Timeline

Peace on earth

December 31, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Astronauts, Climate Change, Continuum, December 7th, Earth From Space, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Metaphors, Peace On Earth, Philosophers, Prelude, Robert Butler, Sense Of The World, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, Word Overview

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Kellie Gutman writes: OVERVIEW is a short documentary with near-constant views of the earthÂ from space interspersed with comments form astronauts, philosophersÂ and writers. The word “overview” is used to refer to the astronauts’Â views of the earth. It was released December 7th, 2012 and is aÂ prelude to a film in the making, CONTINUUM. Â OVERVIEW gives a strongÂ sense of the world being one environment, and a very fragile one, thatÂ needs to be protected.

The tide could turn with ‘Ten Billion’

December 23, 2012Ashden DirectoryAbbott, Associate Editor, Audiences, Climate Change, Energy Power, Features Interviews, Fossil Fuels, Green Energy, Intellectual Questions, Interviews News, Metaphors, Michael Billington, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, t-shirt, Theatre Critic, Timeline, Turn Of The Tide, Twitter

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Wallace Heim writes:

Theatre critic Kate Abbott in today’s Guardian joins Michael Billington in reporting a life-changing experience watching Ten Billion at the Royal Court.

Like the facts that Stephen Emmott presented, Abbott can recite the well-polished instructions to “help us out of this hole”:

“Never buying a car, iPod, or cotton T-shirt again â€¦ stopping our addiction to fossil fuels, starting a mass-desalination programme, building green energy power points on every strip of land, harnessing every scrap of wind, and every turn of the tide â€¦”

But one change is missing. What about demanding that theatre itself changes? What about demanding that mainstream theatre no longer turns away from the compelling emotional, moral and intellectual questions of how humans can continue to live in a time of climate instability? Theatre is more than science, more than facts, more than an instruction manual. What about demanding that theatre takes on its full life-changing role, somewhere between fiction and fact, and becomes the place where audiences wrestle with their future?

See ‘Ten Billion’ from another side.

‘Ten Billion’ changes Billington

December 19, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Features Interviews, Human Overpopulation, Interviews News, Katie Mitchell, King Lear, Lion King, Metaphors, Michael Billington, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Theatrical Performance, Timeline, Twitter, Upstairs, Water Shortages

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Stephen Emmott in Ten Billion

Wallace Heim writes:

Michael Billington in today’s Guardian nominates Ten Billion as the ‘mostÂ momentous theatrical performance’ of 2012. The show was a lecture by StephenÂ Emmott, at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, on the consequences of human overpopulation and climate change.

Billington writes:Â ‘I came out shaking with fear, but also moved by theatre’s capacity toÂ confront the emergency facing our planet.

‘This was theatre doing what it does best: confronting us with unpalatableÂ facts about our very existence. This doesn’t mean that there is no room forÂ invented stories or that King Lear and The Lion King have suddenly becomeÂ redundant. But Ten Billion, directed by Katie Mitchell, shocked us into aÂ new awareness of the future, and even the existing present, with ecosystemsÂ being destroyed, the atmosphere polluted, temperatures rising and a billionÂ people facing water shortages.

‘I don’t know a single person who saw it whoÂ didn’t feel it was a life-changing experience. If enough people, especiallyÂ those in positions of power, could see Emmott’s lecture, it might, justÂ might, help to save our planet from destruction’.

Weather presenter freaks out

September 19, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, blog, Climate Change, Colleague, Comedy, Features Interviews, Flowers, Freaks, Interviews News, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Strays, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom, Weather Climate, Weather Presenter

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http://youtu.be/TmfcJP_0eMc

A colleague has emailed us this clip. A weather presenter strays into climate reporting, comedy and reality.

Jonathan Jones faces the empty museum

September 10, 2012Ashden DirectoryAnimals And Plants, Art Critic, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Foundations, Human Culture, Imaginations, Interviews News, Jonathan, Jonathan Jones, Meaning Of Life, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Sixth Extinction, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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GuardianÂ art critic Jonathan Jones on the sixth extinction:

“Human activity endangers entire species, yet human culture is profoundly rooted in nature. The loss of a species is also a loss of the images, stories, symbols and wonders that we live by â€“ to call it a cultural loss may sound too cerebral: what we lose when we lose animalsÂ is the very meaning of life…The range of animals and plants threatened by the sixth extinction is such that it menaces the foundations of culture as well as the diversity of nature. We are part of nature and it has always fed our imaginations. We face the bare walls of an empty museum, a gallery of the dead.”

The right environment

June 5, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Ecology, Extinction, Features Interviews, Flowers, Fringe, Interviews News, Jonathan, Jonathan Brown, Last Of The Curlews, Lunch, Metaphors, Playwright, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Triptych, Twitter

from The Last Lunch

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Wallace Heim writes:

The Best New Play Award, offered collaboratively by New Writing South and the Brighton Fringe, is an award that has nothing to do with ecology. But this yearâ€™s award was given to two productions that have something to do with ecology.Playwright Jonathan Brown won for his play about meat-eating, The Last Lunch.

The company Feral Theatre won for Triptych, three productions on loss and extinction: Papusza, The Last of the Curlews and TreeStory.

One Day on Earth

June 2, 2012Ashden DirectoryArts Programming, Associate Editor, Center Materials, Charities, City Materials, Climate Change, Department Of Cultural Affairs, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, June 3, Materials For The Arts, Metaphors, Proceeds, Reuse Center, Robert Butler, Showings, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

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Kellie Gutman writes:

On Friday June 1, and Sunday June 3, New York’s premier reuse center,Â Materials for the Arts, will be the recipient of proceeds from screenings of One Day on Earth. Â It was made in 2010, and filmed in every country on earth on the same day. Â There will be a week of showings to benefit local charities in New York City.

Materials for the Arts is a program of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Â It collects unneeded materials from businesses and individuals and donates them to arts programming across the city.

Carbon-lite touring

May 22, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Bear Project, Bicycles, Carbon Footprint, Cast And Crew, Climate Change, Director Joe, Features Interviews, Interviews News, Joe Douglas, Metaphors, Panniers, Polar Bear, Polar Bears, Production Director, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, World Wildlife Fund

The Last Polar Bears on tour

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Wallace Heim writes:Â

The carbon footprint of a production meets the content of the play in the National Theatre of Scotlandâ€™s tour of their climate change play The Last Polar Bears. For the 350-mile tour, everything needed for the show will be carried by the cast and crew on bicycles made from reclaimed bikes. The vinyl panniers are made from recycled National Theatre of Scotland banners.

As part of the productionâ€™s legacy, the National Theatre of Scotland will donate to the World Wildlife Fund’s Adopt a polar bearÂ project on behalf of the 18 primary schools on the tour.

Alongside the production, director Joe Douglas will use the tour to interview people, â€˜taking the temperature of how people are feeling about climate change.’

Floating platforms

May 13, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Beneficiary, blog, Climate Change, Economist, Eggs, Features Interviews, Floating Platforms, Flowers, Insect, Interviews News, Metaphors, Pacific Ocean, Reflection, Robert Butler, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom

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A new study shows that plastic in the Pacific Ocean has increased 100 times over the last 40 years.The only beneficiary, reports The Economist, is Halobates sericeus, “a small insect that now has lots of nice little floating platforms on which to lay its eggs”.

Soap operas for social change

May 5, 2012Ashden Directory1950s, 28 April, Associate Editor, Bbc, Bbc Radio Program, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Land Mines, Listeners, Metaphors, Reflection, Robert Butler, Significant Influence, Six Ways, Soap Opera, Soap Operas, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter

The Archers, courtesy BBC

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Kellie Gutman writes;

The BBC have looked into soap operas as agents for social change and have discovered in some cases they have changed the world. Â From the longest-running program, The Archers, which encouraged farmers in the 1950s to increase production by trying out new techniques, to a BBC radio program in Afghanistan, calledNew Home, on women’s rights, which taught listeners how to avoid land mines, the soap opera has had a significant influence.

A two-part programme on Your World (part 1, 21 April; part 2, 28 April) can be heard here.