My experiences around COP17

President Jacob Zuma at COP17 in the emission free, homegrown electric Joule, designed by Cape Town company Optimal Energy. To industrialize this car, will cost about R9 billion. Paul Hoffman, director IFAISA said: Recover R35bn from the arms deals, invest 9 billion in EV Joule and create 10 000 green jobs. http://tinyurl.com/7l9jm2w

Other experiences: There were some "Aha!" moments, like when Dr Morne du Plessis from the WWFSA said he believed Africa could bypass coal-fuelled electricity and jump directly to wind and solar energy provided that the Green Fund is established and properly administrated.  There were also moments of frustration when I felt leaders needed to make important statements and they did not.  Also when I realised how little the public and some journalists really understand about climate change issues.  And it is all there - you just have to look it up!

My experience of the First Annual Climate Communications Day on Thursday 1 September at the Elangeni hotel in Durban:

There were very few South Africans represented.

9.15 The first plenary session:

The story is complex, not simplistic and linear and we have to express it like that.

For farmers climate change is now a real issue – not something out there and far away.

How and where is the science of climate change communicated to the media? At the moment is is insufficient and fragmented.  There need to be more structured meetings.

How should scientists communicate? They should not dumb it down, not speak "nerd language." Journalists should get into the nitty-gritty even if it is difficult to communicate the nuances.

Haili Cao, (Caixin Media, China): Know your audience – are they educated? First educate the journalists before we educate the public.

Is it urgent or non-urgent? If it comes across as non-urgent it means we reporters have not done our job.

Joydeep Gupta (IANS/Third Pole Project, India): You don’t have to tell a small holder farmer about climate change – they don’t call it that but they feel its effects.

And the average urban person – what is happening – are their houses on fire?  There are already dramatic stories. Focus on the humanitarian view of climate change.

The jargon jungle of climate change is one of the big problem issues.  Know your subject well enough to get over that.

What is the place of social movements? Should journalists link up with them? Joydeep feels we should draw the line between journalists and NGO’s.  When we start looking like activists, we lose credibility, there is a conflict of interest.  Social movements have to make the connections and transform it to a political movement.

From the audience: A local rabbi from Durban does not believe journalists should stay emotionally uninvolved. How can you be passive -if your house is on fire?

Climate change could be presented as health, gender, or fisherman stories.  People want to listen to positive adaptation stories, otherwise we might be left with Climate Change Fatigue syndrome.

Question from Lagos: Should we not keep our eyes on the big picture?  People want to know what decision makers are doing – there should be a balance in what we communicate.  We have to report on the hard stuff too, not only the small stories, not always in an entertaining, relaxed mood.  Our governments keep stalling and postponing, we have to wake them up.

Andy Mason from Oneworld: Today is World Aids Day.  Denialism was also an issue in SA with Aids.  Metaphors, symbols etc. were crude and lacking in sophistication.  Climate Change communication is also crude at the moment.

What about denialists? Some editors feel there should be a "balanced" view in their articles. Things have changed in the last 9 years. Now, 97% of scientists believe in human induced climate change.  Should we also entertain the flat earth- view to be seen as "balanced"?

Second Plenary session 11.15am:

Kelly Rigg ( Global Campaign for Climate Action/TckTckTck): Who do politicians listen to? Expand the number of people who talk about climate change – we have to move beyond the converted.

The fossil fuel industry pays for denialists. They are very smart about how they do it – 450 links to every story, so their stories rise up in the search engine.  They give politicians the cover not to do the right thing.

We can’t fund like fossil fuel, but we have the majority of people on our side. Get info out to union leaders and organizations and influencers.  That will also change the media discourse. (Agenda setting)

Educator from the audience: The way in which we will drop the bomb is by NOT involving children and communicate to them.  Today they live in our world, tomorrow we will live in theirs.

Indi Mclymont-Lafayette (Panos Caribbean, Jamaica) Music that captures the messages work very well in  Caribbean.

Slacktivism – social media like facebook an twitter – just click on a link then you do not have to do much else?

Kelly Rigg: By having people follow you on twitter, who are not really converted in temrs of climate change, could open up their minds (Leonardo de Caprio follows TckTckTck and now many of his fans follow them as well).  Social Media networks spread the message but is not the real replacement for activism. (Chris Librie from Hewlett Packard says without IT there would be no social media.)

From the audience a journalist from Malawi: Terminology is one of the biggest barriers to climate change communications in African languages.

Journalists complain of problems with editors - they often ask, "so where is the story?" It is not riveting enough. Indi responds: Journalists should form strategi alliences to address editor problems

Taiwan University professor from audience:  – How do we train students to become independent reporters? She is also from Peoples News Platform. Wambi Michael (Uganda Radio Network, Uganda) responds: University students of environmental disciplines should go and work at radio stations etc to see how to communicate information. There should be more on-sight training of journalists. In Uganda people have been told to plant trees, so they planted Eucaliptes. Now they are facing water shortages.

Chris Librie from Hewlett Packard reminds us that IT is only responsible for 2% of the world's CO2.

13.45 First Breakout session.  We could go to one of the following sessions: "Communicating climate change with Games",  "Climate Movies" or "What's God got to do with it?" I chose the movies.

We watched 6 trailers, then the panel discussed them.

An Inconvenient Truth:

The movie made 50 million dollars, 6th highest of all documentaries.  It made complicated issues clear, had powerful visuals and solutions.

Comment from audience: The movie was shown in small villages in my country, Sierra Leone and translated.  It worked well, even children recognized the signs like water shortages.

Jacqueline Frank (Regional Project Coodinator, Media Capacity Building of Africa Adaptation Programme): Ask yourself, what is your goal an who is your audience? What do you want them to take away? Fear and concern, just realizing that there is a problem? People now want to see solution, not fear-mongering movies.

The Day after Tomorrow:

It made 540 million.  Is it good or bad for us that so many people saw it? There is a similarity with holocaust films. But it could be an entry point. It could be useful supplemented by other information. It tells people, "Nothing, not even the American army can save the day if it is too late."  We need the media to make the link between this movie and climate change on behalf of the people.

Other trailers: Everything's Cool, Sizzle,The 11th Hour, The Age of Stupid, Fahrenheit, Addicted to Oil.

I was disappointed that The Fourth Revolution was not discussed as it is mostly a documentary of positive solutions
.

Albert Einstein: Those who have the privilege to know have the duty to act.

14.40: Second Breakout Session:

Choices: "The Dragon's Breath: From the front lines of climate change to the front page", "Climate Change Skeptics in the Global South?" and "Connecting IT and Climate Communications".  I chose the first topic.

Three researchers form the IDRC-DFID Climate Change Adaptation in Africa programme attempt to convince three "dragons" (media editors) that their stories are worth covering. The editors (Joydeep Gupta,
Tim Williams and Laurie Goering then show what the media really want in terms of news, stories and human interest.  For those pitching their stories, ingenuity and inspriation will be critical.  The researchers were: Dr Hussein Elmzouri, National Institute of Agricultural Research Morocco on facing water scarcity in Morocco’s plains and mountains, Dr Maria Onyango on harnessing indigenous climate forecasting knowledge and Dr Paul Mapfumo of University of Zimbabwe on protecting soil to increase smallholder resilience. These scientists had 3 minutes to pitch their stories to the editors.

Story one:

Editors: What is the story? I need a conflict - it works in Hollywood, it works in the newspapers.  Is this relevant for the UK? Do you think this is good news?

Story two: Harnessing indigenous climate forecasting knowledge – Dr  Maria Onyango senior lecturer Bundo University Kenia.

Rural community knowledge base 90% of their planting skills on indigenous knowledge.  Local predictors got together with modern scientists and they bonded.  There were a  lot of similar perceptions between the two groups.  Their communications improved livelihoods, because local communicators could communicate better with the people. They helped to translate information into the local language and also got the government involved.

Editors: Medium is very important  – are you looking at radio or print? Did you use TV cameras, audio recorders, notes, photos, videos? Who long did this take?

Forecastings are usually just before planting. Integrating knowledge is very valuable, it is better accepted by community rather than outsiders who are coming to intrude.

Editors: We want more evidence - what was the hard evidence?

Story three:  Protecting soil to increase smallholder resilience. Prof Paul Mamfumo Univ Zimbabwe.

We worked with local leadership and with seed people. We term them the learning centres, we put knowledge in their hands.  Only after working together, we could see changes.  They put their knowledge into our minds, we put our knowledge into their hands. Soil is a good entry point for climate change.

Editors: Good start, but where is the middle and end of the story?

Eg Start: Lack of food self-sufficiency. Middle: Bring together and exchange ideas. End: Enable community to generate good food income.

How many people benefited? It is not in context – how big is the problem?

Dr Mapfumo: The mealies used to be thesize of my pen.

Editors: – good image, people could understand it well.  The story should be macro, then a little bit micro to put it into context and then get to the closing point. There is a big difference from how scientists, social media and mass media see events.

UCT Climate Change talks organized by the Department of Film and Media Theory 30 November 2011

Vivienne Walsh: Residential and commercial consumption of energy is second  only to that of transport.  High income groups are highest in energy consumption, although they are the smallest group. My thoughts on this: Well, then we need the electric Joule, affordable to those higher income groups who are highest in energy consumption - since transport is the biggest culprit.  Surely they will mention this...

Energy Security main goal.

Criteria1:

Resilient city , poverty alleviation, economic development, low carbon.

Criteria2:

Energy efficiency: 10% energy consumption reduction target by 2012

Renewable energy projects – 10% RE contribution by 2020

Water from mountain- harness energy.

Retrofits by city council.

Sustainable transport: Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT)

Climate Adaptation Plan of Action.

Sea level rise analysis

Coastal protection zone.

Building resilience in low-income communities: ceilings, solar water heaters, access to climate finance, develop green economy – strategic partnerships.

Education and awareness, resource efficiency and sustainability campaigns

Discussion: do you let media get involved? Media releases.  Community papers highest info source for CT

Methodology of carbon footprint calculation NB – not always best practice used. 

Energy Resource Management Department: Climate Adaptation plan of action.

Hilton Trollip- Optimal Energy Future (Renewables) – Energy and climate change unit of Environmental Resoucre Management Department

We rely on journalists to get the numbers out.  Audience profiling: how do you assess the numbers?

This (UCT) Audience : A third did 12^th year maths.  What about people who know less than you?

Scientists and journalists should spend more time together to make climate change understandable.

1% of scientists with huge amounts of money behind them try to claim that climate change is not important.

CT 6,4 tons per capit.  We can flatten out carbon emissions with no extra cost.

Inefficient economy, fewer jobs, vulnerability to carbon constraint, susceptible to oil price rise – end of cheap oil.

Internationsl energy agency: middle scenario fuel prices could quadruple

Can we meet by science required national target by 2030?  If electricity efficiency, transport efficiency and renewable electricity supply.  People are uneducated because a lot of money is spent on advertising business as usual.

CT Adaptation measures:

Water.

Retrofit existing stormwater

Insulating houses – ceilings retrofit

Sea level rise and CPZ. Revised floodlins under climate cange scenarios.

Sustainable urban drainage system (DUDS)

25 year bulk water planning horizon incl climate projections.

Ecosytems mapping and quantifying services – look at green infrastructure

Monitor air quality – research

Ground water monitoring

Rainfall monitoring (change in patterns)

Map all sector’s vulnerability – spatial

Risk reduction programme

Have to take skeptics and activists to go together in greening Cape Town. Cannot go too fast, take everyone with.  The activists have their voices in the social media.  Community newspapers are most useful in climate change info.

Michelle Preen:

Head : Environmental Capacity Building, training and education.

Climate Smart Cape Town Campaign 30 partners.

Won best stand – Climate Smart Cape Town. Pavillion is off the grid – powered by solar and wind, rainwater collections.

I found it interesting that no mention was made of Cape Town's emission free car, the Joule. Perhaps because they could not sponsor the Cape Town Climate Smart programme?  Pity - the foreigners attending this conference would have found it fascinating.  Fortunately SA's smart people got it together and just before the end of COP17, SA's president Zuma learnt about the Jewel in his country and so did Pravin Gordhan (Cheryl Carrolus ordered him to have a ride in the Joule) as well as Science and Technology minister Naledi Pandor.  No thanks to Climate Smart Cape Town.

So these were my highs and lows of COP17 SA2011.

Adaptation as a function of Evolution

Adaptation as a Function of Evolution

Evolutionary Theories of the Arts and some threads unraveled from The Orchid Thief
(Susan Orlean) and Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman)

Copyright Rouxnette Meiring

2 November 2011

Evolutionary theories of the arts

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”  Charles Darwin.

Can the integrated explanatory framework of evolutionary anthropology, biology and psychology offer insights that we can apply to literature and film?  I want to argue that it can.  I will use remarks and findings by sociobiologists and leading theorists in the new movement of the Evolutionary Theory of the Arts to substantiate the claim.  I will also consider aspects of the adaptation process in the film Adaptation by screen writer Charlie Kaufman from the non-fiction account The Orchard Thief by Susan Orlean, in order to further explicate the claim.  Let us first look at what the theorists have to say:
Edward Osborne Wilson, the father of sociobiology, published a book in 1998 called Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge in which he reviews methods to unite the sciences with the humanities and pleads for more attention to interdisciplinary research and he believes that "although art is not part of human nature, appreciation of art definitely is. "  Evolutionary theorists of the arts seem to agree with him.  Brian Boyd wrote a book in 2009, called On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition and Fiction where he proposes art and storytelling as adaptations and he explains the evolved cognitive mechanisms underpinning fiction. (Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall, 2010: 547)  Joseph Carroll's book Evolution and Literary Theory integrates traditional humanist theory with evolutionary psychology, which in turn opposes poststructuralist theory.  His Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature and Literature is a collection of essays that takes in new developments in this field.  Jonathan Gottschall's 2008 book Literature, Science and a New Humanities, also draws attention to the importance of interdisciplinary study.  In a book edited by Boyd, Carroll and Gottschall, they explain their views as evolutionary theorists of the Arts as follows:

“We believe that works of art are shaped by our evolved human nature, by culture and by individual experience.  Adopting an evolutionary perspective enables us to build theories of literature and film not from near the end of the story but from the start, from the ground up.  By building in this way, we can ask altogether new questions and return to older questions with sharper eyes and surer hands.” (2010:3)

What exactly is adaptation from an evolutionary biological point of view?

Theodosius Dobzhansky, prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist attempted the following definition of “adaptation” as scientists still understand it today:

“Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats.” (Dobzhansky, 1968:1-34)

What about filmic adaptation? Filmic adaptation consists of the reading of a book and the writing of a film script.  So how could we link what the evolutionary biologist have said about adaptation, to what has been said by the evolutionary theorists of the art?  Robert Stam, referring to the film, Adaptation, remarks in his Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation (Stam & Raengo 2005) “The film brings out the Darwinian overtones of the word ‘adaptation’, evoking adaptation as a means of evolution and survival.”  The biological definition of adaptation could be compared to adaptation as an art form in two ways:  Firstly, the habitat/habitats of the world of art are the society/societies of the time with its habits and fashions and socio-economic and political views.  The evolutionary process whereby the organism (the novel or film) is able to survive the passage of time depends on its universality, timelessness or ability to adapt in order to stay relevant.  Secondly, the evolutionist believes that fiction/art is part of humanity because it was selected as something that enhanced survival (in other words it is an adaptation) or it was a by-product of “something else” that was an adaptation.  In his chapter, Darwin and the Directors, Murray Smith believes this “something else” is our capacity to imagine.

“One thing that sets us apart from other species is our ability to simulate, in our minds, circumstances which we might encounter, or indeed which we have encountered in the past.  And in doing so, we are able to rehearse how things might go in circumstances we have not actually experienced.  The imagination, in other words, enhances our foresight and supercharges our ability to plan; and it is not hard to see how this improves our fitness in the environment of human action.”  (Smith in Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:259)

At this point, it is perhaps appropriate to also look at definitions of the term “evolution”, since evolution and adaptation are key words in this essay.  It is interesting that in Darwin’s glossary at the end of The Origin of Species, the word “evolution” does not even appear.  Professor Manfred Laubichler and professor Jane Maienschein, wrote in an article, Embryos, Cells, Genes and Organisms: Reflections on the History of Evolutionary Developmental Biology”:”The notion of evolution originally referred to the unfolding of a preformed structure within the developing embryo and only later acquired its current meaning as the transformation of species through time.” (Sansom & Brandon (eds) 2007:chapter 1)  A more recent explanation comes from one of the most respected evolutionary biologists, Douglas J. Futuyama, defining biological evolution in Evolutionary Biology, (Sinauer Associates 1986 ) as follows:

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. “

Evolutionary theory is extremely relevant to literature, art and film, when one poses the question: Why would emotions have been naturally selected as one of the human traits to help us survive as a species?  Murray Smith again seems to have the answer.  He believes emotions motivate us firstly to act decisively in the world and not just drift among equally weighted options.  Secondly it provides us with quick and intense responses to our changing environment – something reason alone cannot always provide. (Smith 2003)  Film, more than any other art form, depends on the interplay of emotions as expressed in the human face, voice, posture and gesture.  Many of its sub-genres are even named after emotions (weepers, thrillers, tear-jerkers, horror-movies).  Smith also argues that this dependency accounts for the foundational significance of facial expression in films where the characters have lost the ability of facial expression. (The English Patient, Les Yeux sans Visage)  Sight is our dominant sense for good evolutionary reasons. Andrew Parker, research fellow at Oxford’s Department of Zoology claims in his book In the blink of an eye: the cause of the most dramatic event in the history of life that the “Cambrian explosion” happened because life-forms had their eyes opened literally for the first time during that period and suddenly there was enormous pressure to evolve. (Parker,2003)  It is fascinating to learn that some cells in the brain fire only when eyes stare straight at the human being! This effect is amplified emotionally through the amygdale, which is the brain’s emotional router. It has always been crucial to human survival to recognize another person as a distinct individual and to read his emotions and intentions. (Joseph Anderson, Character in Citizen Kane, 1996, from Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall, 2010.)  But are facial expressions universal or do they depend on culture? Paul Ekman is a contemporary evolutionary scientist of facial expression and he believes that a range of basic emotional expressions are instantly recognized cross-culturally.  These emotions are happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, fear and surprise.  These basic facial expressions play an important role to orientate the audience towards a scene in a film.  Expressions associated with higher emotions like love, admit more cultural variation.  Ekman mentions culture-specific display rules which govern certain emotions and determine who can express their emotions and when.  (Ekman,1982)

It is perhaps necessary here to mention the fact that sensitivity to emotional signals is absent in certain psychological conditions, like Asperger’s syndrome where the cognitive ability of people with Asperger’s allow them to articulate social norms in a laboratory context and show a theoretical understanding of people’s emotions but they have difficulty acting on this knowledge in real-life situations.  The wonderful novel by Mark Haddon, (winner of the Whitbread book of the year) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time sheds tender light on this condition.  It might be an interesting topic for research in evolutionary film theory.  Film therapy could perhaps be developed as cognitive behavioral therapy for people with Asperger’s.

David Bordwell believes affinities and curiosities about other humans as well as the bonding effects of watching a film with others, are only some of the things that need to be investigated through systematic study of the cinematic experience and the range of emotional effects it could have. If we look at culture as an elaboration of evolutionary processes, there should be no gulf between “biology” and “society”.  The effects of film stem from their impact on our sensory systems, which prompts us to detect movement, shape, colour and sounds all of which is a transcultural capacity.  He says:

“And because affective states and counterfactual speculation are of adaptive advantage, it is likely that an artistic medium that permits emotional and imaginative expression would have appeal across cultural boundaries.” (Bordwell 2008 in Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:283)

In his essay, Art and Evolution: The Avant-Garde as Test Case (Boyd 2008) Brian Boyd defines art as being “cognitive play with pattern”.  In most of the animal kingdom, “play” takes up a large amount of the animal’s time and plays an important part in the process of learning to adapt to real life.  It is also known that the amount of play in a species correlates with its flexibility of behavior.   Boyd quotes biologist Stephen Jay Gould who said “The human mind delights in finding pattern.”  Art is the opposite of lack of pattern.  Strong emotional reactions are elicited by our perception of pattern or the deviation from it. 
To summarize:  Boyd (2010:436) sees art as an evolutionary adaptation and offers seven distinct biological benefits of art, which do indeed offer insights that we could apply to literature and film:

1.      Art improves our production and processing of pattern especially in the key areas of sight, sound and sociality – it can reconfigure minds since the emotional intensity (engaging attention and stirring response) helps consolidate memory.

2.      Those with talents in arts, earn the attention of others which correlates with status and thus reproductive and survival success.

3.      It intensifies the advantages of shared attention and shared purpose.

4.      It strengthens group allegiance and tribal identification.

5.      The stimulus of art offers relaxation in a stressful society.

6.      It generates confidence that we can transform the world to suit our preferences.

7.      It supplies skills and models we can refine and recombine to ensure ongoing cumulative creativity.
In the next section, I will look at interesting comparisons between adaptation in evolutionary biology and in film.

The Orchid Thief (Susan Orlean) and Adaptation (Charlie Kaufman): unraveling some threads

The Orchid Thief is a book of creative non-fiction in which the New Yorker writer Susan Orlean tells the story of John Laroche, the “orchid thief” and three Seminole Indian men who were caught in 1994, leaving a wild swamp in the Fakahatchee Strand Reserve in the Florida Everglades, with bags full of Ghost orchids (Polyrrhizalindenii).  Orlean found the story interesting and went to Florida to find out more.  She reports on the court case, but also on the history of orchid collecting and the eccentric world of orchid collectors with their subcultures and smugglers.  She delights her readers with interesting facts about orchids – for example that it takes seven years from seed to bloom, there are over 100 000 named varieties and hybrids and orchids live so long they are made provisions for in wills.  Laroche becomes a friend and also her character study of human passion for collecting and acquiring. The book becomes an obsession with obsession.  Laroche tells Susan that orchids are considered the most highly evolved flowering plants on earth. (Orlean 1999:49). It also becomes clear that orchids are extremely adaptable, which is part of their ability to survive. Images from the book suggests the similarities between orchids and art adaptation: “Its essential character can be repeatedly re-imagined”  and “Florida is a warm, tropical place…infinitely transformable.  It is as suggestible as someone under hypnosis.”(1999:51) These images suggest creativity, fertility and change.  We also learn of the orchid as a hybrid form, and of mutations and cross-fertilization and that only complex plants rely on cross-fertilization.  On p 53 Laroche says, “Charles Darwin believed that living things produced by cross-fertilization always prevail over self-pollinated ones in the contest for existence because their offspring have new genetic mixtures and they then will have the evolutionary chance to adapt as the world around them changes.”

Stam believes film adaptations are also hybrid forms like the orchid and a meeting place of different species/genres.  He asks in his Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation (2005:3) “If mutation is the means by which the evolutionary process advances, then we can also see filmic adaptation as mutations that help their source novel to survive.”  Other images from the book that could be compared to film adaptation, or the view that prevails in some literary circles of film adaptation, is the parasite metaphor – the adapter becomes the giant orchid flower, sucking the life out of its host.  Adaptation, the film, is a 2002 American comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze, written by Charlie Kaufman and based on Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief. The film had been in development from 1994.  Columbia Pictures asked Kaufman to write the film script, but he went through writer’s block as he realized that there is no narrative to the book.  He then decided to write a script about his experience of adapting The Orchid Thief into a screenplay. He creates main characters that are not in the book, himself amongst others and a twin brother who writes formulaic, commercial scripts but is very successful doing just that.  Another new character in the film is script guru Robert McKee who is the author of the famous Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting.

One struggles to find anything in the plot of this film script resembling Susan Orlean’s book.  But when Orlean was asked whether she thought the film was a faithful adaptation of her book, she said that ironically it was an extremely faithful adaptation of what the essence of the book was for her and that in spirit, it was faithful. (“Its essential character can be repeatedly re-imagined”) She saw her book as a character in the movie, as the protagonist, and felt that it was far more respectful and attentive to her work than she would have expected. http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aaadaptationintc.htm

In terms of adaptation as enhancing quality, Orlean said in a Texas Book Festival audience interview in 2008: “Charlie [Kaufman] unearthed themes that were not explicit in the book.  There were qualities of the book that emerged through the film that I did not have a grip on myself.” (Heller: 2008)  In his discussion of the film, Adaptation, Robert Stam notices that Charlie even struggles to “adapt” to everyday life – he cannot even survive, much less evolve.  Stam also finds it apt that the film is set in Hollywood, the cut-throat city where it is a matter of survival of the fittest. (2005:3)  The film starts with two of Robert McKee’s big no-no’s.  “God help you if you use voice-over” and “never call attention to yourself.”  We hear the voice of Charlie the scriptwriter in a neurotic monologue about his own short-comings and eccentricities.  He ends it with the observation that it is so depressing that his psychological problems are probably all due to some “chemical misbalance” or “misfiring neurons” in his brain.

The film is full of evolution and adaptation images – many more than in Orlean’s book (“There were qualities of the book that emerged through the film that I did not have a grip on myself.”) (Heller: 2008)  An evolution fantasy sequence, created by Digital Domaine starts with events “four billion and forty years ago” and ends with the birth of Charlie – in the city of ”adapt or die” – Hollywood.  Laroche listens to a recording of Darwin’s book The Origin of Species while he drives his truck to the Fakahatchee to collect orchids.  Throughout the film he has a lot to say about adaptation and evolution.  According to him adaptation is “to figure out how to thrive in the world.”  References to evolution and adaptation are also uttered by scriptwriter Charlie. He says adaptation is “the journey we all take… trapped in our own bodies.”  After the Robert McKee course on script writing, he confesses that McKee’s words shocked him. He echoes the meaning of adaptation in biological terms when he says, “It was about my choices as a human being”.  The character Robert McKee advises him “The characters must change and the change must come from them.”  But then, according to the Susan Orlean character in the film, “change is not a choice… it happens.”  Remember that Douglas Futuyama said in his definition, "In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change.”  Laroche, as if responding to Orlean’s “change is not a choice, it happens” idea, tells her later in the film, “The drug helps people to become fascinated,”  which is the one change she would like to see happening in herself.

The word “orchid” comes from the Greek word “orchis” which means testicle.  It is ironic that Charlie is not only going through a “sterile” phase as adaptation script writer, he is also sterile in his relationships with women.  He masturbates constantly and fantasizes about sex with every woman he meets, but his “real-life” relationship is at a dead-end because of the choices he makes.  Remember, Brian Boyd defined art as being “cognitive play with pattern” and biologist Stephen Jay Gould said “The human mind delights in finding pattern.”  The idea of pattern and finding patterns to make sense of an otherwise overwhelming world is also a key idea in the film.  Orlean says in the film, “There are too many directions to go in, too many choices.  Obsession limits it to something digestible.”  In the dream-sequence Charlie imagines her talking to him and telling him, “Focus on one thing in the story that you feel passionate about and write about that.”  We recall Murray Smith’s remark that emotions motivate us firstly to act decisively in the world and not just drift among equally weighted options.  Charlie has Orlean confessing, “I want to feel what it feels like to care passionately about something.”

The suggestive metaphor of pollination and cross-pollination as well as mutation is also beautifully illustrated in the film with close-ups of butterflies and orchids. It is often also cross-pollination and mutations that helps a source novel to survive and to adapt to changing environments and tastes as well as to a new medium. Stam reminds us that film is a form of writing that borrows from other forms or writing:  “Do not adaptations ‘adapt to’ changing environments and changing tastes as well as to a new medium, with distinct industrial demands, commercial pressures, censors’ taboos and aesthetic norms? And are adaptations not a hybrid form like the orchid, the meeting place of different ‘species?’” (2005:3)  Ironically, Charlie does not allow himself to be cross-pollinated at the start of the film.  He fears the Hollywood block buster story and the Robert Mc Kee “recipes”.  He does not want to share his work with his brother Donald, although Donald constantly talks about his work to everyone who wants to listen and he is always enthralled with other people’s ideas.  And then we find out that against all odds, Donald has written a successful script.  Charlie tells his agent and the producer, that he does not want to tarnish the film with car chases, drugs, sex and murders as the typical Hollywood film does.  In the end that is exactly what he does – the one piece of advice that he takes from McKee - to “wow them in the end” and he forces his characters to go through a catharsis, another one of McKee’s requirements.  The other McKee “principles” he ignores – don’t use voice-over, never call attention to yourself and you cannot have a protagonist without desire.  Eventually he writes a digressive, non-linear plot with fake catharses in the end. 

The final scenes in the film echo the pursuit of the orchid hunters in the olden days – running through swamps, escaping murderers, being eaten by crocodiles… Susan Orlean’s last words in the film have definite evolutionary connotations: “I want to be a baby again, I want to be new…”  And then we have the last shot: The fast-forward of growing and dying flowers in the foreground and the Hollywood traffic and fast lane cut-throat life in the background. It gives us a time-frame.  Life is short and life is very long – the life of a flower lasts for a couple of days, that of a human being some decades and of the evolution of a species, a couple of eons.

I want to conclude that the integrated explanatory framework of evolutionary anthropology, biology and psychology can in fact offer many insights that we can apply to literature and film.  And we will always be looking for more insights, because as Brett Cooke wrote in his 2002 essay, Human Nature, Utopia and Dystopia (Boyd, Carroll & Gottschall 2010:381): “We will always be driven to discover what it is to be human, to be ‘us’.”

Bibliography

Boyd B, Carroll J & Gottschall J. (eds.) Evolution, Literature & Film 2010, Columbia University Press, New York

Darwin, Charles The Origin of Species 1929, Watts&CO Fleet Street London.

Dobzhansky, T.; Hecht M.K.; Steere, W.C. 1968, On some fundamental concepts of evolutionary biology, Evolutionary biology volume 2 (1st ed.).  New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. pp.1–34.

Ekman, Paul, (ed) Emotion in the Human Face 1982 2^nd ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Haddon, Mark, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time 2003, David Fickling Books, London.

Heller, A. Texas book festival interview with Susan Orlean 2008, Youtube video, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUwrIeEB9-Y

Mascie-Taylor, CGN &Rosetta L (eds.) Reproduction and Adaptation 2011 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Murray R & Topel F Interview with Susan Orlean and producer Edward Saxon about Adaptation and The Orchid Thief  http://movies.about.com/library/weekly/aaadaptationintc.htm

Orlean, Susan, The Orchid Thief 1999 “Vintage” Random House London.

Parker, A. In the blink of an eye: the cause of the most dramatic event in the history of life 2003 Simon & Schuster UK Ltd London.

Sansom R & Brandon R.N. Integrating Evolution and Development 2007, MIT Press, Cambridge.

Stam, R & Raengo A. (eds) Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford.

Wilson, EO, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge 1998, Afred A. Knopf Inc. New York.

Filmography

Adaptation. Dir. Spike Jonze Columbia Pictures, 2002.

My visit to Abalimi Bezekhaya

Books to read, films to see, blogs to connect to and projects to visit

The Fourth Revolution is a revolutionary new book by Jeremie Averous (2011 ISBN 978-967-10358-0-1) see www.jeremieaverous.com.

He reminds us that the underlying catalist for revolutions is always related to a dramatic change in human interpersonal communication and information management capabilities. (Averous 2011, 35)

We have lived through the Hunter-Gatherer Age, the Agricultural Age, the Industrial Age and now we are in the Collaborative Age. His concept is that we have also lived through revolutions of cognitive capabilities.  The previous ones were speech, (around 100 000 years ago which led into the nomadic Hunter-Gatherer age) writing (around 10 000 years ago, which led into the Agricultural Age) and broadcasting (around 1500AD with the invention of mobile font printing which led into the Industrial Age). Today, ICT's have given us capabilities that we never had before - long distance communication that allows long distance collaboration.  This he calls the Fourth Revolution.

The other Fourth Revolution that I see as the one that will take place in Africa, is the Green Energy Revolution.

The Fourth Revolution: Energy also known as Die 4. Revolution - Energy Autonomy is a German documentary film  by Carl-A. Fechner released in 2010. It is a vision of a global society living in a world where energy is produced 100% with renewable energies.  This will result in a complete reconstruction of the economy. In this film they see the three previous revolutions as the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions and the fourth one as the energy revolution.  I believe the fourth one is the Green Energy as well as the cognitive, ICT Revolution. The production of the film lasted four years and was financed by volunteers. The film was made in 10 different countries to show existing pioneer projects in different cultures. The film was released in Germany in March 2010 and in the USA in March 2011. Hermann Oelsner, CEO of the Darling windfarm has recently obtained the rights to screen the film in public places in South Africa. The documentary features celebrities, top managers, African Mothers, bankers and activists around the world.  Hermann Scheer, chairman of the World Renewable Energy Forum and winner of the Alternative Nobel  Prize said, "A new system of energy autonomy is just about to break through.  It will make energy independent.  The world is facing the greatest structural changes in the economy since the beginning of the industrial age." 

As I watched this documentary showing valleys covered in wind energy turbines and solar panels and as I listen to the heart-warming stories of African scientists and engineers returning home to change their worlds, I knew that something huge is happening in the evolution of mankind and it is happening first in Africa - again. Adaptation is the key world when we talk about evolution, revolution and survival.  In Africa, where many people are without the huge infrastructures of an Eskom, solar energy makes most sense.  Europe with all its luxuries and dependencies will struggle for some time to come to adapt to clean energy, but Africa is ready and waiting.  In many rural settlements where people never had the experience of electricity, solar panels now adorn school and hospital roofs.  The first electricity ever, is from high technology solar panels.  Why would they ever go back to coal-fired electricity?

The first fully electric car developed and built in Africa by Cape Town based company, Optimal Energy, is an excellent example of what the continent could do for itself. I believe out of necessity, Africa will become the pioneering continent for green technology. Do yourselves a favour and try to see the film, The Fourth Revolution - the positive answer to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

In 1999, a book called High Tech High Touch - technology and our search for meaning by John Naisbitt (Random House ISBN 0-7679-0541-5) appeared on the shelves. The book inspired me to always try and find a balance between technology and nature, especially with my young children who are growing up in the age of computers and cell phones.  In Africa with its rich indigenous wisdom and knowledge of the earth, the perfect balance could be found between the ICT platform and the earth.  My pilot research project titled, Back to Earth via Mobile phones: The role of mobile phones to support adaptation to climate change in Africa (Meiring October 2011) I explore this idea.

Abalimi Bezekhaya, the home farmers,  www.abalimi.org.za is another wonderful initiative in Cape Town. I first became aware of Abalimi Bezekhaya and its micro-farmers, in a Mail and Guardian article of 9 September 2011.  Kwanele Sosibo’s report was produced in partnership with The Southern Africa Trust.  In the article, she interviews founder Rob Small, who considers Cape Town’s more than 3000 micro-farmers climate change mitigation experts even if they had never heard of climate change.  He said: 

“Cape Town is South Africa's climate change training ground as the weather here has always been extreme. We have 40°C drought with hot gale-force winds in summer, floods in winter and gale-force southeaster winds in-between. On top of this, our micro-farmers successfully grow abundant top-quality organic crops year round in soil that is beach sand. Everything begins and ends with what we eat. When you buy food, you buy the entire chain of events.  Buying local and organic helps to mitigate the impact of climate change " (mg.co.za/article/2011-09-09-women-at-the-mercy-of-climate-change)

Abalimi operates in the socio-economically neglected townships of Khayelitsha, Nyanga and the surrounding areas on the Cape Flats near Cape Town.  Abalimi means the planters” en Xhosa and Bezekhaya “of the home”.  I arrived at one of the community gardens in Gugulethu on Tuesday 11 October 2011.  The women running the community garden were all over 60 years of age.  They seem to love being in the gardens instead of sitting at home thinking of their aches and pains.  Here they are nurturing seedlings, weeding, composting and they have each other to talk to.  I am surprised at the sandy soil.  They tell me that you just use old newspapers, cardboard, grass, a little bit of compost and then plant their seedlings.  The Harvest for Hope programme now helps these community farmers to sell their produce to larger markets.  We visit the packing shed in Phillipi where box after box of fresh organic produce is packed and delivered at different venues around Cape Town.  They have 200 orders a week and many customers on a waiting list. They dream of having 600 boxes by 2012, but for that more farmers will have to be trained up.  Visit this wonderful initiative by contacting them at info@abalimi.org.za

Mobile phones are becoming the planet’s first common and equalizing communications platform with far-reaching consequences for all global issues. My research study will focus on one of them – climate change.

Developing countries are often at the bottom of the food chain where the latest technology or revolutionary new ideas are concerned - we are too busy surviving.  There is a long wait for technology and new ideas to trickle down to where the developing world can afford them and often by that time it is old hat in the first world.  New technologies are sometimes lost in translation – unsuitable, too Eurocentric to absorb and insensitive to rich, traditional wisdom and knowledge. 

But perhaps these things are about to change.  In Kenya, in April 2010, Amos Gichamba launched his own cell phone application that made the lives of struggling rural dairy farmers a lot easier.  Gichamba created a text message-based system where farmers could send questions to a computer.  The queries are then matched up with a database of information about local dairy markets.  Answers are spit back in 140 characters or less.  (http://edition.cnn.com/2010 /TECH/04/12/africa.apps/index.html (Accessed: 19 October 2012.)

Do yourselves a favour and look at his blog: http://www.amosgichamba.wordpress.com On 30 July 2010, Gichamba wrote in his blog, “In the near future, Africa is going to set up the pace of using mobile technology to transform social, political and economic growth of a country.  Most of these applications are being done by ambitious young people who are passionate about changing Africa using mobile technology. “  But he is not a lone voice.  Jessica Colaco, 28 –year-old mobile developer, who is also a researcher at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya  and who started a “boot camp” for young people who want to become app developers, said in a CNN interview last year, that Africa is taking the lead in developing apps that can be used in rural places and can improve livelihoods.  Colaco’s first mobile app was a smartphone map of Nairobi, which came out in 2007, even before Google had published detailed maps of the area.  Since she lived there, she knew that I was needed and how it needed to be done.  She says, “What we need is more evangelism.  People need to know what Africa is doing – and how they can adopt from us.”  http://edition.cnn.com/2010 /TECH/04/12/africa.apps/index.html

Also hailing from Kenya, is Ory Okolloh who started the mobile-informed web site Ushahidi (meaning “testimony”) when elections in Kenya turned violent in 2007.  She posted reports about the violence on her blog and asked people to comment with their own stories.  She created a site where people could share their stories by text message immediately after a crisis and pared the reports with a map, making the data more useful for crisis responders.  The code that supports the site is now available for free and has been used in the 2009 earthquake in Haiti and a snow storm in Washington DC in 2010. It was also used to map the fall-out from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the xenophobic violence in South Africa.

From Uganda, Jon Gosier is the founder of a company called, AppAfrica, which caters for people who are illiterate or who are not comfortable with text messaging.  They have tested a call-center model which allows farmers to call a free hotline to get information about crop disease.

In May 2011, Africa Nazarene University initiated a Mobile Computing Diploma and Certificate programmes and courses that are aimed at building entrepreneurs, researchers, trainers and software developers who are ready to venture in mobile technology. The course is delivered on flexible times and the cost is relatively low.

These cases of adaptation for Africa by Africa have not yet been documented and explored in formal research studies and current researchers have to rely on websites and internet articles to access these stories.  Yet, it seems that while researchers in the First World are coming up with flashy new games for ipods, people in Africa are solving one of the world’s most daunting problems – adapting to climate change, using one of the first equalizing communications platforms.

One of my heroes...

The Green Energy Revolution in Africa

The Industrial Revolution started in Europe and almost cost us the earth.  I believe the Green Energy Revolution will start in Africa and will bring new life. Today, almost a month ago, on 25 September, one of the great Earth Mothers of our time, died.  Dr Wangari Muta Mary Jo Maathi (1 April 1940 - 25 September 2011) was a Kenyan environmentalist and political activist. She founded the Green Belt Movement which is an environmental and non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation and women's rights.  She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.  Wangari Maathi will be remembered for many things, but also for these words: "In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground.  A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.  That time is now."