[Age-of-Stupid] Waving goodbye to The Age of Stupid + Piers needs you
Franny Armstrong
franny at spannerfilms.net
Wed Jan 13 09:08:51 GMT 2010
<< STOP PRESS - Piers the Stupid windfarm man is back in Bedford Town
Hall all this week, making one last attempt to get some wind turbines
stuck up at Airfield Farm. ie in the very same spot he was fighting to
get them up in the film, back in 2005. He'd greatly appreciate any
support from anyone who can turn up at the hearings dressed in blue.
See his letter at the bottom of this message. >>
Hello and Happy New Decade,
So I thought this was rather symbolic: my friend bet a thousand quid
that I couldn't go one year without uttering the words "climate
change". Now I was feeling pretty confident, come Dec 31st, what with
having any number of alternatives up my sleeve: you know, "global
warming", "greenhouse effect", "anthropogenic warming". So, anyway,
there we were at my granny's house in Dorset, watching Jools Holland
count down to the new decade, and, on the stroke of midnight, in come
12 pipers piping, followed by a man dressed in a polar bear suit.
"What do you think that's all about then?" says friend, at precisely 7
seconds into the new year. To which I reply "Surely it's got to be
climate change".
And therein lies the problem.
When we finished making The Age of Stupid eighteen months ago
(eighteen months ago!), you see, Lizzie and I agreed we would promote
it all the way to Copenhagen in December 2009 and then go our separate
ways, patting ourselves on the back at a job well done and at a small
contribution to keeping the atmosphere habitable to human life. With
18 months being 17 months more active promotion than yer average
documentary gets to shake its bootie at. So off we went to Copenhagen
- sponsored by many of you fine people, thanks again - and threw
ourselves into The Stupid Show, which I will be going on about at
great length in the next message, just as soon as we've sorted all the
videos into some comprehensible order, but which was kind-of brilliant
in a madcapedly underresourced way.
What the hell happened at Copenhagen?
I can't explain better than:
- The final message that Lizzie and I filmed at 7pm on the last
Sunday, after two long weeks inside the Bella Centre
- The final Stupid Show featuring Tony Juniper, Mark Lynas, Ed
Miliband, Kumi Naidoo and President Nasheed from The Maldives in
various states of exhaustion after we'd all been awake since Friday
and everyone else had gone home.
- The Climate Scoreboard, which calculates that the Copenhagen accord
(a weaker thing than a deal or an agreement, specially cos we don't
yet know whether anyone is going to sign up) would commit us to a 3.9
degree global temperature rise, which would mean something like: all
coral dead, most forests dead, Southern Europe a desert, Australia
with no agriculture and Africa uninhabitable. So not great then.
Radiohead's Thom Yorke with The Stupid Show team shortly after he'd
signed up to 10:10
The Age of Stupid, the film, is all over, therefore we can retire?
-> Team Stupid has done a fantastic job over the last few months
putting everything in place so that the film will continue to be
watched all around the world for years to come. Distribution deals are
signed & sealed from Australia to Armenia. The DVDs are flying off the
shelves. The Stupid shop has moved to its new home in a big
warehouse. Indie Screenings is being handed over to our UK
distributors Dogwoof. The downloads are winging their way through
cyberspace and the pirates are swopping bittorrents for free on the
internet, feeling smug whilst they do it (how come they get the best
of all worlds? Couldn't they at least feel bad as they nick our hard
work?). There's plenty more TV screenings coming up, including
Discovery in America in March or April. We're thinking that the prize
for keenest country goes to the Netherlands, where 200,000 viewers
watched it on mainstream TV the other week, 120,000 DVDs have been
printed (70,000 given away in Belgium and the rest ordered by shops in
Holland) and, according to several Dutch friends telling me
independently, "Age of Stupid" has become a must-say phrase in the
mainstream media, even when not talking about the film.
-> Cash-wise, the first of ten annual payments to our crowd-funders &
crew went out last week. Sorry that we just missed Christmas: the
problem was that 100+ of the 400 people wrote in to change their
details, so that slowed things down considerably. But you should have
got your cash now and if you haven't please contact our accountant
Kevin Lyons on theageofstupid at mklp.co.uk. About 40 people said they
were delighted and/or surprised with their payment and one said he was
totally regretting ever getting involved with the film, so that's not
such a bad ratio. Sorry we haven't quite yet made you all millionaires.
-> Team Stupid has now disbanded. Many have packed their laptops and
headed upstairs to 10:10 (Dan, Leo, Mal), one has gone to film school
(Ben), two back to their old dayjobs (Sylvia, Sara), two unaccounted
for somewhere in Copenhagen (Tom, Luke), one last seen heading off in
a campervan surrounded by Danish police (Rop), one to a great job at
the Carbon Trust (Andrew), one to musical adventures (Nick) and one to
continue internationally coordinating NGOs (Jahlia).
-> Which therefore means that the winner of the lucky draw to captain
the good ship Spanner Films solo from now till eternity is....
Rhiannon Roberts. Round of applause please. Yes, the poor gal will be
all alone in Stupid Towers from now on - except we're getting kicked
out of Stupid Towers so will have to find a desk for her to squat
somewhere else. So all Stupid or Spanner Films-related enquiries
should now go to the hardy lass on rhiannon at ageofstupid.net. She's
only got 400 emails in her inbox at the moment, so sure she'll get
back to you real soon.
-> Having said all that, Andy Moore is also popping in from time to
time, finishing up the American DVD, sorting out the Stupid Show,
archiving all the used teabags and whathaveyou. He's on andy at ageofstupid.net
-> Miss Lizzie doesn't yet know whether she'll do more filmmaking,
more campaigning or more politicking but you can rest assured you
haven't heard the last from her... As for myself, I guess I fall into
the next paragraph...
Rhiannon Roberts realises that where once there were nine she now
stands alone
The Age of Stupid, the era, is not all over, therefore we cannot retire?
The deal they were supposed to agree in Copenhagen is meant to replace
the Kyoto Treaty, which ends at the end of 2012. They didn't manage in
Copenhagen (the UN meeting called COP15), but all is not lost, as
there is another shinding happening in Mexico next December, called,
you guessed it, COP16. So if the deal can be done then, it can still
come in in 2013, as Kyoto finishes, and that would be pretty much the
same difference. We just lost a year of preparation time, which isn't
the end of the world.
So what can we, the humble citizens, do to help ensure that the deal
gets done in Mexico?
Stupid is dead! Long live 10:10!
As The Guardian's New Year's Day 10:10 special edition headlined, "The
politicians failed at Copenhagen. Now it's over to you."
When the politicians meet again next in Mexico in December, they need
to be confronted by the news that the people - and businesses and
schools and churches and table tennis clubs - have gone ahead on their
own and started cutting emissions. Not in a changing-a-few-lightbulbs
way, or in setting more long-distance targets, but in terms of
actually knocking a few percent off the total emissions of whole
countries in less than a year. Quite a task. To quote myself quoted in
the Guardian (much easier than re-writing): "I think Copenhagen marks
the end of traditional campaigning on climate change. Enough banners,
enough websites, enough shouting in the streets. Now we need to roll
up our sleeves and start solving the problem, all together. If we wait
until the politicians get their act together, it will be too late."
There is no way that the politicians would be able to ignore the
people plonking, say, 2% cuts from, say, UK, Australia, Germany,
Iceland, Norway and the Maldives down on the Mexico table, just as
they're having their first coffee. Or, to put it more positively, the
politicians would realise that the citizens are ready to build the low-
carbon future and this will give them the political space they need to
make the deal as strong as the science demands.
10:10 is absolutely storming ahead in the UK, so the major mission now
is to get at least 7 or 8 other countries up to speed, out of the 33
which have contacted us wanting to set up their own version of 10:10
(rather hilariously, the main national broadcaster in the Netherlands
launched their very own 10:10 last week. Not sure how we feel about
this, but we have anyway now bought in super-star coordinator Susan
Alzner - she of the UN climate week triumph (and Stupid Show laugh-o-
meter, fact fans) - who will be presenting her world domination plans
at the first 10:10 Board Meeting, er, tomorrow and then starting to
implement the plan on Friday).
Here's how you can get involved:
-> If you haven't yet committed to cut your 10% this year, sign up now
at http://www.1010uk.org. If you're not in the UK, sign up at http://www.1010global.org
. You've already missed the first 13 days of 2010, so have a little
bit of catching up to do. Then persuade your kids' school, your
workplace, your girlfriend's college and your grandfather's knitting
circle to sign up too. You'll be joining: 53,874 people, 2,041
businesses, 1,051 Schools, Unis and Colleges and 1,424 other
organisations. Big name sign-up of last week: Sony. Plus 116 local
councils who between them cover a third of the UK population, which
means that 20.45 million people will be getting their services
(housing, waste, street lighting etc etc) with 10% less emissions than
they did this year. Bloody amazing.
-> If you're not on the 10:10 mailing list (regardless of whether
you've signed up to cut your emissions), join by sending an email to addtolist at 1010uk.org
. All the 10:10 news goes out on there, I just send a few titbits
occasionally.
-> Join 10:10's Facebook page and follow us on Twitter (#1010)
-> Give 10:10 some of your cash by donating here or by entering the
competition to win a genuine Picasso artwork, as the main thing
slowing the campaign down is having to waste loads of effort on
fundraising. And how much would you impress your new girl/boyfriend by
casually giving them a Picasso for their next birthday?
-> Any questions or thoughts about 10:10, please write to hello at 1010uk.org
So that's where we're at
I wanted to end this message with the rather delightful news that
Channel 4 picked McLibel as the 14th best film of the last decade. But
their website seems to have deleted all mention of it... there was
honestly a big feature all about the best films and we even made it
into the opening paragraph, which has somehow survived the cull: "As
this most clunkily-named decade, the Noughties, goes gently into that
good night, we've seen fit to round-up our pick of the best films from
the cinematic era that gave us Steve Coogan Hollywood movie star, saw
a postman taking on McDonald's and winning in McLibel, while a
splatstick horror director from New Zealand by the name of Peter
Jackson changed the face of cinema with a story about some plucky
midgets."
So that's it then: we made a film, which was called The Age of Stupid,
and then we distributed it as best we could and then we turned our
attentions to 10:10 in a bid to help usher in, er, The Age of Sense?
The Age of Reason? The Age of Clever?
Hope all's well with you,
Franny
Last two coats in the COP15 cloakroom at 8pm on the final Sunday...
Nobody can say we didn't try...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - -
Public Inquiry for Airfield Wind Farm, as featured in 'The Age of
Stupid', 12-> 15th January 2010
-> Please come to Bedford to show your support
Hello Age of Stupid fans,
Piers Guy from the film here.
If consented, Airfield Wind Farm will consist of 3 x 2MW wind
turbines, located in Bedfordshire. These three turbines, proposed next
to the Santa Pod drag racing strip, will produce around 14,000GWh of
clean electricity per year, which is the equivalent to the usage of
around 3,000 homes, savings thousands of tonnes of CO2 per year.
In the summer of 2009, Nuon Renewables appealed the planning
application on the grounds of non determination. The Public Inquiry
has been set for 10am on Tuesday the 12th of January at Bedford Town
Hall, St. Paul's Square, Bedford, MK40 1SJ. The inquiry will last
until the 15th of January.
We really want the Planning Inspector to see the strength of support
for the wind farm. We know CLOWD, the anti group featured in The Age
of Stupid, will be there in large numbers trying to monopolise the
proceedings, so it is vital that the we have as many supporters
present as possible.
A strong turnout would send a very positive message to the Planning
Inspector, we also would like as many people as possible to drop in
throughout the week so that the inspector is continuously reminded of
the support that exists for this project and also to boost the morale
of the wind farm team at the enquiry.
At all times please wear bright blue (hats, scarves, t-shirts, jumpers
etc.) if possible to show your support for the wind farm We will also
have blue rosettes for people to wear.
Feel free to make banners, and make yourselves heard.
Hope to see you in Bedford!
Cheers,
Piers Guy
Any queries please contact:
Will Watson, Project Manager
Email: will.watson at nuonrenewables.com
Tel: +44 (0)1736 330171
Web: www.nuonrenewables.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://aos.dh.bytemark.co.uk/pipermail/age-of-stupid/attachments/20100113/c3779b07/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 4194419793_0b93c8f23e.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 131250 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://aos.dh.bytemark.co.uk/pipermail/age-of-stupid/attachments/20100113/c3779b07/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 4194418103_6a1d49963b.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 37776 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://aos.dh.bytemark.co.uk/pipermail/age-of-stupid/attachments/20100113/c3779b07/attachment-0003.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG00173.jpeg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 60915 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://aos.dh.bytemark.co.uk/pipermail/age-of-stupid/attachments/20100113/c3779b07/attachment-0001.jpeg>
More information about the Age-of-Stupid
mailing list