WHEN HARRY MET HUBCAP SALLY

“Copengahen is the epitome of modern summitting; a long session, a huge cast earnestly discussing what there is no chance of agreeing, to reach compromises everyone will then ignore, promising to avoid doing what all decry and will continue to do, suspecting that it is not really damaging anyway. It is an immense, almost grotesque, sitcom, played out against the backdrop of the melancholy Danes languidly sipping Tuborg in the Tivoli Gardens and reflecting, perhaps, on Danish lore, from Hamlet to The Silver Skates, to Victor Borge, and not on the farce unfolding around them.The conference will be an utter fiasco, since there is no real evidence that carbon emissions have anything to do with global warming, which is not, in fact, occurring at all. The mad ambitions to spend trillions of dollars reducing carbon emissions will be scaled back drastically.” ( Conrad Black, National Post )

The point is to think of the Conference as local Dane, international film maker Lars Von Trier on a green theme. In 1995, von Trier’s mother revealed on her deathbed that the man who he thought was his father was not, and that she had had a tryst with her former employer, a man named Fritz Michael Hartmann, who descended from a long line of Roman Catholic classical musicians in order to give her son “artistic genes.” After four awkward meetings with his real father, the man refused further contact.The revelations led von Trier to attempt to “erase” the connections with his stepfather. This kind of split between ecology and pollution, a ying and yang of  brutal honesty that is dishonest in its “honesty”, in his films,  exemplifies the kind of rift and irreconcilable prospects in the environmental debate. As von Trier converted to Catholicism to distance himself from his stepfather we see his personal psychoses, a metaphorical schizophrenia as the mindset in the global discussion of how to act in the face of ambiguous information tendered from cunning charlatans hawking schemes of all tones of green.

Green gifts from recycled debris. An initiative to recycle the entire planet. Since, the beginning of the Copenhagen conference. we have heard the mantra loud and clear….we are at peak oil, peak water, peak food, peak minerals,  peak landfill and peak ideas. Less is more, especially with regard to peak  guilt and fear, that, among other forms of karmic justice, balls, metric ton spheres of co2 emissions are following us down, relentlessly tracking mankind. We are hunted by our carbon footprint and water footprint; humanity is now studied by its footprint. How much water to flush a toilet and brush our teeth.The first negotiating issue at Copenhagen: The $2 charge for a glass of tap water.

Snoring will be illegal since much less oxygen is used to breathe between our ears. The crisis has forced the Helena Blavatsky society to make a house call on Harry Houdini, to find some way to make the eco-problems ,disappear, at least temporarily. Have Harry do the dematerialization number. its an existential crisis alright. No fool that Sarkozy to dig up the bones of Camus. This pollution thing, its a plague. The rats are everywhere; Its carbon intensity that counts, and the intensities of the intensities. Its intense. no. its Hopenhagen!. Rhymes with cave-in.

But Lord Black, is not entirely wrong in his assessment: “The best part of this venue: Along with seminar rooms, it also includes a bowling alley, a donut-shaped swimming pool and a shooting range….Sample lectures here include: “Women’s Perspective on Nuclear Energy”; “Building a Community Radio Station: A Technical Primer”; “Conversations With the Earth”; and “Some Sustainable Thoughts,” which according to the program involves an ecological court jester named Jytte Abildstrom. Apparently, environmentalists have a sense of humour….”We have, like, 80 people here who have just gotten on a plane for the first time, left their village for the first time –we’ve got fishermen from Eritrea and peasants from Bangladesh –and they represent the real faces of climate change. I just met this one guy from Paraguay who’s never had electricity and drinks water from the same trough as his cattle.”Note to Paraguay: Import more cups. Please. ( Vanessa Farquharson, National Post )

However, one of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conferences keynote speakers has cancelled at the last moment. Tiger Woods. The environment is transgression.In employing the word “transgression” Tiger was actually referring to unspecified infidelities which are not offenses against the law of the land, but against the land itself. Somewhat more secular than the moral weight of sin, Tiger’s confabulation of the tag team of transgression and sin has wrestled the dubious activities into the personal and philosophical ring and away from questions of environmental law. Call it ecology of the 19 th hole from the comfort of Oprah’s couch.  In fact Woods is being rebranded as as an anti-capitalist of the French literary school of critical theory, which holds that the idea of transgression is universally good. That which transgresses is that which seeks to upset, or subvert rules and conventions, and rules and conventions are by definition patriarchial, hetero-normative and so on.Such as polluting.  Womanizing and philandering put men back in the arms of mother earth and away from those bad boys who flip their cigarette butts on the fairway and don”t replace their divets.

“Today “transgress” carries an echo of resist, also an always popular notion….So in so much current academic parlance, particularly in evaluations of art, transgress and subvert become shorthand for good, whereas perpetuates always means bad, in the same way that revolutionary and counterrevolutionary used to.( Russell Smith ) So, Tiger’s a rebel. Who would have thought. And he’s tight with a whole legion of Critical theorists, who have also won a Masters, from Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes and of course Guy Debord; Tiger is so…Societe de Spectacle.

The other theory is a number of Wood’s mistresses were part of a sting operation organized by powerful environmental lobby to prevent Woods from a hotel and marina development in the Bahamas. Woods project involves the cutting and dredging of a beach said to sit on the most important fresh water table on new Providence, where a majority of Bahamians reside.For a guy who drains putts for a living, whats a water table?  what a beach if not within a short iron and pitching wedge: Nassau, Bahamas (August 26, 2008) – A Bahamas Government environment agency, the BEST

mission, had concerns about the potential negative effects of the Tiger Woods Albany marina channel on Adelaide beach and the surrounding coastal and marine environment.Concerned members of the public have requested that the Bahamas Government immediately stop the dredging on the beach. Local environmental groups have sent an appeal out to Tiger Woods urging him to stop the destruction of the beach and freshwater table, however, to date Woods has not replied.

Those multi-nationals are everywhere at Copenhagen. Coca Cola etc. is the solution, one of the “good guys” in the vanguard of the grassroots environmentalism. Radicals with neckties. They are now marketing Coke as a brand that is a cure for drought. In particular in India, in response to Coca Cola’s  water management practices.Got a drought, build a bottling plant. “Voila! Problem solved, a company using 300 billion liters of water annually would have no impact on water resources. Sustainability doesn’t get any better than that. The only problem was that Coca-Cola knew that water neutrality was impossible to achieve.In a concept paper on water neutrality that Coke developed with others it clearly stated that, “In a strict sense, the term ‘water neutral’ is troublesome and even may be misleading. It is often possible to reduce a water footprint, but it is generally impossible to bring it down to zero.”…But minor details such as “misleading”, “troublesome” and “impossible” did not stop Coca-Cola from using the term liberally and widely. …Even though the Coca-Cola company announced it would not use the controversial term “water neutral” in February this year, Coca-Cola India officials have not only continued using the term, they have even one-upped the concept – water positive!”

. Marketing their brand as conceptual art in a world of less. You just think about a Coke, and all the pleasure is yours, without having to drink carbonated corn-syrup. Hey, if corn  can power a car, it can keep us hopping to the mall.  Coke is finding a way to charge people for thinking about their product. That way we have the vicarious pleasure of consumption, without the untidiness and clean-up. In fact, the battle of Afghanistan, has little to do with pipelines, and foodlines and lines to enter mosques, and lines to enter heaven and other pleasurable thereafters,  but rather, we are running ot of space to put our junk. Think of the “Stan” nations  as a warehouse rental.

Rock my plymsoul. The donations of shoes to poor countries is of epic proportions, and constitutes an industry in itself.  The Imelda Marcos complex where western society accumulates footwear that is now sent overseas. Effectively, we ship the footwear back to slave labor countries where the product was originally made. Let them traipse to an empty water well wearing all the discarded identities of Occidental pop culture. Lack of water and food, but with old Nike’s ”just do it” they’ll find a way! ”The students are taught to sort the footwear – snow boots go to American Indian reservations in South Dakota, rubber boots are destined for people scavenging garbage dumps in Haiti and slip-on water shoes are headed for the Amazon….She has resorted to bribes in some countries to ensure the shoes aren’t sold, been infected with parasites and suffered from fevers. But whatever adversity she encountered, it has been diminished by the joy she witnessed. The rubber boots in Haiti, were used to make rafts to illegally enter the United States.

Recycled Shoe sculptures are one use.T hink you have the bombest sneakers around? Next to these sneakers by junk-metal artist Gabriel Dishaw, your crazy, neon high-tops don’t even compare. Dishaw creates detailed shoe replicas out of metal and electronic scraps, using only glue and bending techniques to hold them together. So far, he’s created five shoe sculptures inspired by some of his favorite kicks, and although you probably wouldn’t want to wear them, they’re the ultimate statement shoe.Dishaw’s collection is made entirely out of recycled metal, bits of wire, staples, Intel computer chips, and even old typewriters. He even goes so far as to even make each shoe—which comes with a coordinating shoebox—a perfect size 9.5. Weighing in at anywhere from 5 to 20 pounds, these heavy-metal sneaks certainly weren’t designed for comfort, but their eco-factor is high.

“As the goings on in Copenhagen demonstrate, the international summit has been gradually diluted over the last 50 years from a history-making occasion to little more than a pompous Shriners’ Convention — no more stylish, and not as benign.The meeting of Henry VIII and the French King Francis I on The Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, like the meeting of Napoleon and Czar Alexander I on a raft on the Nemar River at Tilsit in 1807, were epochal occasions that have entered into the general knowledge of the Western world.” Yes and no. How would Napolean and the czar responded when a poor Jamaican swam up to their raft with an offer to buy dope to feed his family.” World leaders became like (always) travelling salesmen. They could be seen every few nights on television striding purposefully from elongated automobiles escorted by swarms of motorcycle outriders, and into formidable buildings, their aides puffing behind, heavy-laden with bulging briefcases. In Copenhagen, the requirement for immense limousines necessitated that they be requisitioned from Berlin and other distant places, like the taxis of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. An aerated, pre-written press release heralds the move on to the next group photoop. It is an itinerant convention of Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.” ( Conrad Black, Attila Would Be Appalled, National Post ) Stimulus money has got to be spent somewhere. Besides, imagine a Jamaican approaching Napoleon and the Tzar on a styrofoam surfboard trying to peddle them  homegrown dope to feed his wife and kids. how noble would the noble be?

Lord Black should think of the risk of death or serious health disability as a result of the environment  as an essential part of the aesthetic experience. Think of Copenhagen as part of a 1960′s art happening movement. Ben Vautier and his wife were living in a window of  London’s Gallery One in full view of passers- by. They were one of the exhibits in an exhibition called “The Misfits”, which included among other things, a reproduction of the Mona Lisa with large nails sticking out of it.Another exhibit was a  ”magic box” which Vautier tried to sell for $50. It was a small roughly made wooden box painted black and containing some objects that rattled when it was shaken. The “magic” lay in the fact that as long as the box remained unopened its contents would remain a mystery. The Copenhagen conference is the same; no-one wants to pay the price, so what will ultimately happen will remain a mystery.We don’t know if the contents of the box are science or fiction.

The branding of the environment with “Hopenhagen” is what stands out most from the Climate conference. How multinationals can appropriate a  ”cause” and drain value from the brand looking at ecology issues as a royalty in perpetuity. Develop the market demographic and feed them “diet-eco”, less filling for sure. “The city of Copenhagen likes the idea so much that they want to use it for their tourism campaign, and an event space in the town square will be called “Hopenhagen Live.” A recent press release announced that in December, the city will be changing a great deal of the city’s signage to Hopenhagen.