Originally published in Who Are We Now? Theatre Alberta Essay Series, December 2021
Three years ago, I started writing a show called Wastelands. In creating that piece, I studied the plastic waste and climate crises. I went in feeling that we were in trouble, that was the reason for writing the show, but as an artist I didn’t see what I could do. This was a job for policy-makers, scientists, and industry. My skills weren’t useful here.
Vaguely sensing we were in danger, however, is a very different experience than learning in detail that every day is a ticking timebomb of unrecoverable biodiversity loss and extreme weather events. The more research I did, the more incomprehensible the whole situation became. The science was clear. Why on earth weren’t we executing the kinds of emergency protocols warranted when the doomsday clock ticks a trifling 100 seconds to midnight.
I wrote this article on the eve of COP26. The UN has been gathering this Conference of the Parties to address climate change for over two decades. Two decades. Twenty years of international climate summits. How does time pass so quickly, so repetitively? This COP, having just concluded in Glasgow on November 12th, was anticipated to be a pivotal moment in international environmental policy. We needed decisive action, seizing the minute hand and silencing the telltale tolling of our doomsday clock. What we got was a gesture. Maybe not even that, maybe only some words. Or at worst, a few sounds. “Blah, blah, blah.” Gesture and speech. Curious that for an artist so impractical in the trades of climate action, I somehow recognize and am a craftsman of its tools.
