Our Winter issue, featuring eco-policy and representations during the COP15 Summit in Copenhagen, is now available! Â Keep an eye out for our next call for participation!
Copenhagen
Avatar and the power of social media
I’m loving the commentaries that have evolved around Avatar’s themes of exploitation of natural resources, imperialism and biological diversity.
Libertarian blogger Stephen Kinsella argues here that it underscores his viewpoint that the movie demonstrates that property rights are the only way to protect the environment. Interestingly this is the logic of the UN’s REDD carbon trading scheme or to give it its long name, the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries. This is based – in theory at least – of forests having assigned carbon values and of local people having property rights over those resources. The “owners†are then rewarded for not chopping down trees.
Such solutions aren’t without their problems though. Aside for the more obvious problems of carbon credits – that they allow the industralised world to delay reducing their own emissions - Global Witness point out in this report [PDF] that was published last October, this is an untested scheme that may well benefit Africa and South America’s kleptocrat rulers more than it does the environment, or the locals to whom this property has been assigned. Assigning property rights, suggests Global Witness, is part of the process of moving from an environment protected from logging, to a “sustainably managed†forest which allows logging to go ahead.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
Joe McElderry not No 1: how to stop a juggernaut
In a fitting end to Simon Cowell’s four year dominance of the Xmas number ones, this year’s festive pop pick is an expletive-filled polemic against the American military-industrial complex “Killing in the Nameâ€. A man who has always stood with admirable consistency on the law of pop – that sales mean what the public want, and the public knows better than the critics - was last night skewered on his own petard, significantly outsold by a campaign which in a few weeks gathered almost a million followers.
And what do we learn from this?
Two things.
One:Â Social media can do extraordinary things. To get a number one hit after appearing on national television every Saturday for three months is really not hard. Yet that old media juggernaut careering down on us was stopped a Facebook campaign started by a couple from Essex and a single live performance on Radio 5.
Two: Ultimately we British are best motivated against things, rather than forthings. The best way to increase democratic participation in the UK would be to ask people to vote against candidates, rather than for them. Can you imagine it? There would be queues around the block, come polling day. (Of course there’s the small problem that the political landscape would be poisoned forever, but you would have participation.)
This, of course, provides tricky lesson for those of us interested in the enviroment – and those of us here at the RSA who prefer an optimistic, positive approach.
But it does go some way explain why it is so hard to motivate people to action when it comes to issues like climate. Which particular machine are we supposed to be raging against? Try as we might to divide society into the environmentally good and bad, there is no covenient Cowell figure to blame everything on. As Paul Kingsnorth suggests in a comment on a blog post earlier, there is no clear enemy other than ourselves. Though we can rage against our leaders for failing at Copenhagen – and the scale of the failure was immense – few leaders wanted to stick their neck out without a clear mandate from their people – and let’s face it – that clear mandate just isn’t there yet.
Point one though provides at least one clue to how to change that. Social media is not the answer to everything. Maybe the gains it can make in terms of the environmental agenda are only small ones, but if social media campaigns are witty, smart and well-directed they can still do remarkable things.
Thanks to Anne Helmond for the RATM photo.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology
Photos from Copenhagen #COP15
Our photos here mainly focus on what we went to see and with whom we spoke. A couple in there from Future Arcola’s launch event last week as well. Think of this as the CSPA Season’s Greetings!
[smooth=id:005;]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.
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:Â Â www.newlifecopenhagen.com /Â www.wooloo.org
In Case You’re Wondering what it means #COP15
Here is a good summary of points from Grist.com
The Copenhagen Accord contains these provisions that President Obama called a start to global action to solve climate change:
1) A commitment by developed nations to invest $30 billion over the next three years to help developing nations adapt to climate change and pursue clean energy development.
2) A provisional commitment by developed nations to develop a long-term $100 billion global fund by 2020 to assist developing nations in responding to climate change and become part of the clean energy economic transition.
3) A goal to pursue emissions reductions that are sufficient to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
4) Pledges by nations to commit to concrete emissions reductions, though the specific levels of reduction were not set.
5) A general goal to subject participating countries to international review of their progress under the accord.
6) Diplomatic space for the United States and China to work together to solve climate change. A commitment to complete an assessment of the effectiveness of the accord in reducing emissions by the end of 2015.
High Tide, Art and Aviva at Poulsen #COP15
Acting as the official High Tide COP15 envoy, distinguished ecological artist Aviva Rahmani has been writing on her daily blog about her experiences in Copenhagen during COP15. Friday was her last day here, and she finally got the change to go about town and see some art. Check out the entries from December 18th to see what she was up to.
Below are some excerpts from her entires about her time about town. Not only do some fantastic artists connect, but The Yes Men were able to give back though Good COP 15, what the tensions of COP15 took away!
- Modeling the Survival Ball at the Poulsen Gallery in Copenhagen on my last day
We walked thru the beautiful, old part of the city and I got a lesson in Copenhagen’s demographics while snapping pictures of the city, which now looks like the home of Hans Christian Andersen rather than the shocking site of police violence it was Wednesday.
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- Aviva’s COP15 Press Conference became a GOOD COP15 Press Conference.
Larkon took me into their performance space and started a press conference for me in “the Good COP,” set up to look like the Bella Center. They’ve done about 100 press conferences so far, including with Darryl Hannah, of what people would want to say (not just your fifteen minutes of fame but a whole press conference) at Bella. Larkon just had a little hand held, but then a REAL news crew came in: Wendy Jewell, producer and Sister Jewell-Kemker, filmmmaker, reporter and activist for, “An Inconvenient Youth; kids fighting for their future,” with serious camera. We did it all over, inc a Q&A, and all happily exchanged cards after wards.
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So finally, I had my press conference in the “Good COP) with the Yes Men. And maybe, in the end, that was where it was supposed to happen.
I had the chance to sit down and talk with Aviva at the Klima Forum on thursday night. It was a great conversation, so look for a transcript to appear here soon!
Towards an alternative statement of the way forward on climate change. A series of 1000 interviews during the UN COP15 as part of New Life Copenhagen. #COP15
This evening I went to meet up with Martin Rosengaard of Wooloo.org, the organization behind the New Life Copenhagen Festival. He had joined Open Dialogues, who are working here in Copenhagen as part of the festival. I got the chance to talk to them briefly about their work after being interviewed for their project myself. Here is a sample of their work. It is the first interview in their archive:
Full Audio Archive
Linked HERE is an audio archive of interviews that are being added to each day whilst Open Dialogues are in Copenhagen.
The archive is ordered chronologically – just click on the ‘+’ button to hear the interviews.
Question Time » Interviews.
*HQ Copenhagen – THE YES MEN DOCUMENTARY #COP15
Danish Television’s “Pirat TV†followed The Yes Men around while they were planning and carrying out their bold stunt on Canada at COP15.
Watch the documentary in 2 parts (the sites are in Danish, but the clips are in English):
Part 1
Se klippet “YES MEN driller Canada (del 1)” pÃ¥ Pirat TV
Part 2
Se klippet “YES MEN driller Canada (del 2)” pÃ¥ Pirat TV
via:
*HQ Copenhagen » Blog Archive » THE YES MEN DOCUMENTARY.