Showing posts with label focus of the month. Show all posts
Showing posts with label focus of the month. Show all posts

Children's Books on Climate Change

, , , 9:31 PM | 1 comments

I tried to get a ticket for the T-REX 3D showing tonight at the Scientific Center, but was told that unfortunately, the movie would only be shown in 2-D, as the 3-D mechanisms of whatnot were broken. I decided to hold back and wait to see the film later when it is back in full throttle.

As you all might already know, however, to exit the Scientific Center, one must pass through the gift shop, which aside from the tacky glass models of skyscrapers in Shanghai (?) and the strange ceramic and crystal figurine collectibles of animals, is actually quite good.

It is a great stop to find very high quality coffee table books on Kuwait, and I also found out that the store sells en.v magazine, one of the greatest publications in the Gulf. And while they also stock some amazing, creative and educational toys and experiments for the younger ones, I noticed this time around another great feature this store has to offer.

They stock several children's books on the environment, on endangered species and biodiversity and on human impact on the ecology. Seeing that this month is the build up to the Copenhagen meeting, I thought to all you primary educators out there or parents, why not dedicate some time to reading a book with you child(ren) on these topics. I strongly recommend the gift shop as a start. You could even purchase one of their stuffed animal puppets and have "it" read the story to them.

Air Conditioning through the Four Seasons

, , , , 5:33 PM | 2 comments

Here in Kuwait, we note the change in season not by the turning of colors in the leaves, but rather the phasing out of white and cream-colored dishdashas for ones of dark gray, navy blue, and all the possible shades of tree-trunk.


However, maintenance in offices, entertainment venues, shopping malls and even the airport, as I discovered today, seem to only perceive one season: the constant permafrost of the AC: rain or shine, winter or summer, be it 15 degrees Celsius outside or 50.

What is going on? Decisions on issues related to maintenance in Kuwait run slow and tend to be decentralized. For the past month, yes one month, my coworkers has been pushing hard to turn the AC off in our office.

First, finding a way to open the locked door where the thermostat is located was an adventure as no one knew who owned the key. Second, for some reason, the idea of just turning the switch OFF, cold-turkey (no pun intended) seemed to be unfathomable, an alternative that was improcessable. You'd think visualizing a world without AC was like stepping out of the Matrix or something.

Although the temperature has dropped significantly, and women are pulling out their boots and sweaters of the latest fashion, the AC is blasting full in many buildings, even though the temperature outside allows for maintaining a comfortable environment without it. No one in charge seems to get the hint by Mother Nature.

At the same time, Spain has recently put out a law limiting temperature on air conditioners and heaters in public spaces, such as cafes, bars, offices, government buildings and airports, etc. In the winter, the temperature cannot exceed 21 C, and in the summer they cannot go below 26 C. Furthermore, these places will be open to inspection to make sure that there is sufficient insulation and proper to design to prevent warm and cool air from escaping buildings. This is part of 31 measures the government will take to meet its 2011 energy efficient strategy.

In a way, its a shame that while Spaniards are taking such precautions with policies that require proactive measures by each and every citizen, these efforts are literally wasted when other rich parts of the world are blasting AC in the middle of winter. Wake up from the stupor Kuwait and take initiative. The Copenhagen Meeting is fast approaching and these kind of unnecessary phenomena are completely unpardonable. And for those of you nodding your head to this and sick and tired of freezing, if you work in a building where the AC is still on, do what my colleagues and I did and fight for them to turn it off to save energy during the wintertime.

Movie Reviews: "Manufactured Landscapes" by by Jennifer Baichwal

, , 9:47 PM | 0 comments

I had the honor of attending The Green Caravan Film Festival this past week, and one movie that I strongly recommend from the screening I saw at the event is Manufactured Landscapes, which presents us with a series of visual/industrial nightmarescapes from the bowels of China's entry into (the back end) of globalization processes.

The film takes us through a variety of scenes: an assembly plant of hyper-controled workers, to a village that disassembles imported e-waste, to displaced villagers from the Three Gorges Dam project who have been hired by the Chinese government to tear down their own villages with their own hands, to the rapid "modernization of Shanghai.

The whole movie is breathtaking, and although the photographer strives to not place judgement on that which he captures, these stark "manufactored landscapes" present us with some uncomfortable images. THis is not because the photographer attempts to lace any messages or protest in his photographs, but because the scale and dismal nature of the subjects and landscapes remind us of that thing we knew all along int he back of our minds: the rapid modernization witnessed in many parts of the world...ahem...including the Gulf...is just plain creepy at points. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the morality of globalization.


MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a feature length documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky makes large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ – quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines, dams. He photographs civilization’s materials and debris, but in a way people describe as “stunning” or “beautiful,” and so raises all kinds of questions about ethics and aesthetics without trying to easily answer them.

The film follows Burtynsky to China as he travels the country photographing the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. Sites such as the Three Gorges Dam, which is bigger by 50% than any other dam in the world and displaced over a million people, factory floors over a kilometre long, and the breathtaking scale of Shanghai’s urban renewal are subjects for his lens and our motion picture camera.

Shot in Super-16mm film, Manufactured Landscapes extends the narrative streams of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our profound impact on the planet and witness both the epicentres of industrial endeavour and the dumping grounds of its waste. What makes the photographs so powerful is his refusal in them to be didactic. We are all implicated here, they tell us: there are no easy answers. The film continues this approach of presenting complexity, without trying to reach simplistic judgements or reductive resolutions. In the process, it tries to shift our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it.

Focus of the Month

, 9:35 PM | 2 comments

Last month I tried to highlight on untangling issues of women, religion and fashion, an issue brought to my attention by President Sarkozy's comments on the burqa.


This month, I would like to take a different direction and examine the experiences of the Single, Arab, Young Male (SAYM), an overlooked and dismissed subgroup, and often only in the international eye when it relates to terrorist extremism unfortunately.

Here is Kuwait, I tend to roll my eyes at the SAMYs and find myself stereotyping on a daily basis as empty-headed consumerists (some more unfairly than others). But in between these caricatures of the Angry Young Arab and the "Funky" Young Arab, there must be more of a grain of humanity.

This is going to be a bit of a challenge for me because I am neither arab nor male, so I appreciate any feedback or suggestions on topics to be covered. I am interested in issues of marriage and relationships, gay rights, daily obstacles with "family-only" barring, men who promote equal rights and make a difference in the community, and opportunities for male youth for entrepreneurship and innovation.

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