Climamania

About Climamania

Having been a Climate Change Activist since late 2002, Alicia Liley proposed to SOUL’s Board at the 2009 AGM that SOUL Theatre Inc. produce a production, educating society and the politicians about the incredible seriousness of the Climate Change Crisis – before it is way too late! Everyone agreed, so as Artistic Director, Alicia searched for a single Playwright for SOUL to commission on this play tackling the Climate Change Crisis. She obtained the performing rights to The Australian Premiere of The Contingency Plan by UK playwright, Steve Waters. The Contingency Plan is composed of two full-length plays, On the Beach and Resilience.

Unfortunately, sufficient funding was not found to mount this ambitious production.

Exasperated, Alicia was determined to communicate and educate the essence and various aspects of the Climate Change Crisis, so LAUNCHED The Climamania Project in 2012 with various creative events. For more details, see our past events.

The Project is called CLIMAMANIA, due to the manic climate patterns that the World is experiencing, as well as the crazy manic public debate about this realistic environmental crisis. “From the extremely well researched and well written book, Climate CODE RED, from 2008, David Spratt and Philip Sutton has written on page 175 that:

In the case of global warming, the mantra of ‘failure is NOT [my emphasis] an option’ relates to a broader goal – achieving a safe climate to protect all people, all species and all generations. No matter how difficult the problems, society must find a way back to a safe climate. The UK Government’s 2006 Stern Review established a powerful justification for this approach when it found that the threat from climate change would become so large that no matter how much it might take to solve the problem, the cost of not controlling it is going to be worse.”

During her years of producing Climamania, Alicia realised that SOUL is wanting to draw the wider public together to work collaboratively, regardless of one’s political persuasion or one’s attitude towards Climate Change so as to protect those whom are unable to protect themselves. These communities that Climamania represents include the elderly, infant and youth; the disabled, sick, mentally ill and bedridden; the Indigenous, refugees, asylum seekers, rural communities, third world nations, future generations and the poor. We all must work together to combat this “Greatest moral, economic and social challenge of our time!” Even deniers of Global Warming must see the environmental degradation and horrific damages that various incidents have occurred throughout the World! We ALL have to work together to stop further devastation from occurring!!!!!!

How can one country, Australia, have flooding simultaneously as the ongoing drought we experienced between 2005 to 2012, with 2009 being the worst year of drought, particularly in rural Victoria. Whilst also in 2009, the east coast of Australia was described as the worst flooding for 30 years, inundating many towns in south-east Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales.

Alicia believes that by creating SOUL Theatre Incorporated as a communicative vehicle, SOUL’s presenting social issues are to educate and inform the wider public via SOUL’s entertainment, whilst also establishing the community binding together to combat the reasons for humankind’s existence.

From Environment Victoria’s CEO, Mark Wakeham’s research: On our current emissions trajectory we are headed for 4°C warming, well above the 2°C danger threshold, perhaps as early as 2100. Professor Hans Joachim Schnellnhuber recently posed the question “What is the difference between a 2°C and a 4°C world?” and concluded “Human civilisation”, with a 4°C world able to support an estimated global population of less than 1 billion. Others are less optimistic – Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre suggests “only half a billion people might survive”.