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2009 | |
7 - 18 December: The United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP15, is held in Copenhagen, with no binding agreement reached. An official cultural programme is scheduled.
May - December: In the months running up to COP15, there were major exhibitions on climate change and the arts: C Words, PLATFORM, at the Arnolfini, Bristol; RETHINK in galleries across Copenhagen; Earth Art of a Changing World at the Royal Academy of Art, London; Radical Nature at the Barbican, London; FutureSonic, Manchester; Climate for Change, FACT, Liverpool; and 2 Degrees, ArtsAdmin, London.
21 - 31 May: Earth Matters on Stage, a symposium on theatre and ecology, and the Ecodrama Playwrights Festival are hosted by the University of Oregon.
9 May: The first play on climate change at a major London theatre, Steve Waters's The Contingency Plan, opens at the Bush to critical acclaim. The production consists of two plays, On the Beach and Resilience. (photo left)
17 April: The US Environmental Protection Agency terms heat-trapping gases pollutants, and will regulate them for the first time.
28 March: One billion people take part in Earth Hour by switching off their lights at 8:30 p.m. to mark the beginning of UN Climate Panel's meetings.
1 March: Arcola Energy and Arcola Theatre start Green Sundays, opening the theatre on the first Sunday of each month as a meeting place for projects on arts and sustainability.
2 February: Tipping Point announces an initiative to grant four commissions of up to £30,000 each for the creation of new performances that have to do with climate change.
20 January: President Barack Obama inaugurated. "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories... And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it."
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2008 | |
Barack Obama elected president of the United States. He comes to the job with an energy policy - reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050; ensuring 10% of electricity comes from renewable resources by 2012; putting plug-in hybrid cars on the road; and investing in a clean energy future. He also has an arts policy - to expand public/private school arts partnerships; create an artists corps; champion the importance of arts education; and provide health care and tax fairness for artists.
Voters in Ecuador approve a referendum on a new progressive constitution, which gives Nature the same rights as human beings.
The London Mayor's Green Theatre - Taking Action on Climate Change programme launched, aiming to reduce by 60% the energy used by London theatres by 2025.
Thirty five productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe connect with the environment, animals or climate change, more than in any previous year.
BBC2 broadcasts Burn Up, a thriller about the oil industry and climate change, written by Simon Beaufoy, and starring Neve Campbell as Holly and Bradley Whitford as Mack.
'Climate of Concern', three days and nine plays on the environment, takes place as part of the New York Institute for the Humanities Festival.
Arcola Theatre opens Simple 8's production of The Living Unknown Soldier powered entirely by a 5kW hydrogen fuel cell.
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2007 | |
Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) share the Nobel Peace Prize ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.’ Twenty-four major productions are listed here on the Directory, the most in any given year since 1882, the year that starts our listings.
The National Theatre and Royal Philips Electronics have teamed up on a Green Switch initiative for lighting the flytowers. For the second consecutive year, the BBC Proms commission a choral work on climate change. Rachel Portman composed The Water Diviner's Tale and Owen Sheers wrote the libretto. The United States Supreme Court in a groundbreaking decision rules that greenhouse gases are pollutants, opening the door to litigations against industries producing high levels of carbon emissions.
7.7.07: The Live Earth concert for a climate in crisis takes place across every continent.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produces four scientifically authoritative reports confirming the human cause of global warming; warning of the impacts of climate change; and outlining the economic and lifestyle changes necessary to mitigate those impacts.
Pope Benedict, speaking to a conference on climate change at the Vatican, urges Catholics to become far greener. The Vatican plans to install more than 1,000 solar panels on the roof of Paul VI Hall. Arcola Theatre initiates Arcola Energy, aiming to make the theatre carbon neutral.
The Eco Prize for Creativity is won by Puppet State Theatre for their production of The Man Who Planted Trees.
The Simpson family, in The Simpsons Movie, save the town of Springfield from environmental disaster.
April 2007 is the hottest April since 1865 in Britain, and for the preceding twelve months the hottest since records have been kept, starting in 1659. Floods in June force thousands from their homes.
Monsoon flooding in the Indian subcontinent causes 14 million Indians and 5 million Bangladeshis to leave their homes.
Al Gore wins two Oscars for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Receiving the award, he tells the audience, 'It's not a political issue. It's a moral issue.'
'If there is no action before 2012, that is too late. What we do in the next 2 to 3 years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,' said Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC after the Bali Agreement to negotiate a new climate change treaty by 2009, coming into force in 2013. The Kyoto protocol, the existing global treaty on greenhouse gases, expires in 2012.
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2006 | |
The movie and book An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore released. Gore delivers his presentation on the emergency of climate change to the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival.
Playwright Caryl Churchill
writes a libretto about climate change for a work by Orlando Gough and his choral group, The Shout, for the Proms.
The movie Syriana, released. A political thriller about corruption in the global oil industry.
The Economist magazine reverses its sceptical position on climate change. Vanity Fair and Elle produce special 'green' editions.
The Royal Court Theatre, London, presents Hot Air, lectures by Chris Rapley CBE, Head of the British Antarctic Survey and John Schnellnhuber, Professor of Theoretical Physics, Potsdam University, who devised the climate change 'Tipping Point' map of the world. The lectures were introduced by the playwright Caryl Churchill.
Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People (first produced in 1893) is revived
by several companies, including the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC, and Tara Arts, whose UK adaptation set it in 19th Century British-ruled India.
James Lovelock publishes The Revenge of Gaia
in which he warns that planetary ecosystems and human life may not survive the accelerating pace of climate change and advocates nuclear power as the best immediate option for energy production.
Conservative Party leader, David Cameron, appoints Zac Goldsmith, editor of The Ecologist , as Deputy Chair of his policy review committee on the environment. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announce that CO2 levels have reached 381ppm (parts per million)which is 100ppm above the pre-industrial average and higher than levels for the past 30 million years. Two plays dealing with indigenous peoples and the extinction of their cultures are revived: Peter Shaffer’s
The Royal Hunt of the Sun
(first produced in 1964) at the National Theatre and Christopher Hamptons's
Savages
(first produced in 1973) at the Royal Court.
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2005
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Bill McKibben writes online article, 'Imagine that. What the world needs now is art, sweet art', asking where are the plays that will register climate change in our guts and imaginations.
Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans, USA. A New Orleans resident (left) waits to be rescued. Sea surface warming caused by human actions is increasing the intensity of tropical storms.
The New Yorker publishes a three-part series, on climate change by Elizabeth Kolbert.
The third Cape Farewell expedition of artists and scientists sails to the High Arctic to study global warming.
The Royal Society of Arts and Arts Council England launch 'Arts & Ecology', a year-long series, of symposia, commissions and publications. PLATFORM, a social practice art collective, inititates Remember Saro-Wiwa, commissioning a public art Living Memorial to mark the 10th anniversary of the execution of writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni colleagues by the Nigerian state.
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2004
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The movie Super Size Me released, in which film-maker Morgan Spurloch eats McDonald's fast-food meals for a month. In March, McDonald's announced that by the end of 2004, the Supersize portions will no longer be available.
The movie The Day After Tomorrow released. Hollywood disaster movie about climate change which makes no reference to US consumption of fossil fuels.
Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble charged with bioterrorism.
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2003
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A summer heatwave, many argue caused by human influences on the environment, kills 30,000 people in Europe.
Activist, environmentalist and scientist, Vandana Shiva speaks on 'Diversity and Celebration' in a lecture organised by the London International Festival of Theatre.
Green Light Trust theatre company shortlisted for Schumacher Society Award.
Playwright Chris Ballance is elected as the Green Party candidate to be Member of the Scottish Parliament for the South of Scotland Region.
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2002
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Futerra produce the film The Seasons Alter using a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to warn of climate change. Titania is played by Cherie Lunghi, Oberson by Lloyd Owen, and Helena by Keira Knightly.
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2000
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PLATFORM, a social practice art collective, receives the Schumacher Society Award. Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate publishes The Song of the Earth about literature and environment.
The movie Erin Brockovich released. Contaminated water in small town leads to one of the largest successful lawsuits in US history. The conference 'BETWEEN NATURE: Explorations in ecology and performance' at Lancaster University is the first international event bringing together performers, academics and activists. Launch of ashden directory, first internet site
for environmentalism and performing arts.
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1999
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The United Nations Kyoto Protocol is open for signature by countries agreeing to limit carbon dioxide emissions. The United States does not sign.
In 'The Archers', Tom Archer is acquitted on a charge of criminal damage, despite admitting to damaging a trial crop of GM oil seed rape.
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1998
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The movie A Civil Action released, about a lawyer's eight-year battle with giant corporations over children poisoned by industrial pollutants.
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1996
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Road-protestor Swampy emerges from tunnels at Fairmile Camp, Devon.
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1995
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10 November: Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others hanged in Nigeria.
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1994
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Criminal Justice and Public Law Act makes a criminal offence of
'aggravated trespass'. The Kyoto Convention, The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, enters into force. Una Chaudhuri guests edits an edition of the journal Theater on ecology and performance, which includes her seminal essay '"There Must Be a Lot of Fish in that Lake": Toward an Ecological Theater' (Vol.25:1).
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1993
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Tony Kushner writes the play Angels in America: Millennium
Approaches, the first play in which an angel descends to earth through a
hole in the ozone layer. Ben Elton publishes Gridlock in which a city chokes on carbon monoxide.
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1992
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June: Earth Summit in Rio. 1,600 scientists, including half the Nobel prize-winners, sign petition warning about dangers of climate change. It fails to make front page of the New York Times. Direct action anti-roads protests begin at Twyford Down in Hampshire, UK. PLATFORM's Still Waters, which imagined the un-burying of four tributaries of the River Thames, is among the earliest of such projects to uncover or 'daylight' a river.
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1988
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Global warming emerges as a public issue when NASA scientist James Hansen tells the US Congress that research indicates human beings are dangerously heating the planet, particularly through the use of fossil fuels.
22 December: Chico Mendes assassinated in Brazil.
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1987
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Gro Harlem Brundtland, Norwegian Prime Minister, publishes Our Common Future defining sustainable development as ‘Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.
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1986
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25 - 26 April: Chernobyl. The nuclear reactor in the former USSR explodes.
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1985
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10 July: Bombing of Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior.
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1984
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Bryony Lavery writes The Origin of the Species produced at Birmingham Rep Theatre.
The Arts for The Earth programme started by Friends of the Earth UK. 3 December: Bhopal. Union Carbide's chemical spill kills thousands in India.
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1983
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The movie Silkwood released, about contamination from a nuclear site.
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1982
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United Nations adopts a World Charter for Nature, endorsed by every nation except for the USA.
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1979
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James Lovelock publishes Gaia.
The movie The China Syndrome released, about a nuclear accident at Three Mile Island near New York City.
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1978
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The tanker Amoco Cadiz runs aground off northern France spilling 70 million gallons of crude oil.
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1975
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The first episode of The Good Life, in which Tom Good gives up the rat race to become self-sufficient in Surbiton.
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1974
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Death of Karen Silkwood, whistle-blower on hazards at Kerr-McGee plutonium plant in Oklahoma. Peter Nichols writes The Freeway about a giant traffic jam on a motorway, produced by the National Theatre at the Old Vic.
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1973
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OPEC oil embargo inflicts world-wide economic damage. E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful published. The Ecology Party founded in Britain. Christopher Hampton
writes Savages, about the extinction of the Brazilian Indians, produced at the Royal Court.
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1972
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A Blueprint for Survival
published by Edward Goldsmith
and the editors of The Ecologist.
David Holman's Drink The Mercury
produced, about the effects of heavy metal pollution on the fishermen of Minamata in Japan.
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1971
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Greenpeace
founded.
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1970
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Earth Day
first celebrated Time Magazine puts Barry Commoner on the cover and calls him "The Paul Revere of ecology." Teddy Goldsmith founds
The Ecologist. Max Nicholson's
The Environmental Revolution published.
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1969
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Friends of the Earth
founded by David Brower.
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1967
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Lynn White, Jr
publishes The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis.
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1964
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Peter Shaffer's
The Royal Hunt of the Sun, about the Spanish invasion of the Inca empire produced at the National Theatre.
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1962
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Rachel Carson
publishes Silent Spring,
an attack on the use of
pesticides, which gave rise to the environmental movement.
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1961
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World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)
launched, now considered to have the fourth most recognised logo in the world.
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1949
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Aldo Leopold publishes A Sand County Almanac,
which defines conservation and wildlife management, and initiates a genre of nature writing.
Joseph Campbell publishes The Hero With A Thousand Faces, which tracks
the deep similarities between myths from diverse cultures.
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1945
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16 July: as first atomic bomb explodes at Trinity
site in New Mexico, nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer quotes
from the Bhagavad-Gita, 'I have become Death Shatterer of Worlds'.
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1899
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Anton Chekhov
writes Uncle Vanya.
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1884
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Henrik Ibsen writes The Wild Duck.
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1882
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Henrik Ibsen writes
An Enemy of The People.
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