Bolivia’s Mother of All Mother Nature Laws, Climate-Laws.Org, Hot Climate Poet Joelle Taylor, The Breathing Effect’s Solarpunk Playlist

HOT CLIMATE POET, JOELLE TAYLOR

Earlier this week, we told you about Hot Poets, a UK-based project funded by the Arts Council England and run by Liv Torc, Chris Redmond and Tongue Fu. Twelve spoken word artists were originally corralled and teamed with scientific groups so that “art and science could work together to imagine a better possible future.

Their perfmormances were recorded in Nature, and then dropped—one a day—during last November’s COP26 in Glasgow. Now they’re available for the whole world to see and experience. And today, we invite you to enjoy Joelle Taylor performing a slice of “Could Mr. Sands Please Come to Reception?” 

The focus of the poem is on wild fires. Taylor collaborated with Dr. Gareth Clay, from the Department of Geography in the School of Environment, Education and Development at the University of Manchester on the piece.

Since 2001 Joelle Taylor has been the Artistic Director of SLAMbassadors UK, the UK’s biggest youth poetry slam, run by The Poetry Society.[2][3] Her new collection, “Songs My Enemy Taught Me” was published by longtime collaborator Anthony Anaxagorou in 2017, through his company, Out-Spoken Press.

In December 2019, Taylor, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that “Labour’s election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritizes the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few.”

That’s all you need to know about Taylor’s Climate bona fides…

DEEPER DIVE: YouTube, Joelle Taylor, Twitter

THE BREATHING EFFECT’S SOLARPUNK PLAYLIST

Listen, dealing with climate change can get hectic. Thinking about it too much can be depressing, while not thinking about it enough can drive one into a guilt-ridden rabbit hole. It’s important to balance out, because well, climate change is going to be with us for the rest of our lives.

Here’s one way: YouTube’s Psychedelic Angel presents “The Breathing Effect”: A Solarpunk Playlist. It’s a collection of music produced remotely over a 10 day period in May 2020, including brand new sounds as well as ones from the vault.

According to The Fader magazine, “The Breathing Effect is the Los Angeles-based group of Harry Terrell, Eli Goss, Moki Kawaguchi Andy McCauley. Together, they make music that’s not quite post-rock, not really beat-scene jazz, and certainly not psychedelic ambient — but you can’t accurately describe their sound without mentioning all of them.”

The BE’s Solarpunk Playlist of 17 songs is just under 33 minutes of a pandemic-inspired calmness with titles like, “this.is.not.a.dream” and “Republic of the Bees” and “SAVETHEWORLD”. Positive comments from listeners include, “Who else is syncing their breathing to the video refocusing?” and “Came for the Solarpunk and stayed for the groove.”

Explore The Breathing Effect’s Solarpunk Playlist by visiting thebreathingeffect.bandcamp.com, or by clicking on the link in the Deeper Dive section of this story at theclimate.org/episodes. Just make sure you’re ready to relax.

DEEPER DIVE: A Solarpunk Playlist, TheFader, BandCamp, TheBreathingEffect

CLIMATE CHANGE CHAMPION, BOLIVIA’S MOTHER OF ALL MOTHER NATURE LAWS

During his 13-year administration, Former Bolivian president Evo Morales often invoked the name, Pachamama in his speeches. Morales is considered Bolivia’s first president of indigenous descent, and so his invocation of the Pachamama name holds special meaning for Bolivia’s indigenous citizens.

Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous peoples of the Andes. In Inca mythology she is an “Earth Mother” type goddess, and a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own creative power to sustain life on this earth.

Morales, and Bolivia expanded on that concept to help rewrite the Bolivian constitution in 2009. The revision included the first known law heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the center of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities.

Why does Bolivia’s enshrinement of the right of nature “to not be affected by mega-infrastructure and development projects that affect the balance of ecosystems and the local inhabitant communities” matter to us?

As Paola Vllavicencio Calzadilla and Louis J. Kotze wrote in their critical appraisal of the Bolivian laws, “Our analysis suggests that rights of nature and, in Bolivia’s case, rights of Mother Earth have significant potential (especially symbolically, but also otherwise) to frame political, legislative and academic debates on ways to confront the persistent anthropocentrism of law that legitimizes and perpetuates the neoliberal development model the world over. “Neoliberalism” is code for modern imperialism.

DEEPER DIVE: Living in Harmony with Nature, The Guardian, Wikipedia, Climate Laws

CLIMATE-LAWS.ORG

So who keeps track of things like “How many countries have Climate Change laws?” Well climate-laws.org that’s who. It’s called Climate Change Laws of the World, and it’s a database built by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and the Sabin Center at Columbia University’s Law School . And it’s a twofer. The other “fer” is Climate Change Litigation of the World.

One tracks the progress of climate change laws and policies globally. The other tracks litigation cases around the globe which raise issues of law or fact regarding the science of climate change and/or climate change mitigation and adaptation policies or efforts that come before an administrative, judicial or other investigatory body.

This is esoteric stuff. So why does it matter to us? The climate laws visualization map. It takes complex, arcane data and turns it to easily digestible, clean map of what’s happening on the climate change law front around the world. The map isn’t all encompassing. There are only 13 parameters to pick from, but that’s enough material to be nonetheless inspirational.

Let’s say you want to know the number of climate laws and policies in the context of greenhouse gas emissions by nation, as a percent of global emissions. Go to the map, choose “Number of Climate Laws and Polices” from the “content” dropdown menu. Then choose “Country Greenhouse Gas Emissions…Percentage…” and away you go.

The data is represented by four sizes of circles and seven different colors. Right now there are over 2500 climate laws and policies wending their way through legislatures worldwide and over 1800 cases before the courts. That’s encouraging!

DEEPER DIVE: Climate Laws Data Map