Just because you’ve been wondering whatever happened to….


The Guys that painted ‘No War’ 0n the Sydney Opera House?
Will Saunders and Dave Burgess made global news with their painted 2003 protest, two words on the top of Sydney’s most famous icon transforming it into a strong statement that the Australian public weren’t happy with the leader’s decision to join the invasion of Iraq. Since then? Will and Dave were convicted of the charge of malicious damage, along with a bill to clean off the paint : $151,000, which they raised over time selling snow-domes, t-shirts, stubby holders, fridge magnets and posters featuring the Opera House with ‘No War‘ painted up top. They were both also sentenced to nine months periodic detention, which they have both completed.

“We were always committed to paying any reasonable clean-up costs, or even unreasonable costs as it turned out. But the Opera House is as good as new, unlike Falluja, or Baghdad. 100,000 deaths later and with Iraq on the brink of civil war, our reasons for painting NO WAR on the Opera House look as good as ever”, says Will.

The German Cannibal
Remember Armin Meiwes? He was all over the world news back in May 2006 after being convicted of the murder of a 40 year old German designer, an event made all the stranger because of the extensive written and video evidence showing the victim’s consent, indeed the victim’s actual desire to be eaten, to offer himself up into the service of another in the profoundest of ways. The pair met on a European online cannibal forum somewhere, and discussed for months the ways it would happen, before finally following it through, complete with video recording of their last meal together. Since then, Armin has been the subject of much television documentary and film interest ( Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story, Your Heart in My Brain, Cannibal ), which he is quoted as finding ‘distasteful‘. Also true : since entering prison, Meiwes has become a vegetarian, and wants to write a book of his life story with the aim of deterring anyone who wants to follow his steps.

Geocities And Angelfire?
Back in the pre-social networking days of the twentieth century, back before ‘free social network sites’ owned by multinational media empires allowed your local anarchist punk and techno bands to conveniently publish their songs and manifesto, yes way back then, well there were a series of crappy but free webhosting services where your crazy ‘work in progress’ animated gifs could be stored above a rainbow of font colours, arranged into the special sequences that made your particular slice of the web ‘unique’. Amazingly, Geocities and Angelfire still exist, undre yahoo and lycos respectively, still serving free ( ad-hosted ) pages, and offering ad-free hosting for small change per month. Craving a domain name that better says *you*?

Webster?
You mean Emmanuel Lewis, that 1.3m high sitcom actor? Didn’t he die of a freakish breakdancing neck injury? No, that’d seem to be an urban myth, or maybe you’re mixing him up with the popular 2007 movie , ‘Kickin’ it old school’, whereby “At a talent show in 1986, young Justin Schumacher suffers a head injury and slips into a coma. Twenty years later, Justin (Jamie Kennedy) awakes with the mindset and experience of a 12-year-old. He decides to reunite the members of his former dance team and revive their short-lived careers.”

Blimps?
Sure, the Hindenburg went up in flames in 1937, along with blimp evangelist dreams of blimps taking over the worldwide. Giant gas filled objects with engines in the sky? What were they thinking? Well they still exist today, with a shifted emphasis from passenger travel to ‘certain niche applications, such as advertising, as camera platforms for sporting events, and as aerial observation and interdiction platforms, where the ability to hover in one place for an extended period outweighs the need for speed and maneuverability’. Go wikipedia! ( look up airship )

Another lap of the sun, and what’s to be done? Addressing climate change wasn’t on the Australian Prime Minister’s to do list this year, but it can still be on ours.

William Burroughs once argued that it generally takes humans a disaster in their own backyard, before they rise up to do anything about it. Or more directly : “the only thing that gets homo sapiens up off its ass is a good foot up it.” Unfortunately, we can’t wait for the full impact of climate change to hit – by the time it’d be in full swing, the processes underway would have both severe impacts upon us, and take far too long to reverse.

Severe impacts? Maybe that’s too light – rising sea levels, large-scale food shortages, plagues, massive species extinctions, unprecendented numbers of refugees, intensified ethnic and political tensions, more frequent and more severe natural disasters, and a global economic depression the likes of which no one has ever seen. In other words, it’d be kinda preferable to use our foresight muscles, and get it together sometime in advance. The bad news is that this will be very difficult. The good news, is that humanity has previously mobilised enormous responses to difficult challenges, such as the two world wars and great depression of the twentieth century.

Evidence?
But wait – is this actual happening? Well, aside from a hefty weight of ongoing scientific documents released last year, each making more urgent appeals than the last, the situation is probably best understood by realising that in August 2008, for the first time in human history, the North Pole could be circumnavigated. Additionally, the following phrases in a search engine, will prove fruitful for those unconvinced : “arctic melting rates 20 years ahead of predictions”, “arctic sea soon ice-free in summer”, “Coral reefs disappearing”, “polar bear added to endangered list”, etc etc. Sure, Al Gore told you already. But what to do about it?

Responsibility?
Many countries including Australia are refusing to address their contributions to climate change, by arguing their contribution is much smaller than that of others, and shouldn’t have to be dealt with until the larger countries contributions have been addressed. Surely a better way forward is to acknowledge and address our impact, and set an example for others? In the same way individuals shouldn’t avoid facing their own impact by insisting it doesn’t make a difference in the face of Government or big business scaled decisions. Again, it’s not an either / or situation, and the larger decisions are more likely to happen within an informed population who are practicing what they believe.

Action?
Aside from lobbying Government and big business to address their impact, you can also tackle your personal impact. It’s a short 2 Step Program.
Step One : Calculate your carbon emissions.
Step Two : Figure out ways to reduce that. That’s for everyone to do themselves, but general things to keep in mind :
transport tends to average around a quarter of our emissions ( cycle or get public transport more ),
a meat based diet is much more carbon intensive to produce than a vegetarian diet, ( Food contributes about 28% of our greenhouse gas pollution. This includes eating out and buying food. Meat and dairy products are especially problematic, because their production is particularly water-intensive. (About 200L of water is needed to produce a 150g steak),
and heating hot water makes up a surprisingly large proportion of an average persons energy consumption.

Other climate miscelleany :
Consider your direct carbon emissions, and your indirect carbon emissions

Climate Code Red, a recent Australian book tackling Climate Change and the need for serious responses.
http://www.manpollo.org/ : risk-management perspective on global warming.
breathingearth.net ( real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world )
gaszappers.com ( online art games that tackle climate change, including one where the aim is to save venice)

http://www.chooseclimate.org
http://carbonrationing.org.uk – community skillsharing and events to help reduce the carbon footprint of each other’s homes :

“We believe that the impacts of climate change demand a serious programme of greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and we urge governments to adopt a universal and equitable framework to achieve this. In CRAGs, we are implementing this approach at a community level. We form local groups to support and encourage one another in reducing our carbon footprints towards a sustainable and equitable level. We measure our progress against our carbon allowances. We share knowledge and skills in lower carbon living, raise awareness, and promote practical action in the wider community.”