I recently read that in the past 20 years, the time available to escape a burning house has dropped from 17 to four minutes due to the flammable materials we now surround ourselves with. It’s a fitting metaphor for the escalating climate crisis, with newspapers offering ever-bleaker prognoses of ecological collapse. And with politics offering more words than actions, it feels like we need another boost to our pro-planet efforts. Luckily this is what the discussion event Strategies on Fire: What Next for the Climate Movements, held this Friday (21.01.2022) at Hebbel am Ufer, is all about. Hosted in front of an audience in the HAU1 hall, the talk brings together a diverse panel of key activists – including solar start-up owner and journalist Annemarie Botzki and degrowth activist and economist Tonny Nowshi – to present an alternative future for climate campaigning. The questions they ask are certainly tough: are governments actively preventing climate rebellion? Are politicians fooling the public into believing that they are being listened to? In response the panellists want to counter what they see as lip service with more radical ideas, from global climate networks to creating autonomous ecological habitats.
The event is a continuation of the discussion and podcast series “Burning Features: On Ecologies of Existence” which presents radical solutions for the climate crisis. It can sometimes feel overwhelming to hear constant talk of environmental collapse, but it’s precisely this kind of lively discussion that offers a vision of lasting change, calming the apocalyptic anxiety many of us feel. If you want to catch up with previous talks in this series (topics include fossil fuels, big farms, and coexistence) you can also listen online.
Text: Rosie Gilmour / Photos: HAU Hebbel am Ufer & Pixabay
Hebbel am Ufer, Stresemannstr.29, 10963 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Strategies on Fire: What Next for the Climate Movements, 21.01.2022, 19h. In English with live German translation. Tickets can be purchased here for €5.
@hauberlin
