Climate Change Video

Elizabeth Murphy requested that this climate change video be posted, as she feels it has relevance for the project. I would add that it reveals the current state-of-mind in the USA, where man-made climate change is still in "debate", making this material "shocking".  Of particular relevance to our project are:

• the references peppered throughout to reduced agricultural yields and draughts = reduction in carrying capacity
• the fact that this debate is taking place in the USA, the country most commonly used as the example of unstainable per capita energy use.

NY Times on the "Great Disruption" Ahead

In an interview with Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, in the New York Times, Thomas L Friedman says:

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, has published a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. To link to the interview click here.

Former Chief Science Advisor on Population & Resource Wars

Here is the link to lecture by Sir David King in which he talks about the impact of climate change, global population growth, reduced resources in creating resource wars:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/13/resource-wars-david-king

King concludes by saying: "Consumerism has been a wonderful model for growing up economies in the 20th century. Is that model fit for purpose in the 21st century, when resource shortage is our biggest challenge?"

Exit Ceremony Update

Given the recent screening on the BBC about Dignitas, and the coverage in the Observer (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/assisted-suicide) I'm convinced that there is some very interesting ethical debate to be had around this area in the supplementary materials we use to support the script.

I think it a wise choice that the "exit ceremony" features in our projected future world, and I'm looking forward to the challenging debate we're going to have around how we deal with links between our "dystopia" and current practice right now.

Sounds Going Extinct

I think this 2 part radio documentary might be interesting and related.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specialreports/2009/07/090701_discoverydocinfo.shtml

As the population grows and technology develops, the world we live in is changing sonically too. Something most people don't really think about.

These documentaries examine the impact of sound on people's lives, and question whether some noises, from street markets to bells and street hawkers, are actually at risk of disappearing. Some of which are distinct sounds connecting a city to its heritage and people

Raoul Brand