[✔️] March 8, 2022 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[👀 Richard Pauli]

/*March 8, 2022*/

/[ for adults of any age - ]/
*Six key lifestyle changes can help avert the climate crisis, study finds*
Research shows that governments and individuals making small changes can 
have a huge impact in reducing emissions

Six promises you can make to help reduce carbon emissions...
Matthew Taylor - Mar 7, 2022

People in well-off countries can help avert climate breakdown by making 
six relatively straightforward lifestyle changes, according to research 
from three leading institutions.

The study found that sticking to six specific commitments – from flying 
no more than once every three years to only buying three new items of 
clothing a year – could rein in the runaway consumption that is 
partially driving the climate crisis.

The research carried out by academics at Leeds University and analysed 
by experts at the global engineering firm Arup and the C40 group of 
world cities, found that making the six commitments could account for a 
quarter of the emissions reductions required to keep the global heating 
down to 1.5C...
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“The research is clear that governments and the private sector have the 
largest role to play but it is also equally clear from our analysis that 
individuals and communities can make a huge difference.”

The Jump campaign asks people to sign up to take the following six 
“shifts” for one, three or six months:

--  Eat a largely plant-based diet, with healthy portions and no waste

--  Buy no more than three new items of clothing per year

--  Keep electrical products for at least seven years

--  Take no more than one short haul flight every three years and one 
long haul flight every eight years

--  Get rid of personal motor vehicles if you can – and if not keep hold 
of your existing vehicle for longer

  -- Make at least one life shift to nudge the system, like moving to a 
green energy, insulating your home or changing pension supplier

The campaign was officially kicked off on Saturday and Bailey said there 
was already a growing movement emerging in response to the evidence with 
Jump groups up and running around the country.
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The research is based on a study by academics at Leeds University, Arup 
and the C40 group of leading cities which assesses the impact of 
consumption by people in the world’s leading cities.

Analysis of that data has found that six steps set out above could cut 
global emissions by between 25% and 27%.

Ben Smith, director of climate change at Arup, who led the analysis said 
that as scientific evidence mounts, it was clear that all sections of 
society had to act.

“Our research shows that all of us, from politicians, city and business 
leaders to individual citizens, have important roles to play. And it is 
clear there’s lots that we can do as individuals, and that this is one 
of the easiest and quickest places to start”./
/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/07/six-key-lifestyle-changes-can-help-avert-the-climate-crisis-study-finds

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/[ for kids of all ages - a simple list animated video ]/
*9 things you can do for your health and the planet*
Mar 7, 2022
Grantham Imperial
All life on our planet is interconnected, so what’s good for your health 
is often good for the planet’s health too. Big changes are needed to 
tackle the climate and ecological crises and make our planet healthier 
for us all. Each one of us can contribute to these changes and make a 
difference by working together in our communities and beyond.

We spoke with world-leading scientists and experts at Imperial and 
beyond to find out the best things you can do to improve both your 
health, and the health of the planet.

Find out more: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/stories/healthy-planet/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY0edoALhSc
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/[ More at ]/
*Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment*
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/briefing-papers/

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/[ Slate on how  SCOTUS fails to connect with citizen needs, government 
structure ] /
*Supreme Court’s Climate Skeptics Will Help Decide Humanity’s Fate*
Justices Alito and Coney Barrett appear wary of settled science, and 
that’s a problem.
KAREN C. SOKO - MARCH 4, 2022
Last fall, on the same day that the parties to the Paris Agreement 
gathered in Glasgow for their first day of their annual international 
climate meeting, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would review an 
appellate court decision about the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases from fossil fuel power 
plants under the Clean Air Act.

Fast forward half a year: On February 28, the day that the U.N. 
Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change issued its sobering report on 
climate adaptation and harms to human and planetary well-being, the 
court heard oral arguments in the case—West Virginia v. EPA.

Once again, it was a split-screen reality.

In reaction to the report, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres 
stated, “Today’s IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a 
damning indictment of failed climate leadership. With fact upon fact, 
this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by 
climate change. Nearly half of humanity is living in the danger zone—now.
Many ecosystems are at the point of no return – now. Unchecked carbon 
pollution is forcing the world’s most vulnerable on a frog march to 
destruction — now.”

This reality doesn’t seem to have penetrated the high court’s marble 
walls. In questioning Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the 
extent of the EPA’s statutory authority, Justice Samuel Alito twice 
denied the reality of the climate emergency. “What weight do you assign 
to … climate change, which some people believe is a matter of 
civilizational survival?” And in a follow-up question, he again framed 
dangerous climate disruption in hypothetical terms, stating that he 
didn’t see how considering costs of regulation would limit the EPA’s 
authority “if you take arguments about climate change seriously, that 
this is matter of survival.” (Emphases added.)

In these statements, Alito acknowledges that, if you believe the 
scientific consensus that there is a climate crisis, then it would be 
illogical to fail to respond because the costs of human suffering would 
dwarf any costs incurred by the fossil fuel industry. That’s no doubt 
true, but as Prelogar deftly explained in response, there are 
significant statutory limits on the EPA’s ability to regulate regardless 
of the enormity of the air-pollution problem the agency seeks to 
address. The larger, more important, point here is that Alito is 
apparently not among those “people” who view climate change as a global 
existential crisis—and, tragically, he’s also a justice about to render 
a decision about the extent of the EPA’s climate authority.

So will Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has also engaged in 
climate-crisis denialism. During her Senate confirmation hearing, she 
refused to accept that “climate change is happening and is threatening 
the air we breathe and the water we drink.” Rather, she suggested that 
the question was inappropriate. When asked by then Sen. Kamala Harris 
whether she considered coronavirus to be infectious, cigarettes to be 
carcinogenic, and climate change to be real, Barrett responded: “You 
have asked me a series of questions that are completely uncontroversial 
… and then trying to analogize that to elicit an opinion … from me on a 
very contentious matter of public debate, and I will not do that.”

Alarmingly, Barrett’s characterization suggests that she would deem many 
regulations aimed at responding to the climate crisis as attempts to 
address a so-called “major question” that agencies are supposedly 
without authority to address. In recent shadow docket opinions, Alito, 
Barrett, and the four other conservative justices struck down rules of 
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational 
Safety and Health Administration providing COVID-19 protections on 
major-questions grounds, in part due to the “controversial” nature of 
COVID-19 response measures. According to Barrett’s previously 
articulated position, this line of thinking could also be applied to 
climate protections.

In a recent commentary, I detailed the problems with the court’s grant 
of certiorari in West Virginia v. EPA and with the conservative 
justices’ specious use of the major questions “doctrine” to strike down 
agency authority in the COVID-19 cases. In short, the danger of their 
use of the doctrine is that, under the guise of requiring that Congress 
answer the question rather than agencies, the court, the least 
accountable branch, in effect answers the question in favor of no action.

In the oral argument, some of the conservative justices’ indicated that 
they may be poised to use a strong version of the doctrine to prevent 
the EPA even from taking quite modest action in response to the climate 
crisis, such as the regulation of greenhouse gas pollution from fossil 
fuel power plants at issue in the case. Indeed, their questioning 
indicates that some of them may have determined that any regulations 
that might incentivize the shift away from fossil fuels would amount to 
answering a “major question” that agencies are without power to answer.

Meanwhile on the other screen, Daniel Kammen, a scientist who 
co-authored the IPCC report, stood outside the courthouse doors 
protesting the court’s anticipated ruling alongside other activists. 
“The Clean Air Act is our best and most effective tool to protect the 
environment; to promote racial, gender and socioeconomic justice; and to 
arm this country to be the leader on climate that President Biden has 
highlighted in his historic set of actions since he took office,” Kammen 
told reporters.

Judges, and particularly those who deny the climate crisis, have no 
business answering what they deem “major questions” of public policy in 
favor of inaction, and particularly in favor of inaction with respect to 
the fossil fuel industry.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/03/supreme-court-climate-skeptics-barrett-alito.html 




/[ Inept headline for such an interesting opinion:   "Unwittingly, 
Vladimir Putin has created a crisis that, despite its horrendous 
immediate consequences, may ultimately prepare the world to resolve a 
different kind of universal existential threat." ]/
*Putin may save us from global warming*
The brutal invasion of Ukraine has changed everything.
By Philip K. Verleger Jr. -  March 3, 2022

President Vladimir Putin of Russia has just done something 
extraordinary: taken action that will maximize the world’s transition to 
clean, renewable energy. Indeed, he may be single-handedly saving us 
from global warming.

Putin, of course, has no idea of his future standing as a preeminent 
eco-warrior. No matter. His decision to starve Europe of natural gas 
this winter has probably sped up the European Union’s shunning of fossil 
fuels. If that is not enough to forestall planetary disaster, his 
invasion of Ukraine will finish the job by setting widespread “greening” 
snowballs in motion.

Economic crises incentivize nations, their citizens, and their domestic 
companies. From July to December 1940, for example, the United States 
produced only 3,611 military aircraft. Production in 1944 rose at least 
sevenfold to nearly one hundred thousand planes. The increase came about 
in response to Japan attacking Pearl Harbor and Germany declaring war on 
us. During World War II, Ford Motor Co. produced almost 90,000 aircraft, 
nearly 9,000 of them at its newly built Willow Run plant, originally 
designed to build cars, alone.
The dramatic shift to a wartime footing by US manufacturers happened in 
under 48 months. No one, certainly not the Germans or Japanese, imagined 
we could pull off this industrial and economic transformation so quickly.
The battle to arrest global warming needs a similar effort. Indeed, it 
may be a greater challenge than any previous collective effort to face a 
universal existential threat.

The public mobilization required to fight climate change, though, has 
failed for decades. We have had no equivalent of Pearl Harbor, D-Day, or 
the Battle of the Bulge to galvanize public opinion — until now.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine last week, European citizens, especially 
those in Germany, were willing to accept natural gas supplied by Russia 
as “sort of green.” Within the last few weeks, the European Union’s 
environmental ministers even proposed exempting natural gas from any 
aggressive emissions-reducing measures. Gerhard Schröder, Germany’s 
former chancellor and chair of Nord Stream’s shareholder’s committee, 
has vociferously supported Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that would double 
Russia’s gas exports to the region.
The brutal invasion of Ukraine has changed everything.

Olaf Scholz, Germany’s new chancellor, has put Nord Stream 2 on ice. 
Robert Habeck, the country’s vice chancellor and minister for economic 
affairs and climate action, warned Russia that Germany would permanently 
turn away from Russian oil and gas should those supplies be interrupted.

Meanwhile, EU officials in Brussels are finalizing the details of their 
“carbon border adjustment mechanism.” The CBAM is the union’s economic 
nuclear bomb. When enacted, it will slap tariffs on imports of 
carbon-intensive goods such as steel and cement. In the EU’s own words, 
“The CBAM will equalize the price of carbon between domestic products 
and imports and ensure that the EU’s climate objectives are not 
undermined by production relocating to countries with less ambitious 
policies.” Putin and his advisers have been pushing back against the 
CBAM for months because, under its strictures, Russia would be the 
biggest loser. Indeed, as the CBAM gained momentum last spring, Russia’s 
stance toward the EU and Ukraine became more strident.

Igor Sechin, CEO of the Russian oil company Rosneft and one of the few 
people the increasingly isolated Putin appears to trust, recognized the 
threat. As reported, he “told the Kremlin that carbon border taxes like 
the European Union’s could inflict far greater damage to Russia’s 
economy than sanctions.”
Bloomberg’s John Ainger wrote in August 2021 that the Russians would 
face a CBAM impact of around 600 million euros by 2035, falling mainly 
on its iron and steel exports. His calculations are dated. The CBAM 
taxes and other economic steps taken will now be much more dramatic — as 
will the actions of those working to accelerate the green revolution.

We can expect, for instance, the Europeans to rally in the next years to 
retrofit old, inefficient homes, buildings, and offices, thus halving 
their heating requirements. The EU and European countries, following 
Norway’s example, will probably pass economic incentives and regulations 
aimed at getting diesel and gasoline-powered cars and trucks off the road.

The actions in Europe should drag other countries along in its wake. 
Europe is China’s largest trading partner. To preserve its market, China 
will probably move rapidly to cut fossil fuel use, especially since 
Russia no longer offers it any economic opportunity. The United States 
will also be yanked along despite protestations from Republicans and 
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. In this country, the 
effort will probably be championed by 21st-century tech titans Google, 
Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla because these companies understand the 
severity of the climate crisis and have rushed to lead the response by 
their actions.

Winston Churchill once said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” 
Unwittingly, Vladimir Putin has created a crisis that, despite its 
horrendous immediate consequences, may ultimately prepare the world to 
resolve a different kind of universal existential threat.

Philip K. Verleger Jr. is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and 
founder of the economic consulting firm PK Verleger LLC.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/03/03/opinion/putin-may-save-us-global-warming/



/[ Yale Climate Connections -- doctor offers common sense list, you may 
know this already ]/
*Six behavior changes that can heal people and the planet*
Lifestyle medicine expert Dr. Neha Pathak offers tips for better health 
and a safer climate.
by NEHA PATHAK, MD -  MARCH 4, 2022

Here’s a prescription for improving the health of U.S. residents – and 
at the same time, helping to protect the climate.

It’s called lifestyle medicine.

As a physician practicing in this growing field, I help my patients 
address common chronic conditions, like heart disease, diabetes, and 
lung problems, by focusing on six major changes to their lifestyles. 
Beyond a focus on medicines, I prescribe strategies like eating whole, 
plant-based foods, getting physical activity, avoiding toxic substances, 
improving sleep, connecting with others, and managing stress – often 
through nature-based therapies.

Catherine Collings, MD, a cardiologist and president of the American 
College of Lifestyle Medicine, where I serve on the board of directors, 
points to the broad and growing consensus and updates in medical 
guidelines that demonstrate the power of these simple interventions to 
prevent, manage, and sometimes reverse many chronic diseases, like high 
blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and even certain cancers.

The beauty of these approaches is that they’re often good for the 
planet, too. And the field of lifestyle medicine is gaining importance 
at a critical moment.

*Climate change is a growing danger to health*
For the 60% of American adults with at least one chronic condition, 
climate change may intensify the threats to their health.

My patients with chronic conditions are among those most at risk from 
climate change-related heat waves, extreme weather events, and worsened 
air quality. Heat puts an immense strain on those with heart conditions 
and diabetes. Some long-term medicines can interfere with the body’s 
ability to cool down, increasing patients’ risk of heat-related 
illnesses. And climate-related weather disasters can interfere with 
medical follow-ups.

Even though health professionals train to address chronic disease 
prevention and management, many of us are still not equipped to talk 
about the overlapping health risks of the climate crisis in the exam room.

“When patients come to see their physicians, they are first and foremost 
invested in their own health, and I do believe that the responsibility 
of the physician is to first tune in to that patient as an individual, 
into their concerns,” Collings says.

But evidence from the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change 
report and other recent studies show that many lifestyle prescriptions 
are not just powerful in the fight against chronic disease but are also 
part of robust climate “solutions.”

*A diet for a heating planet*
Physician Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the 
University of Wisconsin – Madison, points out that a shift toward 
plant-based diets has major health benefits and the potential to slow 
global warming. Estimates of the global food system’s contributions to 
heat-trapping emissions vary, but a recent Food and Agriculture 
Organization puts it at a  whopping 31%. From deforestation, fertilizer 
use, processing, packaging and transport, the emissions stack up and so 
does the pollution of air, water, and soil.

The pollution produced by raising animals for food is generally much 
higher than those produced by growing plant-based food. Beef is at the 
highest end of the spectrum: Producing just one kilogram of beef leads 
to about 60 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, growing 
one kilogram of many fruits, vegetables, and nuts results in only about 
one kilogram of greenhouse gases.

The health benefits of a plant-predominant diet are equally staggering. 
Poor diets – those low in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and 
high in red meat, salt, and processed foods – kill 11 million people 
worldwide every year. Almost 50% of Americans have poor-quality diets 
and 90% do not meet daily recommendations for fruit or vegetable intake.

For those interested in shifting toward a plant-predominant diet, Patz 
recommends a planetary health diet developed by the EAT-Lancet 
commission, which emphasizes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and 
legumes. This prescription can save millions of lives and help preserve 
the health of the planet.

*Avoid the car, get your body moving*
Active transport, meaning walking or bicycling where possible, is 
another lifestyle medicine prescription that Patz describes as 
“multi-solving.” Sedentary lifestyles kill over 4 million people 
globally, and about 25% of Americans are classified as physically 
inactive. At the same time, about 29% of heat-trapping greenhouse gas 
emissions come from the U.S. transportation sector.

As a result, biking or walking to do errands rather than driving a car 
can improve your health and reduce emissions, too.

“We found that if you could take short car trips off the road,” Patz 
says, “you have air quality benefits but you’d have enormous exercise 
benefits as well. … We’re talking about 1,300 lives saved every year 
from reduced air pollution and increased physical fitness.”

Unfortunately, many of my patients suffer from “active transport 
inequities.” In other words, their neighborhoods were not designed with 
health in mind. Dangerous roadways, lack of sidewalks, and other threats 
limit safe outdoor physical activity. As the link between increased 
walkability and lower rates of chronic conditions like diabetes and 
obesity strengthens, many health professionals are advocating for 
“community prescriptions” for walkable neighborhoods to help reduce this 
inequity.

*Beware of toxic substances*
I often advise patients to avoid tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs.

But health professionals don’t typically emphasize limiting exposure to 
air or water pollution. For some lifestyle medicine providers, this 
oversight is a critical gap in preventive care. Just like smoking 
cigarettes can lead to heart and lung damage, so can air pollution.

By some estimates, air pollution, caused in part by the burning of 
fossil fuels, is responsible for over 4 million deaths annually, with 
some estimates placing the number of deaths as high as 8 million. It 
also increases the burden of chronic disease from conditions like 
dementia, heart, and lung disease.

Collings, the American College of Lifestyle Medicine president, says 
that it is hard for health professionals to talk about pollution 
exposure in the exam room because most patients can’t control the toxic 
substances in their environment.

But providers can encourage patients to make a habit of monitoring 
outdoor air quality by visiting sites such as AirNow.gov. On days when 
air quality is poor, you can limit pollution exposure by wearing N95 
masks or avoiding outdoor activity.

Ultimately, health advocates hope that a prescription to improve 
individual health may also drive action to limit pollution for entire 
communities. Knowing that air pollution can damage the heart, lungs, and 
brain may help communities come together to prevent the expansion of 
polluting traffic or other industries that could worsen local air 
quality – especially in marginalized communities that already bear a 
disproportionate burden of pollution exposure.

*Heat, disasters are threats to restorative sleep*
The connection between poor quality sleep and many chronic mental and 
physical health conditions continues to strengthen. At the same time, 
climate change-related impacts pose a hazard to both sleep quantity and 
quality. For example, displacement resulting from climate-related 
weather disasters threaten healthy sleep patterns. So do long stretches 
of high temperatures, particularly in neighborhoods that have lost 
protective tree canopies.

One specific intervention lifestyle medicine providers recommend is to 
preserve tree canopies, particularly in urban areas. Not only do trees 
soak up greenhouse gasses, they help reduce local temperatures and noise 
pollution, facilitating better sleep.

*Manage stress, stay connected*
Climate-related threats to mental health are increasingly recognized by 
patients and health professionals. These threats include eco-anxiety, 
post-traumatic stress disorder – or PTSD – related to climate disasters, 
and mental-health stress linked to higher temperatures. In the 
long-term, chronic stress not only affects health but makes it harder 
for people to make healthy lifestyle choices.

Here again is a “multi-solving” opportunity. Lifestyle medicine 
practitioners encourage the use of green space, nature, and parks for 
stress management and mental and physical health. These uses encourage 
the preservation of spaces that also remove greenhouse gasses from the 
atmosphere.

Beyond the individual health benefits, shared green spaces and parks can 
enhance social connection and happiness within communities. Though 
social connection has not traditionally been thought of as medicine, the 
health effects of isolation have helped doctors see the importance of 
community ties for health.

With the increasing threats posed by climate disruption, lifestyle 
medicine health professionals are recognizing that prescriptions for 
social connection are even more critical. By helping patients identify 
sources of community support, we may be able to limit disruptions to 
health and healthcare access in the lead up and aftermath of extreme 
weather events, because isolated patients tend to have a harder time 
getting care and services after disasters. Social connection can also 
protect mental health in the wake of climate disasters: Researchers 
recently found that higher levels of social support helped people cope 
and reduced the risk for mental health conditions after Hurricane Maria 
devastated Puerto Rico.

*Inspiring health professionals*
Collings says that with every prescription for healthy, plant-based 
nutrition, physical activity, nature-based therapy, and social 
connection, health professionals are charting a path toward both 
individual and climate health.

She says she hopes her organization’s work will inspire health 
professionals to protect patients from both individual and planetary 
health threats.

“We know health practitioners are so much more effective when they bring 
their own passion into the appointment,” she says. “Prescribing these 
interventions help actualize their passions fully and know that through 
their health care encounters, they’re actually changing the lives of 
people and the planet.”
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/03/six-behavior-changes-that-can-heal-people-and-the-planet/



/[  Recommended for grades 10+.  Notice of a live drama in Cambridge, 
Mass ] /
*OCEAN FILIBUSTER*
World Premiere
FEB 24 – MAR 13 see showtimes
Loeb Drama Center
Run Time: 2 hours with a 15-minute intermission
https://americanrepertorytheater.org/shows-events/ocean-filibuster/
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https://youtu.be/Bv58fnbkAMc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1H29UNiej8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcwgOen0xLk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynGdEv3BbEk
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/[ Review of a little drama & culture ] /
*'Ocean Filibuster' mimics real-life climate change politics on stage*
March 04, 2022
Jacquinn Sinclair
Saving the ocean and thus the world is a noble cause, but not much can 
save the too-plump presentation in "Ocean Filibuster" — except maybe a 
shorter script.
The play, now showing at American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) Loeb 
Drama Center, presents a future world where rising sea levels have 
turned New York into an island of memorials accessed only by ferry and 
Osaka, Japan, into an underwater destination.

WBUR is a nonprofit news organization. Our coverage relies on your 
financial support. If you value articles like the one you're reading 
right now, give today.

To deal with the problem, there is a bill up for debate that proposes 
the government pump some excess water into caverns deep in the earth, 
and send the rest into outer space beyond the atmosphere. As a result, 
there will be more land, making rock climbing the Great Barrier Reef and 
bicycling from Florida to Cuba possible. And what's left of the ocean 
will be reduced to a more manageable seven seas.

But the Ocean (Jennifer Kidwell) does not want to be mastered. So it 
comes to plead its case before the bespectacled Mr. Majority (also 
Kidwell), stop the seven seas agenda and show senate members how 
inextricably connected humans are to the ocean and everything in it. But 
the argument to be made isn’t an easy one.

As the title suggests, what follows is a prolonged discussion conveyed 
through speech and song. The show is chock-a-block with information, 
data points and even a story about the yeti crab. But the execution 
could use re-tooling; it’s preachy and uninspiring.

Kidwell, an Obie Award-winning actor, was entertaining, especially 
during the second half when they were “luxuriating” on a bed of sequined 
pillows.

Still, there were moments in the script when Mr. Majority and the 
Ocean’s heated debate didn’t provide much space for Kidwell to morph 
between the two characters. At one point, the actor started saying the 
Ocean's next line while still removing Mr. Majority’s red glasses. The 
show might be better served if Mr. Majority and the Ocean were portrayed 
by two separate actors, but maybe the choice was made to convey the 
interconnectedness between humans and the ocean.

The production was spurred by a collaboration between A.R.T. and the 
Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) that aims to make 
audiences consider the climate crisis by tugging at the heart 
imaginatively. To do this, theater artists were invited to join 
scientists and scholars to create new works.

Creative duo Lisa D’Amour and Katie Pearl are the playwright and 
director. Their Obie Award-winning company, PearlDamour, is known for 
immersive works that “mix theater and installation,” such as “How to 
Build a Forest,” an eight-hour performance where a simulated forest is 
assembled and disassembled.

This isn’t the A.R.T.’s first foray into theater that centers climate 
change. “Wild,” the fable that took an odd turn, also lacked subtlety, 
but was at least fun to watch despite its ending. However, “Ocean 
Filibuster,” dragged on without much luster.

What does work in "Ocean Filibuster" is the smart set design by Jian 
Jung, a New York-based theater designer. It thrusts the audience into 
the filibuster's action. Jung’s gleaming white Senate hall, complete 
with official seals, books and letters, doubles as a set of screens used 
for lighting by Thomas Dunn and gorgeous projections by Tal Yarden. Most 
memorable are the animations of swimming plankton, images of deep-sea 
life which resemble outer space and the flashing digital numbers during 
Kidwell’s song about time.

Sxip Shirey’s music selections about being in charge, like Nas’ “If I 
Ruled the World” at the start of the show and Tears for Fears’ 
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” at the end, were thoughtful.

Also, Olivera Gajic, who has worked in theater, opera, dance and film, 
outfits the ocean choir in gauzy pleated fabric and fantastic, colorful 
reef-like headdresses worthy of a sea dream. And in the second half, 
Gajic puts Kidwell in a striking, blue-green neck accessory that seems 
to nod to the beauty and complexity of sea slugs.

Despite the too-long show, A.R.T. and HUCE’s commitment to combat the 
climate crisis was evident throughout. During intermission, a brilliant, 
bronze-sequined codfish portrayed by Evan Spigelman (also part of the 
ocean choir) teaches the audience how codfish reproduce, the challenges 
they face and how to save their habitat by signing a petition. 
Theatergoers could then scan a QR code and sign the petition 
immediately. There was augmented reality fun with the Deep Wonder app 
that people could play, as well as a digital program, and relevant 
exhibits in the hallway.

And even though “Ocean Filibuster” is a bit overstuffed for this 
audience member, perhaps the A.R.T. and HUCE partnership did accomplish 
what it set out to do scientifically: I learned some facts I didn’t know 
before. But artistically, it missed the mark.

“Ocean Filibuster” runs through March 13 at the Loeb Drama Center and 
streams March 9-27.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/03/04/american-repertory-theater-ocean-fillibuster-review/[ 
] /



/[The news archive - looking back]/
*March 8, 2012*
March 8, 2012: In a syndicated column, former Delaware Republican Party 
official Michael Stafford notes:

    "The far-right’s capture of the GOP has gone largely unchallenged by
    more responsible voices within the Party. Jon Huntsman, for example,
    was the sole presidential candidate willing to directly confront the
    prevailing [right-wing] orthodoxy on climate and evolution. Perhaps
    this isn’t surprising, given the viciousness of the attacks directed
    at dissenters. The passion for purging and purity, and the primaries
    that resemble nothing so much as heresy trials, highlight a critical
    fact about the far-right. In Conservative Wonderland,
    dissent--thoughtcrime--is the political version of a capital offense."

http://themoderatevoice.com/140941/gop-stuck-in-a-conservative-wonderland/

http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/greenfront/2012/03/michael-stafford-gop-stuck-in-a-conservative-wonderland-.html


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