Last week, I encountered a former ‘professional garbage designer’.
I’ll explain…
I first came across the intricate paper art of Suhail Shaikh in autumn 2023, when I visited his exhibition at the Atkinson, Southport, UK.
I was there again recently to hear him talk about the exhibits and also the work that got him where he is now.
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Recently, I had a stab at stand-up!
Below, you’ll find a summary of why I did it and how it went, republished from the ClimateCultures site.
But first…
ClimateCultures is a network of over 200 artists, curators and researchers ‘bringing creative responses to our ecological and climate crises’.
I’m one of them. In the past, I’ve contributed a book review and a short pandemic-related musing to the ClimateCultures site.
Now, in one of its Creative Showcase entries, it features my recent foray into Sustainable Stand Up.
With permission from Mark Goldthorpe (aka the human engine of ClimateCultures) I’m sharing that entry here.
With her improv background and a course from the Sustainable Stand Up initiative, writer and editor Sally Moss created an online comedy routine with insights for how we can communicate climate change with humour and compassion.
“Even something as passive as watching TV can use loads of electricity … When I bought a TV, I made sure I bought the smallest one I could get. I feel really virtuous, but my film nights are screwed. Never mind Jaws, even Titanic needs a bigger boat…”
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I recently heard that climate comedy is finally hitting prime-time entertainment.
It appears the penny is dropping: if we’re to sustain the Herculean level of social reinvention the climate crisis demands of us, we’re going to need a laugh along the way.
Plenty of laughs, in fact – and psychological resilience and flexibility.
I’ve long been a believer in the benefits of improvisation exercises and games. This article in Psychology Today cites evidence that they help us:
And while not all improv is about generating comedy, it typically delivers a lot of laughter.
All of which reminds me of a project I was involved in a couple of years ago…
I was taking part in the Centre for Alternative Technology’s Zero Carbon Britain course (in 2017) when it first occurred to me that zero carbon thinking might go well with improv.
In the final section of the course, we explored ways participants could take Zero Carbon Britain insights out into our everyday world.
I chose to focus on the role of the arts. By day, I’m an editor and writer, but I’ve also been involved in community theatre, improv and Fun Palaces, and I know there are endless ways beyond the page for words to foster social and environmental solutions. I’m open to exploring any of them.
The shift to safe carbon practices is going to involve some deeply personal changes for all of us, and if we’re to remain (fairly!) stable and happy as we go, we’ll need to be able to do these things:
So, how to make sure we have these capabilities? Learn to improvise, in pursuit of…
‘Yes, and.’ Accept where we are and work from there. Or rather, here.
‘Yes, and.’ Find new possibilities, grounded in the new reality.
As a result, increase spontaneity, reciprocity, reward, fun.
(Or, to give it its full title, The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma.)
The book lays out a modern understanding of trauma and describes therapeutic approaches that many traumatised people find helpful.
It also shines a light on the often-shocking ways individuals such as war veterans and abused children were treated in the past. Thank goodness there is more enlightened guidance on offer these days – for those who choose to heed it.
To die extremely rich is disgraceful. So said Andrew Carnegie.
More precisely, he said, ‘…the man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.’
Carnegie was a successful industrialist and later a philanthropist, and his philanthropic legacy includes thousands of public libraries, as well as vast investments in education and research.
The very first library I loved was a Carnegie library. Sadly, it’s now sitting empty as a result of funding cuts.
Andrew Carnegie. Source
Would you say you’re a realist?
According to Oxford Dictionaries, that would be ‘A person who accepts a situation as it is and is prepared to deal with it accordingly’.
On 30th June 2020, I took part in the Climate Coalition’s virtual lobby. I spent an hour on Zoom with my MP and around twenty other constituents, talking about climate reality and climate solutions.
The reality in 2020 is that we have already seriously destabilised our climate (the one that keeps us alive) and we have major work to do to buy ourselves time to
BUT the reality in 2020 is also that there are endless impactful ways to do this work – regenerative land management, fossil fuel divestment, retrofitting, community wealth building, expansion of renewables, lobbying and protest, policymaking…
The list goes on. (more…)
In the most recent episode of BBC Radio 4’s Word of Mouth (14th January 2020), author Michael Rosen spoke to George Marshall of Climate Outreach about communicating climate change in ways that are relatable and true to life.
They know their stuff, of course, and listening to their conversation was half an hour well spent.
Michael Rosen. Credit
In the climate crisis, we’re seeing something truly unprecedented. We face major challenges as we try to get a critical mass of people to respond as necessary – to engage with what’s unfolding and take action to protect the habitat we all depend on.
How well we communicate this necessity – in the media, in boardrooms and government chambers, over the garden fence, and everywhere – will determine the pace of change.
I recommend listening to the full Word of Mouth episode for all the fascinating detail, but in the spirit of spreading the word in urgent times I’ve also briefly summarised the insights I took from it.
How we communicate about the climate crisis matters, of course – the words we use and the occasions on which we choose to deploy them.
I live in a part of the world (the UK) already affected by climate change but not yet overwhelmed by it. Most climate-related death and disease, most of the climate refugees, have so far come from other places.
So when I talk (or write) about climate breakdown, I am often talking (or writing) about events at a remove – far from home, or in a potential future. This adds to the challenge of communicating persuasively in some cases.
And so do the angry reactions it’s possible to provoke just by raising the subject.
The Letters to the Earth project has gathered contributions from citizens acclaimed and obscure. In their letters they’ve expressed their fears and dreams to our home and host planet in a time of rapid extinction rates and climate breakdown.
Mine, written in snatched moments during a busy week, was short but nonetheless personal. I’ve included it further down this post.
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