Tipping Point

Well while Kate went to visit Multistory I was at the national tipping point conference in Newcastle. A very interesting three days of trying to sort out global warming. There was some really interesting projects - I was really taken by a presentation on the "Flow" project which my mate Tony from the owl project was involved in. 200 artists and climate scientists - best quote of the week was from an old school arts and climate change activist who said "It's the first time I've had spinach cannelloni at an event designed to combat climate change." I imagined him with his arm set in a barrel of concrete chained to a tree with swampy feeding him vegan italian food.

It was a strange experience from the outset two grown men fighting about how many golden eagles a specific wind turbine had killed - was it non was it nine? Mr climate scientist told us that when he worked on the oil rigs the gas burn off plume would attract seagulls and they would fly towards the light and like icarouus burn in the flames of the petro chemical industry. I wanted to ask how many seaguls equals a golden eagle in the battle of bird death figures but really I didn't say that much because the whole thing bothered me.

It's clear that the world as we know it is ending yet I thought of my flat earth book from 1901 which predicts the end of the world by fire and I thought of the end of days and judgment and it seems to me that since we were expelled from the garden of eden we have always been facing the end of the world .For me as I grew up it was "MAD" mutually assured distruction which kept us safe - this never really settled in my over thoughtful 9 year old mind. Now the end of the world is coming in fire or maybe ice or maybe ice and then fire or perhaps both at once. After the conference I thought about the role of the arts in this and that the best way forward for all of us is denial. The arts should be like the band on the Titanic - we need to play on as the sea levels rise and sink us.

On a more positive note every cloud has a silver lining and this may reflect some of the suns rays back out and warm the moon up so we can go live on it and the people of the earth through the power of art will come together and pull us back from the brink and the methane will not be released from the massive stores under greenland - cows will stop farting the rain forest will expand - plains will dust the earth in smog, cold fusion will work, men will stop been greedy woman will take over the world and out Titanic will swerve just in time and if not we will all accidentally fall into a lifeboat called Scotland.