Dear klimazwiebeln,
whenever your time today allows, check in on the internet and watch
The ClimateRealityProject
This project is founded and chaired by Al Gore. It would be great to have short summaries, your observations and your comments on whatever you watched during the next 24 hours. This is a great opportunity to hear and watch a (hegemonic?) version of global climate discourse.
Here's what it's all about:
What is 24 Hours of Reality?
24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.
When is 24 Hours of Reality?
24 Hours of Reality will be broadcast live online from September 14 to 15, over 24 hours, representing 24 time zones and 13 languages.
Where is 24 Hours of Reality?
From Tonga to Cape Verde, Mexico City to Alaska, Jakarta to London, people living with the impacts of climate change every day will tell their story. You can experience as much as you like without even leaving your home.
Click here to find the location — or locations — where you would like to watch a presentation. Due to logistical considerations, three of the presentations will be broadcast remotely from New York — Tonga, the Solomon Islands and French Polynesia — but will include local footage and information. All other presentations will be filmed on location around the world.
IS 24 HOURS OF REALITY SUSTAINABLE?
We hope 24 Hours of Reality will inspire global action to solve the climate crisis. And that’s why we have also made every effort to reduce this event’s environmental impact. By using an online viewing portal, we are encouraging a worldwide audience to participate without incurring the carbon emissions associated with travel. We have implemented sustainable event standards which focus on the following key areas: transportation, waste diversion (through recycling and composting), sustainable procurement, production and materials, and green office techniques. By implementing these standards, 24 Hours of Reality will do all that it can to reduce its overall carbon footprint.
Posts
5 comments:
Just a snippet I remember from early this morning. ClimateREalityProject from Auckland, New Zealand: An expert was interviewed, and she said that until recently, the indigenous Maori people could exactly predict the weather, but now they can't anymore due to the changes in climate system.
A familiar argument in global climate discourse, with indigenous people represented as stewards of the climate / environment and as "noble savages". It would be great to have detailed information about their weather / climate knowledge. (Furthermore, I am sure that weather and climate are in indigenous communities as much a contested issue as they are in the scientific climate community).
The expert spoke with great and, I guess, honest compassion, and I was moved, too. (The Maori 2 days ago on TV in another context, as mascots of the New Zealand Rugby team; before their matches, the players perform a fierce Maori ritual in order to put a spell on their adversaries.)
I have conflicting emotions, too, with my professional culture critic on the one hand and empathy on the other. One should listen to the Maori, no doubt. One should be critical to their role as symbol in advocacy discourse, too. So what doe the expert exactly talk about, and why is it understood globally?
My colleague Tracey Heatherington calls this kind of environmentalist talk the "global environmental dreamtime", which serves as a potential. "Maori talk" helps to connect us with another (cultural and geographical) reality "out there"; of course, there are many misunderstandings and frictions, but those can be highly productive, as the anthropologist Anna Tsing says.
In short, this short snippet from the ClimateRealityProject made me think about how to bypass the critical repertoire, which this kind of romantic apocalyptic discourse invokes; instead, I am simultaneously fascinated by the productive element inherent in it. The Maori as climate advocates. Hm. Neo-colonialism? Post-colonialism? Post-environmentalism?
Was his forecast method peer reviewed?
The spell worked
NZ-Tonga: 41 to 10
For them, Gore days are fun days:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/
No need to read the comments, they are exactly what you expect them to be. But don't miss the Josh cartoons, which easily substitute the comments.
And Judith Curry doesn't need to watch the show to comment on it for the press:
http://judithcurry.com/2011/09/14/gore-a-thon/
No need to repeat the anti-Gore sermon, which is as boring / predictable / unchanging as the object of hate & scorn itself...
But what about being curious?
Well, I have to admit, it's hard to be curious. Just zapped through the videos from Beijing, Seoul, Mexico City and got confused: everywhere you see a round of experts, mostly of American origin. Everywhere they show the old American commercial "what does your doctor smoke most?" - the answer is "Camel!" and other old warhorses of climate discourse. Fight the deniers! They also all list last and this years' disasters as a proof for climate change - "just look out of your window and you see climate changing", as those sexy (?) American cheerleader-like moderators are eager to confirm - in Mexico? Beijing? It doesn't matter much, they are obviously everywhere. It's just like watching a "best of" Inconvenient Truth forth and back. A professor from some ivy-league university suggests that the social upheavals in Middle East are caused by climate change(even though other reasons might count, too, as he admits). Etc. Talking heads in business suits. Maybe I watched the wrong videos this time? I want to see Vandana Shiva! Ivo Morales! Slavo Zizek! Just anybody except those ever same climate experts, please!
It's a crisis of representation. The local - global connection doesn't work. The table with experts kills it all. The problem is really to localize global climate discourse. But who knows how people in Beijing, Auckland or Mexico City see this. Maybe it resonates completely different over there. I'll try again later on tonight.
I can answer for Beijing. I was there last week and visit fairly often.
The Chinese do not know who Al Gore is and they generally ignore anything about climate "change".
Most don't know what the subject means.
A minority, among those who are more educated and speak english, has a vague notion but considers that they have much more important things to care for.
The Chinese are neither warmists nor skeptics - they mostly don't care for the subject and those who have a notion, consider that it is a political european thing often referring to carbon taxes.
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