordinator will be assisted in finding adequate accommodation.

Employment Duration
21st September 2009 to 20th January 2010

Salary
The coordinator will be paid 15,500 DKK per month for 4 months. This will cover the following during his/her stay in Copenhagen:

  • Personal Accommodation
  • Transportation (to and from Copenhagen to her/his own country of origin)
  • Meals

Visa / Work Permit
If coordinator is not a resident of the EU or Scandinavian countries, he or she will be granted a 3 month tourist’s visa upon entry to Denmark, and the position will be similar to a fellowship.

Applications:
Interested candidates should email Wilson (wilson.ang@eco-singapore.org), Deepa (deepa@iycn.in) AND Blaine (blaine.d.oneill@gmail.com) the following:

  • Resume/CV
  • A short (1 page max) description of why you are interested in being the coordinator including relevant experiences, motivations, and your plans for COP15

Interested applicants must be available for an online interview via skype on 22nd OR 23rd September 2009 at 3pm (GMT).

CLOSING DATE: 17TH SEPTEMBER 2009 @ 2359H (GMT)

Found at: http://climatecoolnetwork.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2546410%3ABlogPost%3A16725

Eight Ten ways to make your voice heard at COP15

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In advance of COP15, there is a growing mass of intiatives binding us together to scare the negotiators into action. Here are a some that are appearing loudly and clearly on the radar. Which ones have I left out? Drop me a line.

best-of-1TckTckTck The Global Citizens for Climate Action Campaign launched in August, partnered with Greenpeace, Christian Aid and Oxfam, counting us down from 100 days to COP15.

best-of-210:10 The 10:10 campaign launched off the back of Franny Armstrong’s Age of Stupid, focussing minds on cutting our emissions by 10% next year, but big on pressurising Ed Miliband to bring the goods from Copenhagen.

best3350.org Bill McKibben’s campaign to get world leaders to agree to a workable target of 350ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere plans for an international day of action on Oct 24.

best-4Vote Earth Off the back of the WWF’s Earth Hour campaign run back in March, the climate change charity have issued this global petition to world leaders.

best-5Sandbag “Real action on climate change” exploit the arcanities of Europe’s carbon trading schemes by  “retiring” surplus credits.  They also have a COP15 “One giant leap” petition they want you to sign.

best-6Seal the deal 2009 The UN’s European Climate Campaign, aims to create a “mosaic” of faces and voices with an online petition calling for change at Copenhagen. This is some more invisible writing this is some invisible writing.
best-7Mobilization for Climate Justice North American coalition of activists pressing for a deal are planning major actions throughout the US on November 30.

best-8untitled7Never trust a COP … and for those who don’t have faith that the more conventional appeals above are going to work, here’s the radical leftists’ direct action network on COP15.

Pretty much something for everybody there… Let us know which campaigns you think are working best.

Edit: More…

best-9Hopenhagen. A snappy web-based initiative that gives people the chance to come together over the question “What gives you hope?” [Thinks, possibly too sceptically:Is that kind of catch-all question really galvanising enough?]

And, this just in:

best-10Avaaz.org Global Wake-Up Call Following a global poll, Avaaz.org now plan a day of flash mob action in towns and cities everywhere on Sept 21.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

The Rape of Africa: LaChapelle digs at Hirst

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In the 1990s I worked on a NY magazine where a visionaryphoto editor started employing a rising young photographer called David LaChapelle. LaChapelle was clearly a cut above the average fashion snapper and soon became the most famous thing about the magazine. When I did an interview with Tupac Shakur nobody read a word of the text because the accompanying photograph was a shocking LaChapelle shot of the young rapper dressed as a slave in the cottonfields. LaChapelle has now put magazine photography on hold and this year has been showing his work The Rape of Africa, a photograph that references Botticelli’s Venus and Mars. The fact that Naomi Campbell takes the part of Venus suggests he hasn’t moved on that far, but anyway…

When I interviewed Damien Hirst for the NYT a couple of years ago about For The Love Of God, he was disappointingly evasive about discussing the obvious link between diamonds and the current lethal exploitation of Africa that was contained in his work. He did stress that they had deliberately sourced the £14m worth diamonds from ethical sources. I remember suggesting that with a work of this scale – which bought up a significant part of the world’s diamond supply – he must have also inflated the price of blood diamonds but he wasn’t interested in going down that route. In that Hirsty kind of way he affected a kind of Wow… I never really thought of that response, I should have pushed it harder and didn’t, and the discussion never made it into the short piece that was finally published.

At times it benefits art to remain evasive. To dictate what the audience should find in a piece short-changes us. And of course, at the time Jay Jopling was looking for a multi-million dollar price for the work, and any whiff of activism might have jeopardised the sale of a piece in which Hirst and Jopling had invested massive amounts of their own money.

But in this case, by leaving it vague, Hirst let the impression hang that he didn’t care a fig about the issue of diamonds being directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Angola, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia and the DRC within the couple of decades.

Ironically, this leaves the field open to LaChapelle to reduce the meaning of the work to a symbol of how the west has raped Africa. In his photograph, Hirst’s skull lies at the feet a child soldier.  It’s an example of how, at times, art’s professional reticence about talking too much about the issues that surround the work leave it looking timorous, self-interested and carelessly aloof.

Detail from The Rape of Africa by David LaChapelle, 2009.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

ECOVENUE: London’s Green Theatre Plan, One Year Later

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Reprinted from PRNewswire: “Theatres Trust Announces ECOVENUE Green Theatre Project for London” September 9, 2009

On 14 September 2009 at Plasa 09 The Theatres Trust will announce a new three year programme to provide specialist theatre environmental advice and undertake free DEC assessments with 48 small scale theatres in London.

One year on from the launch of the Mayor of London’s ‘Green Theatre: Taking Action on Climate Change‘ initiative at Plasa 08, The Theatres Trust will announce it is to receive GBP450,000 over the next three years from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in London to deliver the ECOVENUE advisory programme.

Mhora Samuel, Director of The Theatres Trust said “When the Mayor of London’s Green Theatre Plan was launched last year to help theatres in London achieve reductions in carbon emissions by 60% by 2025, commercial and subsidised theatres in London were quick to sign up. We recognised that smaller theatres with less resources would find it harder to participate, and so made an application for funding to the LDA at the beginning of 2009 to help address the gap. I’m delighted that we can announce the ERDF award at Plasa 09 and help more London theatres to address environmental issues associated with climate change and reduce their energy use.”

The ECOVENUE project provides each participating theatre with a free theatre-specific Environmental Audit, and free Display Energy Certificates in 2010 and 2011. A DEC is a publicly displayed certificate that informs the public about the energy use of a building. This free environmental improvement advice will be delivered by a new Theatre Building Services Adviser to be employed by the Trust.

The Trust will be inviting 48 theatres to apply to participate in the project, which will run until spring 2012. Application details will be advertised over the following months.

Pictures accompanying this release are available through the PA Photowire. They can be downloaded from http://www.pa-mediapoint.press.net or viewed at http://www.mediapoint.press.net or http://www.prnewswire.co.uk.

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White Light Green Guide: Available Now

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Leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light is pleased to announce the release of the White Light Green Guide, available now from the company’s website.

Intended as a starter guide for those wanting to make their work in lighting shows have as little impact on the environment as possible, the Green Guide offers suggestions for each phase of the process of show lighting, from initial meetings and planning through rig design, set-up and focus, show running, touring and final load-out.

via White Light Green Guide: Available Now – [news-readnews].

LDI is Going Green

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LDI 2009
November 19-22
Orlando, Florida

LDI GREEN DAY
 Full day conference consisting of multiple panels that focus on Green Topics for the Entertainment Industry will be presented on Thursday, November 19.

GREEN TECHNOLOGY TODAY SHOWCASE -PRESENTED BY LDI AND SHOWMAN FABRICATORS
 A booth on the exhibit floor that exclusively displays Green products. This showcase will be a first of its kind opportunity to bring together Green products specific to the entertainment industry.

GREEN AWARDS SPONSORED BY SHOWMAN FABRICATORS
 This years LDI will be the inaugural year for two Green awards at the LDI awards ceremony.

  • The Green Product of the Year will be chosen from exhibitors in the Green Technology Today Showcase.
  • The Green Event/Show of the Year award is open for submissions from anyone in the entertainment/ live event industry. This award specifically spotlights and celebrates a show or event which was able to integrate sustainability into its production.

For more information and to register for the conference please visit www.ldishow.com or contact Bob Usdin at Showman Fabricators (rusdin@showfab.com).

Sponsored by

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