Sixteen years ago, on this day, July 26th, 2008, music was the food of life…
New York’s biggest reggae festival will be held in central New York on Saturday July 26th, 2008 at the Rostropovich Amphitheatre in Gelston Castle Estate.
Reggae festival for climate protection is the biggest party for the environment. Come out and celebrate Mother Earth with great music, food, games and activities.
The festival, an all day event on July 26th, 2008 from 12 pm to 12 am is a fun-filled day of music, games, competitions, cultural activities and international cuisine. Awareness to the environment is the overall theme of the festival and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Alliance for Climate Protection to support their efforts.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had come out in 2006. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. Everyone is running around talking about climate change. Given that reggae’s roots are in resistance to white people being assholes, it’s hardly surprising that there would be a climate themed reggae concert.
What we learn is that we have been trying to be artistic about resistance to the suicide path we are on, but it doesn’t seem to land because those events can cause a surge of emotion and commitment that will fall on stony ground and sterile soil. If there aren’t effective social movement organisations ready to capture it, the seeds can’t grow. And so it came to pass.
What happened next? More conferences, smoke and concerts. More cons. If you know your history, you will know where you’re coming from.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
July 26, 1967 – Allen Ginsberg tells Gary Snyder it’s “a general lemming situation”
July 26, 1977 – Australians warned about cities being flooded #CanberraTimes
July 26, 1988, – Australian uranium sellers foresee boom times…
