People’s Climate March: Ubuntu: We Have a Duty to Persuade Our Leaders
We can. You and you and you, and me.
And it is not just that we can stop it, we have a responsibility to do so that began in the genesis of humanity, when
“to till it and keep it”. To “keep” it;
not to abuse it, not to make as much money as possible from it, not to destroy it.”
— Desmond Tutu —
Extracts from an article by Desmond Tutu writing in the Observer on the day of the biggest global call-to-action on Climate Change in history.
Marches and protests took place worldwide. Organisers in Manhatten said some 310,000 people joined the march, including Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon.
“This is the planet where our subsequent generations will live,”
Mr Ban said: “There is no ‘Plan B’ because we do not have ‘Planet B’.”
The People’s March has been organised just ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York next week. Campaigners are demanding curbs on carbon emissions along with changes in law which would prevent a continuation of the unprecedented levels of damage currently being done to humans and the environment by unfettered psychopathic and antisocial corporate greed.
(Comment by RZ, not Desmond Tutu)
The complete article can be read here: Desmond Tutu: We fought apartheid. Now climate change is our global enemy
“As responsible citizens of the world – sisters and brothers of one family, the human family, God’s family – we have a duty to persuade our leaders to lead us in a new direction: to help us abandon our collective addiction to fossil fuels, starting this week in New York at the United Nations Climate Summit.”
“Just as we argued in the 1980s that those who conducted business with apartheid South Africa were aiding and abetting an immoral system, we can say that nobody should profit from the rising temperatures, seas and human suffering caused by the burning of fossil fuels.“
“We can boycott events, sports teams and media programming sponsored by fossil fuel companies; demand that their advertisements carry health warnings; organise car-free days and other platforms to build broader societal awareness; and ask our religious communities to speak out on the issue from their various pulpits. We can encourage energy companies to spend more of their resources on the development of sustainable energy products, and we can reward those companies that demonstrably do so by using their products to the exclusion of others.”
We can encourage more of our universities and municipalities, foundations, corporations, individuals and cultural institutions to cut their ties to the fossil fuel industry. To divest, and invest, instead, in renewable energy. To move their money out of the problem and into the solutions.
People’s Climate March Design Contest
We can urge our governments to invest in sustainable practices and stop subsidising fossil fuels; and to freeze further exploration for new fossil energy sources. The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions.
We can support our leaders to make the correct moral choices and to avoid undue industry influence that blocks the political will to act on climate change. Through the power of our collective action we can hold those who rake in the profits accountable for cleaning up their mess.”
The good news is that we don’t have to start from scratch. Young people across the world have identified climate change as the biggest challenge of our time, and already begun to do something about it.
Once again, it is a global movement led by students and faith groups, along with hospitals, cities, foundations, corporations and individuals. It is a moral movement to persuade fossil fuel companies away from a business model that threatens our very survival.
My prayer is that humankind takes its first tangible steps in New York this week – as a collective – to move beyond the fossil fuel era.
“There is a word we use in South Africa that describes human relationships: Ubuntu. It says: I am because you are. My successes and my failures are bound up in yours. We are made for each other, for interdependence. Together, we can change the world for the better.”
People’s Climate March Design Contest Winning Designs
The contest had two winning designs which will form the basis of a creative NYC subway ad campaign that will highlight both the depth of the climate crisis facing us, and the hope that organized people power can push our governments to take bold action. The winners are:
James Jean with “Winds of Change”, and Ellie and Akira Ohiso with “The Next One won’t be Biblical”
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Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red
As I put my hand to reach, As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell, Again and again.
— By Anon – Unknown Soldier —
The Tower of London has strong ties with those that fought in the First World war and to mark the current centenary of the start of the war it has commissioned an art installation on a hugely impressive scale.
Deborah Shaw, Head of Creative Programming for Historic Royal Palaces describes her role, at least for this project as “bringing artists into a dialogue with the palaces”.
In this case, the dialogue has turned into an installation involving thousands of people that is quickly becoming one of the most memorable art works the city has seen, and will continue to capture the public’s imagination until its completion on Armistice Day – November 11th.
Ceramic artist Paul Cummins and set designer Tom Piper were commissioned to bring to life the concept Cummins had of ceramic poppies steadily filling up the famous moat around the Tower “To commemorate all those great fallen heroes who lost their lives in the First World War.”
Each poppy represents one of the fallen soldiers and each flower is unique as all 888,246 have been handmade, using traditional techniques with a minimum of machinery involved with 3 shifts of people working over a 23 hour day to get the volume of work out on time, under the watchful eye of the artist.
Olivier-Award-winning theatre designer Tom Piper has helped to bring the concept to life by designing how the poppies flow out of the Tower to fill the moat – pouring out of a bastion window, flowing down tower walls to turn the green moat into a blood red sea with over 8,000 volunteers helping to install the poppies – “if one person planted 200 poppies a day, it would take them over 12 years to install them all”
You can get involved in the project by volunteering via the website, by buying a poppy, or just by going along and seeing it.
The installation runs from 5 August – 11 November 2014 (Armisitce Day)
Money raised from the sales will be shared equally amongst six service charities
Artist Paul Cummins was inspired by a line in the will he found among old records in Chesterfield, of a Derbyshire man who joined up early in the war and died in Flanders.
“I don’t know his name or where he was buried or anything about him,” Cummins said. “But this line he wrote, when everyone he knew was dead and everywhere around him was covered in blood, jumped out at me: ‘The blood-swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread.’
The Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red
By Anon – Unknown Soldier
The blood swept lands and seas of red,
Where angels dare to tread.
As I put my hand to reach,
As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell,
Again and again.
As the tears of mine fell to the ground
To sleep with the flowers of red
As any be dead
My children see and work through fields of my
Own with corn and wheat,
Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting
Fields so far from my love.
It be time to put my hand up and end this pain
Of living hell, to see the people around me
Fall someone angel as the mist falls around
And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear
Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss
The flower of my people gone before time
To sleep and cry no more
I put my hand up and see the land of red,
This is my time to go over,
I may not come back
So sleep, kiss the boys for me
http://www.paulcumminsceramics.com/
http://www.tompiperdesign.co.uk/
The Tower of London and the First World War
The Charities to Benefit from Sales of the Poppies:
Cobseo
Cobseo maximise the charitable support to the Armed Forces Community through co-operation, co-ordination and collaboration of organisations working in the Service Charity sector.
Combat Stress
Combat Stress is the UK’s leading military charity specialising in the care of Veterans’ mental health, treating conditions including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.
Coming Home
Coming Home is the fundraising campaign for Haig Housing Trust, which provides specially adapted homes for seriously injured and disabled Servicemen and general needs housing for ex-Servicemen and their families.
Help for Heroes
“It’s all about the blokes” Help for Heroes Inspire Enable and Support those who have made sacrifices on our behalf to achieve their full potential.
The Royal British Legion
The Royal British Legion is the nation’s largest Armed Forces charity, providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present and their families.
SSAFA
SSAFA provides lifelong support to anyone who is currently serving or has ever served in the Royal Navy, British Army or Royal Air Force and their families.
Read MoreArt Everywhere for Everyone
Five leading US art galleries selected works of art that represent American history and culture. The public voted for their favourites, and the final selection of 58 works are appearing across the country on billboards, bus shelters, subway posters, buildings and other public places.
The exhibition is inspired by Art Everywhere founder, Richard Reed who first produced Art Everywhere UK. Both shows are running until the end of August to make this into the biggest art exhibition ever.
Reed describes the inspiration behind the show”
“I used to walk across Shepherd’s Bush Green and on a poster site someone had put up a beautiful picture. There was no logo; it wasn’t an advert. It was really mysterious, but it was a beautiful thing to see and I would stop and look at it for 30 seconds on my way into work. It just gave you a bit of lift.
I was telling my wife about this and she said, imagine what it’d be like if there were things like that everywhere. What would it be like if all the posters across the country for two weeks showed art not advertising? So we went to the big poster companies and said this is our idea – to turn the UK into the world’s largest outdoor gallery for two weeks.
And they loved it and decided they wanted to work together as an industry to make it possible: we’ve called it Art Everywhere.”
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Sting: Rediscovering the Muse as The Last Ship Sails
constructed on the planet were built
right at the end of my street.”
— STING —
Sting grew up in the shadow of the shipyard, with giant ships rising into the air at the end of his street. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was at the heart of the British shipbuilding industry.
The Dream
But instead of wanting to follow in the footsteps of generations of Tynesiders whose lives were inextricably linked with the docks and the shipbuilding industry, Sting had a different dream. It was one that grew exponentially with the discovery of a guitar in the attic at the age of 8 . “I was bequeathed a guitar and realised I had found a friend for life.”
The dream would become his life and Gordon Sumner would become internationally known as the musician Sting, but first he had to turn his back on his roots and travel away. He had no desire to return to the traumatised society he witnessed during the closure of the ship building industry.
It’s my belief that abstract economic theory that denies the needs of community or denies the contribution that community makes to economy is shortsighted, cruel and untenable”
— STING —
The muse Sting chose to follow as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was one that would bring us such unforgettable songs as “Roxanne”, “Fields of Gold”, “Message in a bottle”, “Every Breath You Take” and “Englishman in New York”.
Sting’s astonishing success both as a member of “The Police” and during his solo career, together with his prolific song-writing ability made it particularly difficult for him to come to terms with a long period of “writer’s block” which stretched into years of self-questioning.
He eventually acknowledged a need to return to his roots in Newcastle, a decision which was to reunite him with his muse and he has spent the past few years working on a theatrical production called “The Last Ship” – inspired by the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the North East.
Sting released the album “The Last Ship” in 2013 and the musical production launched its pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago last Wednesday with songwriters Paul Simon, James Taylor and Dennis DeYoung watching from the orchestra seats, according to the review by Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune.
Political Activism
A sense of the injustices caused by corrupted power led Sting along the path of political activism, participating in many of the focal moments in which creative artists have joined forces to raise international awareness of major issues: Band Aid, Live Aid, Feed the World”, Live8 etc.
His long involvement with Amnesty International which began with his appearance at the “Secret Policemen’s Other Ball” in 1981 has inspired some of the songs he has written.
“Before that I did not know about Amnesty, I did not know about its work, I did not know about torture in the world” .
Sting’s song “They Dance Alone” threw a spotlight on the plight of the mothers, wives and daughters of “The Disappeared” (political opponents killed by the Pinochet regime) in Chile. These women, under constant threat from Pinochet’s infamous death squads, were afraid to voice their opinions publicly but would pin photos of their missing loved ones to their clothing and dance in public places in unspoken outrage.
Dendropsophus Stingi and The Rainforest Foundation
Sting, his wife Trudi and Raoni Metuktire, a Kayapó Indian leader in Brazil, founded the “Rainforest Foundation” to help save the rainforests and protect the rights of the indigenous people living in them. (In recognition of his “commitment and efforts to save the rain forest”, a species of Colombian tree frog, Dendropsophus stingi, was named after him.)
In addition to 16 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and several Oscar nominations. Sting has sold nearly 100 million records worldwide, was 62nd on Paste Magazine’s list of 100 Best Living Songwriters, 63rd on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Rock” and 80th on A magazines “100 Greatest Musical Stars of the 20th Century”
Read MoreWhy is it Always Four in the Morning?
If Aliens were to float around examining our culture for a while, they may well decide that four in the morning has a special significance in our culture. It might take them longer to figure out why.
Which is what American performance poet, storyteller and author, John G. Rives discovered after reading a poem which he couldn’t get out of his head.
Most of us have had that experience but this one was so convincing that what began as a minor obsession ended up as the creation of the Museum of Four in the Morning…
If you doubt the significance, watch the TED Talk presentation.
If you know why this phenomenon exists, please post your wisdom on the forums.
In an earlier appearance at TED Talks, Rives performed one of his poems, sharing what it would be like…
If I Controlled the Internet
If I controlled the internet
You could auction your broken heart
on Ebay…
Presentations by Rives at TED include
- “If I controlled the Internet”
- “A mockingbird remix of TED2006”
- “The 4 a.m. mystery”
- “A story of mixed emoticons”
- “Reinventing the encyclopedia game”
- “The Museum of Four in the Morning”
