In response to this and this please find the new: ATTENTION ALL ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES CC: IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS, CAPE TOWN BUREAUCRATS AND POLICE NEW REGULATIONS / BYLAWS FOR MAKING MUSIC + ARTS IN PUBLIC SPACE IN CAPE TOWN You will disregard the loud, screechy sound of the retailers and local businesses who think that the […]
Environment
Posted inEnvironment
Fracking and Utopia
An engineer recently said to me that there’s no such thing as a perfect system. He was referring to software development, but the concept was not unfamiliar to me, as Utopia is something that political theorists have been discussing for centuries. It is always there, whether referred to implicitly or explicitly in the academic literature. […]
Posted inEnvironment
The white-throated needletail and passing of precious things
I recently travelled to the picturesque town of Hamilton, New Zealand, through which the ethereally beautiful Waikato River courses, a body of water deemed sacred to the Maori people who refer to it as a tupuna (ancestor), a taonga (treasure), and a mauri (life force). Featuring in the headlines of this far-off place were regular […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment
Climate change: Red alert in the Anthropocene
It is fitting that “Anthropocene”, the term coined just more than ten years ago by Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, denotes the new ecological period, following the end of the Holocene, when humans became the principal force driving changes in the planetary system. I say this because the Holocene (“New Whole”), or stable […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Obama, women and hope
There I sat, five hours after leaving home, sunburned and wind chapped. I was hungry and thirsty and had spoken about engineering and women’s rights and weddings and which city in South Africa was the best. I had travelled thousands of kilometres the day before, and despite the anticipated excitement, at that moment I just […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Media
Capitalism, calling a spade a spade
Today I had the privilege of listening to two of the best conference keynote addresses I have heard at an international conference for a long time. They formed part of the same plenary session, here at Dublin City University in Ireland, where members are gathered for the annual conference of the International Association for Media […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
The Marikana Files II
Presented by Sipho Singiswa this episode looks at the impact the mining companies have on the environment and people living around the Lonmin mining operations — with a particular emphasis on children. Community leader and activist Chris Molebatsi says that what the people want is respect from mine owners. If there was respect for the […]
Posted inEnvironment
Johannesburg: The city that once was
About a year ago at a party, I met a well-known South African artist (he shall remain nameless) who described the Johannesburg Art Gallery as “Miss Havisham in her wedding dress”. He wasn’t saying it spitefully, he seemed to really like JAG; it was just a very honest, pithy comment. I believe the metaphor can […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
Turkey: The last green space
In one of its earliest reports on the turmoil that is ripping through Turkish cities, CNN highlighted an apparent paradox: How the anti-government protests that are now being compared to the Arab Spring were sparked by a “trivial” matter: The destruction of Gezi Park in the centre of Istanbul. Gezi Park is the last remaining […]
Posted inEnvironment, Lifestyle
Our alien mother ship
I’d just watched the new Tom Cruise sci-fi about alien machines who invade the planet to suck up Earth’s resources. The movie has a happy ending, though: the alien mother ship is destroyed and Tom gets back to his rustic cabin, his family, nature. Like in most sci-fi’s, the planet is fought for and saved, […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment
Eskom crippling our water resources
It’s a simple truth: water is fundamental to life, we can’t live without it. The problem, though, is that water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource; one South Africa is running short of. By 2030 it’s expected that our demand for water will outstrip what’s available by a staggering 17%. Already more than 98% of […]
Posted inEnvironment, News/Politics
Something worth saving
We’re about 300km off the coast of South Africa, sailing in the high seas of the Indian Ocean. During the night we caught up to a Spanish longliner, one of the many foreign vessels fishing in the region, others coming from places like Taiwan, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Since yesterday morning we’ve been in […]