Tag: Climate Change

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Nightwalks, Talks and Live Art.

Greetings all, hope you’re enjoying the cooling down of the weather and the reddening of the trees. Autumn always gets me excited, not just because I can make crumbles and gravy dinners with more than usual impunity, or because it means the approach of my birthday, but also because it feels like the beginning of new endeavours. School years, university; Autumn makes me want to purchase stationary. And in the spirit of new endeavours, I have three very exciting things to tell you about…

One: I will this Saturday (25th September) be performing a piece of Live Art in Stoke Newington Airport’s Live Art Speedating as part of Fierce, Birmingham’s Interrobang. Lots of words there that might not make sense to everyone. Go look at the poster, and check out this video, for more on what it’s all about…

Two: I shall also be talking at the Coventry Pecha Kucha on the 12th of October on Theatre in the Age of the First Person. 20 slides of 20 seconds each. See here for more info. Other talks, too, I’m particularly intrigued by the ‘safe sex with robots’ one.

And three: I’m very excited to announce a new soundwalk! Nightwalk; a guided walk through the light and dark of York will be happening on Wednesday 27th & Friday 30th October at 7pm. The event will be free, and is happening as part of the Take Over and Illuminating York festivals. I’m especially thrilled because this will be my first collaboration with real music-making people, the brilliant Lantern Music. Hopefully it will mark the beginning of a beautiful collaborative relationship. The site for the piece is http://nightwalkyork.tumblr.com – do share it, and join/invite people to the Facebook Event. And follow me and @umbrellaproject on Twitter for whisperings from the writing process.

So there you go, lots of exciting things to lead me up to the beginning of November, and the prospect of launching a very exciting country-wide project come next Spring… but you’ll have to wait to hear about that.

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Imagine

Imagine if the land and housing in Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, the East Riding of Yorkshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cumbria, and Durham was entirely wiped out by flooding.*

That’s what Pakistan is dealing with, 1/5th of it, “ravaged by floods“

“The water was up to my neck, then my nose, I only survived because our men took me by the arm and lifted me up,” she told me. “We walked for two hours like this. Ever since the running away my belly has hurt all over. I don’t know if the baby inside me is alive or dead.” Saeed Bibi from the Punjab

DONATE HERE

Meanwhile the hottest weather on record in Russia has wiped out ONE THIRD of their grain crops.

They’ve had to impose a ban on grain exports, which will raise prices across the world, hitting the poorest, hardest.

That previously linked article comes with a handy explanation on how both are caused by a shift in the jet stream, the instability of which has been linked to climate change:

“The World Meteorological Organization says this “unprecedented sequence of extreme weather events … matches IPCC projections of more frequent and more intense extreme weather events due to global warming.”  NASA says July 2010 is “What Global Warming Looks Like.” ” (source)

Even the DAILY FREAKING MAIL has changed it’s stance to ‘global warming is happening, and it is our fault‘

Donate to Pakistan relief efforts, because you should. Donate, because you can. Donate, because this will soon be us. Donate because Western lifestyles have contributed directly to this. For whatever reason, whatever you believe, please, reach out, £5, whatever you can. Donate.

And all this comes as the so-called ‘green’ Coalition government are side-stepping their promises on climate change action, including an incredibly damaging broken promise RE power provision, and the mooted selling off of our conservation land and country side. Not only will reneging on green policies like this mean being hit severely by EU penalties, if the coalition government carries on like this a greater cost will soon be at their feet. The sooner and better we act, the lower the human and monetary cost the world is hit with. The later and more half heartedly they act, the greater the risk that  it’s not long before we won’t have to do any imagining.

*that’s one fifth of England, mind, I don’t know how many counties there are in the UK. Also, it’s 1/5 of counties, not of land, I did try to pick coastal ones, as we’re more likely to be affected by storm surges and sea level rises. They’re also mostly low-lying. But I will freely admit this may not be exactly 1/5 of land or population. I hope you accept it as a quick way of making a point, if not, feel free to do the maths and I’ll happily amend it.

[images off the BBC, via the linked articles, I always try to use CC images, hopefully these will be seen as ‘fair use’ as quoting the referenced articles, however I will take them down if wished]