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Turkey limerick: melting glaciers

December 6, 2012Ashden DirectoryAmerican Citizens, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Coastline, Duke University, Eastern Standard Time, Epidemic, Features Interviews, Global Temperature, Gutman, Himalayas, Interviews News, Limerick, Melting Glaciers, Metaphors, Nicholas School, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Storms, Twitter

Melting Glaciers in the Himalayas (Credit: top-10-list.org)

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Kellie Gutman writes:Â Unable to pass up the opportunity to submit an “Environmental Turkey of 2012” in the form of a limerick, to the Nicholas School of Environment contest at Duke University, I have chosen the epidemic of melting glaciers worldwide as my subject. Â The contest, open to American citizens, ends at midnight Eastern Standard Time tonight.

My offering:

As the global temperature warms

Our planet reacts with fierce storms.

The impact is felt

When our glaciers melt

And the coastline around us re-forms.

See: There once was a turkey

Hitting the high water mark before Sandy

December 2, 2012Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Baseball Fields, Chalk Lines, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Feet Above Sea Level, Flood Protection, Heavy Hitter, High Water Mark, Impossibility, Interviews News, Lower Manhattan, Metaphors, Mosher, New Yorker, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Ten Feet, Twitter, Water Line

Eve Mosher: High Water Line

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Wallace Heim writes:

The Talk of the Town in the New Yorker last week was all about Sandy. Elizabeth Kolbert framed her piece on the impossibility of flood protection around an artwork by Eve Mosher.

Using a Heavy Hitter, the machine to make chalk lines on baseball fields, Mosher drew a blue line around the edge of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan ten feet above sea level, the height that waters were expected to rise during a once-in-a-hundred-year flood.

Mosherâ€™s plan with High Water Line was to leave a visual mark and to open up a space for conversation, in 2007.

“I have pictures of where I drew the line and, if you look at the debris line, theyâ€™re pretty close”, Mosher writes on her blog, continuing, “I never wanted to be right.”

miniature horse meets war horse

October 24, 2012Ashden DirectoryAnimal Cruelty, Animal Rescue League, Basil Jones, Boston Globe, Broadway Production, Climate Change, Cruelty Case, Dedham Massachusetts, Features Interviews, Gutman, Interviews News, Miniature Horse, Play Date, Puppet Company, Puppeteer, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter, War Horse, Windsor Castle

Celeste and Joey, courtesy the Boston Globe

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Kellie Gutman writes:

War HorseÂ opened in Boston on October 10 for a two-week run. Â The traveling Broadway production, which originated at the National Theatre a few years ago, is getting all sorts of press. Â The day before the opening the main characters – the horse Joey, his owner and his puppeteer – went to the Animal Rescue League in Dedham, Massachusetts to have a play date with Celeste, a miniature horse who had been involved in an animal cruelty case earlier in the year. Â Joey is a well-traveled steed. Â He has also been to Windsor Castle where he apparently won over the heart of the Queen. Â The Handspring Puppet Company cofounders Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who designed the War HorseÂ puppets, were featured in a long article about their puppets in the Boston Globe.

the family and the world heat up in Nick Payne’s play

October 12, 2012Ashden DirectoryArtistic Director, Carbon Footprint, Climate Change, Domestic Drama, Dr Faustus, Father Daughter, George Monbiot, Global Issue, Gutman, Interviews News, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joan Marcus, Mother Father, New York Times, Nick Payne, Polemicist, Robert Butler, Roundabout Theatre, Roundheads And Cavaliers, Twitter, Vanishing Act

Photo: Joan Marcus

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Kellie Gutman writes:

If There Is I Haven’t Found it Yet, with Brian O’Byrne and Jake Gyllenhaal, opened in New York’s Roundabout Theatre in September and runs through 25 November. Â It was written by Nick Payne, and inspired by his reading of HeatÂ by George Monbiot, about decreasing one’s carbon footprint. Â Payne saw that many authors of environmentally-themed books had dedicated them to their children, and it gave him the idea of a father trying to save the planet in order to make the world a better place for his children, and beyond. Â But the father is so wrapped up in his work that he fails to notice the problems within his own family. Â The New York TimesÂ review is here.

Artistic director Todd Haimes writes:

On one level, we are watching a domestic drama play about a mother, father, daughter, and uncle. Â But the play also takes on a much bigger global issue. Â We all want to do the right thing for both the world at large and for the world of our own family, but maybe that’s impossible.

More George Monbiot on ashdenizen:
roundheads and cavaliers
the negotiator and the polemicist
vanishing act
George Monbiot finds Dr. FaustusÂ the classic text for climate change

Carbon 13: Ballroom Marfa and Cape Farewell team up

October 9, 2012Ashden DirectoryAckroyd, Ambitious Mission, Antony Gormley, Artdaily, Artistic Innovation, Ballroom Marfa, Blumenfeld, Cape Farewell, Cynthia Hopkins, Effects Of Climate Change, Environment Issues, Exhibition Space, Gutman, High Desert, Intellectual Environment, Island Communities, Marfa Texas, Robert Butler, Robert Rauschenberg, Twitter

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In Marfa, Texas

Kellie Gutman writes:Â Marfa is a small town of 2,121 people in western Texas. Â In 2003, Virginia Lebermann and Fairfax Dorn converted a former 1927 ballroom into a performance and exhibition space called Ballroom Marfa. Â In this intellectual environment, issues and perspectives are explored through film, music, art and performance.

Ballroom Marfa contacted Cape Farewell’s David Buckland to curate Carbon 13: From the High Arctic to the High Desert, which runs from 31 August until 20 January 2013. Â Eight artists who have traveled with Cape Farewell to the Andes, the Arctic and Scotland’s island communities are presenting newly-commissioned works to highlight the effects of climate change. Â The exhibit is supported in part by an Artistic Innovation and Collaboration (AIC) Grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

The artists represented are Ackroyd & Harvey, Amy Balkin, Erika Blumenfeld, David Buckland, Adriane Colburn, Antony Gormley, Cynthia Hopkins and Sunand Prasad.

In the online art newspaper, artdaily.org, the reviewer of Carbon 13Â wrote:

Ballroom Marfa continues its ambitious mission of presenting art as a transforming media capable of addressing the most pressing issues of our time.

The first river to have legal rights

September 24, 2012Ashden DirectoryAffections, Aotearoa New Zealand, Associate Editor, Awa, Climate Change, Court Cases, Features Interviews, Grievances, Interviews News, Jem, Legal Entity, Legal Voice, Phil Robinson, River Aire, River Exe, River Frome, Robert Butler, Shipley, Southam, Twitter

The Whanganui River, Aotearoa / New Zealand, photo: Phil Robinson

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Wallace Heim writes:

For the first time, a river has been given a legal voice. The Whanganui Riverin New Zealandhas become a legal entity, and will be recognised as a person in law in the same way that a company is, giving it rights and interests.

The status of the river as Te Awa Tupua (an integrated, living whole) is a step in the resolution of historical grievances and court cases between the Whanganui iwi, the Maori peoples and nations living along the river, and the Crown. Two guardians, one from the Whanganui Riveriwi, and one from the Crown will be given the role of protecting the river.

In the UK, â€˜rightsâ€™ generally means the right to access for humans to rivers, or the right to flood protection.

But many artists are negotiating the relations between human use and the free-running of rivers, navigating the values and affections towards rivers. Just now, among these are Multi-Story Water on the River Aire in Shipley and the River Frome in Bristol, and River Runs on the Thames near Oxford. Jem Southam is exhibiting photographs of the River Exe, investigating what makes or defines a river. Earlier this year, Flow turned the Tyne into music in Newcastle. And two decades ago, Still Waters uncovered the buried rivers of London.

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.

stagereads features Caridad Svich

September 11, 2012Ashden Directory15 September, 3 April, Artistic Associate, Associate Editor, Bp Oil Spill, Catastrophes, Cities In The United States, Climate Change, Features Interviews, Fishing In The Gulf Of Mexico, Goodman Theatre In Chicago, Gulf Of Mexico, Gutman, Henry Godinez, Interviews News, Lifetime Achievement, Obie Award, Playwrights, Robert Butler, Six Ways, Twitter

photo: stagereads, Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico

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Kellie Gutman writes:

A new website, stagereads, is publishing plays by emerging playwrights, which are e-readable on mobile devices. They are available by subscription, with a 155 discount for those subscribing before 15 September. Â The first featured playwright is Caridad Svich and her recent play The Way of Water.

Svich received the 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre. Â The Way of WaterÂ has been traveling since 3 April, 2012, and has had readings in fifty cities in the United States as well as in the UK and beyond. Â The play, written after the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, tells the story of two fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico, who have to deal with the after effects of the spill. The introduction to the play is written by Henry Godinez, Resident Artistic Associate at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

He writes in his final paragraph:

Many a great play has been written about corporate negligence and devastating catastrophes, but what makes The Way of Water so compelling is the way it exposes the after effects of such sensational evens in the most real of human terms.

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.”

Greening Shakespeare

August 1, 2012Ashden Directory6 October, Artistic Staff, Ashland Oregon, Climate Change, Costumes, Fountains, Gomez, Gutman, Insulation, Merry Wives Of Windsor, Multitude, Operating Budget, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Osf, Plastic Bottles, Plastics, Recycling Paper, Robert Butler, Twitter, Windsor Iowa

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The Very Merry Wives of Windsor, Iowa. Jun 6 – October 13 at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Kellie Gutman writes:

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Â was founded in 1935 and is one of the oldest and largest non-profit theatres in the United States. Â They operate over an eight-and-a-half-month schedule, with eleven plays, three theaters and 780 performances. Â Approximately 400,000 persons are in attendance at their facility in Ashland, Oregon. Â The OSF has an operating budget of $26 million.

Katie Gomez, Physical Plant Assistant, is the Green Task Force Coordinator. When asked how the OSF promotes ‘greening’ their operations, she writes:

OSF has a long list of things we do to be more sustainably aware and green. Â Besides recycling paper, one of the easiest things to do here, we are now recycling batteries, some plastics, and a multitude of items used in building sets. Â Many costumes are reworked from many made before, from our vast warehouse of costumes. Â We do not sell plastic bottles of water anymore – a container given or purchased is filled from fountains. Â The Scene Shop uses denim insulation. Â We use CFL whenever possible. Â As soon as LED’s are more affordable, we will switch to those. Â In some instances we do use them now. Â This is just the tip of what we do here. Â We are constantly trying to do more.

Katie added that although they have not done a production that is specifically “green”, the Green Task Force is working on promoting this idea to the Artistic Staff.