environment Indian music music: 350.org 350ma benefit concert Bill McKibben Korea Nepal
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December 8, 2018: Playing For The Planet — World Music Against Climate Change
On Saturday, December 8, the eighteenth “Playing For The Planet” benefit concert will showcase master musicians from three different musical traditions in a rare and joyful pan-cultural evening, with all proceeds going to benefit the environmental advocacy group 350MA.org. The lineup includes Do Yeon Kim, the contemporary virtuoso of the Korean gayageum, Nepalese sarangi master Shyam Nepali, and New England’s great exponents of American folk tradition, Lorraine Lee & Bennett Hammond. The music begins at 7:00 pm, at The Community Church Of Boston, 565 Boylston Street (Copley Square), Boston. Admission is $20; $15 students & seniors.
Online ticket purchasing
available through Eventbrite.
This concert is the eighteenth in an ongoing series of cross-cultural events produced by Boston-area musician and environmental activist Warren Senders, conceived as a way for creative musicians to contribute to the urgent struggle against global warming. Their choice of beneficiary, 350MA.org, is focused on building global consensus on reduction of atmospheric CO2 levels — action which climatologists agree is necessary to avoid catastrophic outcomes. Because the climate problem recognizes no national boundaries, the artists represent musical styles from three different parts of the globe, and share key musical values: listening, honesty, creativity, and respect. And, of course, they are all committed to raising awareness of the potentially devastating effects of global warming. It’ll be an incredible evening of powerful music — from some of the finest musicians in New England and the world.
“…pleasant surprises and stimulation of the aesthetic synapses…
…an open-ended, floating, world music festival…”
— Steve Elman, ArtsFuse —
“…Senders possesses a gift for assembling fascinating programs.”
— Andrew Gilbert, The Boston Globe —
About The Artists
Lorraine Lee & Bennett Hammond
Lorraine Lee, renowned master of the Appalachian dulcimer, also plays banjo, mandolin and Celtic harp and is an expressive singer and songwriter. Bennett, a superb finger-style guitarist and recent convert to the five string banjo, names “the three Bs”, Bach, the blues and Buddy Holly, as major influences.
Together, The Hammonds are versatile musicians and engaging entertainers. Their warm stage presence is punctuated with wry humor, and their command of their instruments and musical genres is without flaw. The Boston Globe calls them “a dazzling, witty, eclectic, delightful duo.”
The Brookline-based duo’s repertoire ranges in style from classical through Celtic, blues and contemporary. They sing both traditional and original songs and can be heard on over thirty recordings as featured artists, or enhancing the work of performers including Archie Fisher, Lui Collins and Bob Franke. Christine Lavin and Heidi Mueller are among the artists who have covered Hammond originals.
Lorraine and Bennett’s most recent releases include Jingalo Gypsy, Rockafolky Banjo, and Lorraine’s Muddy River Suite.
On December 8, Lorraine and Bennett will be joined by special guest Dean Stevens.
“More than just good pickers, Lorraine and Bennett are singers with an ear for traditional and contemporary songs. They work seamlessly together, blending instruments and voices.”
— Golden Link Folk Society —
Do Yeon Kim
Do Yeon Kim plays the gayageum, a Korean silk-stringed zither. An early prodigy on the instrument, she has received numerous awards in her native Korea, and was selected by the Korean Department of Culture to be one of the few gayageum musicians to tour with a youth group to Japan.
She is the first gayageum player at the New England Conservatory of Music, where she received a Masters degree in Contemporary Improvisation, following her undergraduate degree in Korean music. Do Yeon is committed to introducing the western world to the national instrument of her homeland and expanding the gayageum’s boundaries.
In addition to playing Korean traditional music, Do Yeon is an exceptional improvisor who has collaborated with musicians from many genres, including tango, jazz, and Western classical music. Her musical vision and ability to adopt styles and forms not associated with her instrument is truly extraordinary.
Shyam Nepali
Hailing from the centuries-old Gandharba musical tradition of Nepal, Shyam Nepali been bringing the sounds of the Sarangi to audiences around the world for three decades. His superb musicianship has allowed the traditional sound of the Sarangi to travel in new directions, whether it’s blending the traditional folk music of Nepal with other styles or finding entirely new sounds through creative improvisation and collaboration. His virtuosity and musicianship allows him to fearlessly expand the Sarangi’s expressive capabilities with every note.
Shyam has recorded and performed with artists such as Patti Smith, Tenzin Chogyal, and Abigail Washburn. An important teacher and mentor of the next generations of Sarangi players, he works with Project Sarangi in Nepal, and the Imagine Rainbow Project (Switzerland/Nepal), to foster the creative arts and keep the traditions alive.
The founder of the Himalayan Heritage Cultural Academy in Boston, MA, a platform for Nepali folk music and dance in the USA, Shyam has taught and mentored the newest generation of Sarangi players and folk musicians including members of the Nepali supergroups Kutumba, Sakchyam, Nayan, Manda, Lakchya, Shree Tara, and Lakhay. Awards and recognition of his significant contribution to Nepali folk music and the Sarangi around the world include the Mah Kwah Cha award from the government of Nepal, the Governor’s Citation from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and an honorary consulship from the Italian government.
ABOUT 350.org and 350MA.org
Co-founded by environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, 350.org is the hub of a worldwide network of over two hundred environmental organizations, all with a common target: persuading the world’s countries to unite in an effort to reduce global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million or less. Climatologist Dr. James Hansen says, “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 400 ppm to at most 350 ppm.” (Dr. Hansen headed the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.) Activists involved in the 350 movement include Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Vandana Shiva (world-renowned environmental leader and thinker), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights), Van Jones, Bianca Jagger, Barbara Kingsolver and many more.
350MA.org is the Massachusetts Chapter of this worldwide advocacy group, and the hub for the Better Future Project.
The Community Church of Boston is a free community united for the study and practice of universal religion, seeking to apply ethical ideals to individual life and the democratic and cooperative principle to all forms of social and economic life. We invite you to read on to discover more about us, join us one Sunday for a thought-provoking and joyful time, or contact the church to find out more about our community: info@communitychurchofboston.org
Online ticket purchasing
available through Eventbrite.
environment Politics: 350 Bill McKibben corporate irresponsibility economics fossil fuels
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Year 3, Month 12, Day 13: Get Up, Stand Up / Stand Up For Your Rights
Bill McKibben and 350.org have been pushing hard for divestiture from fossil fuels – and taking aim at college endowments as an easy and significant target. The New York Times:
SWARTHMORE, Pa. — A group of Swarthmore College students is asking the school administration to take a seemingly simple step to combat pollution and climate change: sell off the endowment’s holdings in large fossil fuel companies. For months, they have been getting a simple answer: no.
As they consider how to ratchet up their campaign, the students suddenly find themselves at the vanguard of a national movement.
In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks. The students see it as a tactic that could force climate change, barely discussed in the presidential campaign, back onto the national political agenda.
“We’ve reached this point of intense urgency that we need to act on climate change now, but the situation is bleaker than it’s ever been from a political perspective,” said William Lawrence, a Swarthmore senior from East Lansing, Mich.
It’s a very unequal struggle. But the alternative is giving up. Nope. Can’t do that. Sent December 5:
Throughout the course of 350.org’s “Do The Math” tour, founder Bill McKibben over and over compared the movement to divest from the fossil fuel industry with the mid-80’s campaign to end financial ties with firms doing business in apartheid South Africa. These earlier actions were driven by college students possessed by the moral urgency to end the injustices perpetrated by institutionalized racism. Modern climate activists are equally motivated by their keen awareness of injustice — today perpetrated not by governments, but by a set of unimaginably powerful and irresponsible economic actors. The similarities are profound. But there is one important set of differences.
In the 1980s, the victims of apartheid lived in one state, on one continent — and at one memorable point in time. Climate chaos, by contrast, will disrupt lives everywhere on Earth for generations to come — a fact which dramatically reinforces the ethical imperative of divestiture.
Warren Senders
environment: 350 Bill McKibben
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Year 2, Month 10, Day 14: Actually, He’d Rather Be Wrong
Deborah Erdley writes sympathetically in the Pittsburgh Tribune about a recent visit from Bill McKibben:
McKibben, who penned “The End of Nature” in 1989, one of the first books on the threat of climate change, acknowledged his growing fears and hopes for the future as he spoke to a group of several hundred college activists from across the nation at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s national conference on Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Ticking off events ranging from summer’s Texas wildfires to a 129-degree daytime temperature record in Pakistan to floods that devastated New England following record rainfall last month, McKibben told the group gathered in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, that climate change is “pinching harder and faster” than anyone imagined 20 years ago.
“You guys are incredibly important. … You may be more important than you know,” McKibben said, noting that seven college students helped him start 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009.
It’s fun to skewer morons. It’s also fun to give praise where and when it’s due. Sent October 10:
Bill McKibben’s long advocacy on behalf of our collective future has never been as relevant as it is today. As global climate change continues to trigger new extremes in weather all over the planet, the necessity for our civilization to reduce atmospheric CO2 can no longer be denied.
And yet constructive approaches to this emergency are rejected and mocked by a substantial portion of our citizenship; even the existence of the climate crisis is disputed by professional denialists in the pay of the oil and coal industries. Their voices, amplified by the mass media, have given cover to politicians who wish to avoid disturbing a lucrative status quo.
Our government’s inability to respond points to a systemic failure: the political system is prevented from focusing on genuine problems by the short-sightedness of its corporate masters. Bill McKibben is one of the few contemporary thinkers to make these connections explicit. Thank you for a carefully crafted and sympathetic article on a man whom future generations will regard as a hero of our times.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Bill McKibben rising sea levels
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 28: More On “Moving Planet”
The September 24 Fiji Times reports sympathetically on “Moving Planet.” As an island nation, they’re right there on the front lines, so their words have particular relevance:
YOU and I have only one planet, one home — if we do not act, we can risk the brunt of a climate catastrophe, says Vodafone 2011 Hibiscus Queen Alisi Rabukawaqa.
Ms Rabukawaqa is part of a campaign called Moving Planet which is a day of global events focused on the need to move the planet beyond fossil fuels.
A statement from Moving Planet-350 Fiji yesterday called on all walkers, runners, cyclists, paddlers and other non-fossil fuel-powered movers to take to the streets on September 24 which has been designated for the event.
“On Saturday, September 24 we join people all over the world in more than 180 countries to show our support for moving beyond fossil fuels and tackling climate change,” the statement said.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org said, governments all over the world were complacent about the increasing climate crisis.
“This is the day when people will get the earth moving, rolling towards solutions we need,” he said.
This is a rephrasing of my letter for yesterday, sent an hour later, on Sept. 23 (it’s already the next day over there in Fiji!):
Bill McKibben and 350.org have taken on perhaps the most daunting challenge in the history of grassroots movements for social change: a long-term campaign to transform our planetary economy away from consumption, and toward renewal and replenishment.
The global warming emergency wasn’t caused by any individual, organization or society, but is a byproduct of our complex civilization. While industrialized culture has brought us countless wonders and facilitated global interconnectedness to an unprecedented degree, it also consumes far more of our irreplaceable environmental resources than we replace.
Political and regulatory approaches, while crucial to solving the climate crisis, cannot replace what’s really needed: a profound change in our ways of living.
This change must be subtle, yet radical; global, yet local; immediate, yet long-term. With millions of people working collectively across the globe, our chances of success are slim. So why bother? Because shirking this challenge is a guarantee of catastrophe.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: 350 Bill McKibben sustainability
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Year 2, Month 9, Day 27: Wheels On Fire, Rollin’ Down The Road
The September 23 edition of the Milford, MA Daily News runs a sympathetic article on the upcoming “Moving Planet” events, leading with these nicely crafted paragraphs:
Many scientists and climate experts understand that 350 ppm (parts per million) of carbon carbon dioxide (CO2) is the amount considered to be the safe upper limit of the gas in the earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere allowing humans to live on earth, but at higher levels leads to global warming.
The bad news is that the earth’s atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are currently at 392 ppm and are increasing by 2 ppm every year. If this trend continues, a tipping point could be reached and irreversible damage done to the planet. The good news is that the planet is still at a point where if changes are made now to significantly reduce the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions, the planet could slowly cycle some of the extra carbon in the atmosphere and get back to 350 ppm. That is the goal of 350.org.
Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org (www.350.org) and author of several books on climate change, says we cannot remain on the wrong side of 350. He organized 350.org as a global movement to bring attention to this vexing worldwide problem. This year, 350.org linked up with Moving Planet to organize Saturday’s global day of action, a movement created to continue beyond this date of unity.
It seemed to be worth it to try for a philosophically robust analysis in the space of 150 words, sent Sept. 23:
The rationale for the “Moving Planet” action rests in the fact that the biggest culprit in the global warming emergency is not a single individual, or even a single organization. Rather, the steadily increasing concentration of greenhouse gases is brought about by the industrialized civilization within which we all live.
“Top-down” political and regulatory solutions are essential to a viable resolution of the climate crisis, but they are insufficient without a widespread change in our ways of living. While our complex, vibrant informational culture has made worldwide interconnectedness a possibility, it consumes environmental resources far faster than they can be renewed.
We must transform our economy away from consumption and towards replenishment — without losing the planetary sensibility that made modern environmentalism possible. To succeed, this transformation must be both global and local, immediate and long-term — which is why Bill McKibben’s vision is so relevant and inspiring. Let’s ride.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: Barack Obama Bill McKibben timidity White House
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Month 9, Day 11: Inspiration or Expiration?
An email from Bill McKibben:
Dear friends,
I just walked out of a disappointing meeting with the White House: they refused to accept the Carter solar panel we came to Washington to deliver and said that they would continue their “deliberative process” to discuss putting solar panels back on the White House roof.
My 9/11 letter to POTUS:
Dear President Obama,
I just heard that your staff refused to accept the solar panel that Bill McKibben and his team brought back to the White House after thirty years. Apparently you are going to continue the “deliberative process,” rather than simply saying “yes” to an idea that is obviously a good one — an idea that has broad-based support all over America.
An idea that would motivate thousands of people to get moving and put solar panels on their homes.
An idea that would give a boost to American manufacturers of renewable energy technology — manufacturers who are being left in the dust by China’s advances in this area.
An idea that would demonstrate your genuine commitment to energy independence.
An idea that would help mobilize the nation around the battle against climate change.
Alas, what we get instead is a deliberative process.
A deliberative process that won’t motivate anyone. A deliberative process that does nothing for American manufacturers. A deliberative process that says nothing about energy independence or climate change.
How long will this deliberative process take? Perhaps until after the elections? I have news for you and your team: the Republicans don’t care whether or not you install solar panels; they’re insane, and they’ll pillory you over trivialities regardless.
How hard would it have been to say “yes”?
Yours Regretfully,
Warren Senders
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Month 9, Day 3: Striking While The Irony Is Hot
Since Bill McKibben is going to ask the President to put those damn solar panels up again, I figured I’d give him a little reinforcement.
Dear President Obama,
It’s been thirty years since Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President and set about undoing all the things that Jimmy Carter set in motion.
Looking back over the past three decades it is astonishing how much President Carter got right, and how much President Reagan got wrong. If we had taken energy independence seriously and devoted the necessary budgetary support to wind and solar energy, America would have stopped giving money to OPEC. Our share of worldwide carbon emissions would have dropped significantly — perhaps keeping the planetary atmosphere below the crucial 350 parts-per-million level (in which case there is increasing evidence to suggest that many of today’s climate catastrophes might never have happened).
America would be a world leader in green technology, rather than lagging behind Europe and China.
We would not have needed all those expensive wars to protect our oil supplies.
The Gulf of Mexico might not be a massive dead zone.
It appears that you’re reluctant to do anything that would excite controversy (although it should be obvious to you by now that the Republicans will gin up controversy over anything), a pusillanimity I am depressed to see in the President I donated, volunteered and voted for. But I digress. The time is now for a full bank of solar panels to be installed on the roof of the White House. Perhaps you should be out there with a hammer yourself on October 10, as part of 350.org’s International Work Party.
It would be a gracious gesture to invite President Carter to the White House roof to pound in a few nails. With the clarity of hindsight, it appears that the only thing he did wrong was to be right.
Yours Sincerely,
Warren Senders
Education environment: Bill McKibben book reviews economics Juliet Schor sustainability
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Two Good Books About The Future
We modern humans sure do love our conveniences. Most things in our lives are so convenient we’ve forgotten there ever was such a thing as inconvenience.
Look at some of the inconveniences we’ve forgotten:
Having to procure our own food from start to finish.
Having limited quantities of untrustworthy water.
Being at the mercy of the climate.
Being at the mercy of the weather.
Having no easy access to large quantities of energy.
Assuming that some of our children won’t live to adulthood.
Living in a world where death is always immanent.
These are some of the big ones. Many of the conveniences we know and love are resolutions of one or another of this list, scaled to fit circumstances. Having to replace the steam nozzle on your cappuccino-maker is a tiny inconvenience to one person (you); the collapse of a coffee crop is a major inconvenience with repercussions all the way from farmer to consumer.
In the coming years, times are going to get harder. Some of the inconveniences we’ve forgotten about are going to re-enter our lives. Weather-related mortality is going to increase (it already has). Our infrastructure is going to deteriorate (it already has). Our water supply is going to be less reliable (it already is).
Our current economy is built around convenience. Having ready credit is a convenience, as is having ready cash available at any ATM. Being able to fly anywhere in the world, is a convenience, as is having a place to stay when you get there.
You get the picture.
Education environment Politics: Bill McKibben economics Julliet Schor sustainability
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Inconvenient Futures: Two Books You Should Read
We modern humans sure do love our conveniences. Most things in our lives are so convenient we’ve forgotten there ever was such a thing as inconvenience.
Look at some of the inconveniences we’ve forgotten:
Having to procure our own food from start to finish.
Having limited quantities of untrustworthy water.
Being at the mercy of the climate.
Being at the mercy of the weather.
Having no easy access to large quantities of energy.
Assuming that some of our children won’t live to adulthood.
Living in a world where death is always immanent.
These are some of the big ones. Many of the conveniences we know and love are resolutions of one or another of this list, scaled to fit circumstances. Having to replace the steam nozzle on your cappuccino-maker is a tiny inconvenience to one person (you); the collapse of a coffee crop is a major inconvenience with repercussions all the way from farmer to consumer.
In the coming years, times are going to get harder. Some of the inconveniences we’ve forgotten about are going to re-enter our lives. Weather-related mortality is going to increase (it already has). Our infrastructure is going to deteriorate (it already has). Our water supply is going to be less reliable (it already is).
Our current economy is built around convenience. Having ready credit is a convenience, as is having ready cash available at any ATM. Being able to fly anywhere in the world, is a convenience, as is having a place to stay when you get there.
You get the picture.
Traditional cultures have social rituals and mechanisms for coping with the procurement and preparation of food, the climate and weather, the difficulty of large tasks, the death or sickness of a community member. You could make a pretty strong case that a culture’s identity and uniqueness is encoded in its response to difficulty, to hardship, to inconvenience.
And we humans crave community. We are social creatures, and our cultures provide us with meaningful ways to relate in a wide variety of contexts. We need one another most when times aren’t good.
Which is part of the reason our communality has eroded concurrently with our inconveniences. An unintended consequence of the development of a quick-satisfaction consumer culture in which anything we want is available is the gradual disappearance of the things we really want: one another. Until pretty recently most human beings were always there for one another. Now, not so much.
Which brings me to two books I’ve been reading recently.
environment: Bill McKibben fossil fuels LA Times Oil
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Month 6, Day 7: Adapt or Die — Choice We Can Believe In
The LA Times has a nice op-ed from Bill McKibben, who is, as usual, uncomfortably correct.
Bill McKibben has it right. The President has the opportunity to turn the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico into a sea-change for America and the world. The millions of gallons of oil now washing ashore on the coasts of Louisiana and Florida illuminate a stark choice: adapt or die. With smaller spills every day of the week around the world, the true costs of fossil fuels can’t be ignored. Are we going to continue basing our way of life on an incredibly dirty commodity, a substance that has profoundly negative effects on our atmosphere, and one which is going to become ever scarcer and costlier in the years to come? Or will America rise to the challenge? Now is the time for an energy economy that does not devastate ecosystems, shatter communities and pour millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We can no longer afford oil.
Warren Senders