People send me stuff. Here’s one about UEA offering a prize contest for “creative climate writing”. – Anthony
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: UEA Magazine – Climate Writing Clanger…
An article on page 16 of the University of East Anglia August/September
2012 Broadview Newsletter (see below/attached/link) invites MA students
to compete for prize money via creative writing on the subject of
climate change:
“The scholarship is open to all applicants to the Prose Fiction and Poetry strands of the MA, whose writing demonstrates a commitment to environmental themes, in particular to furthering the general understanding of the impact of climate change.”
Why not enter a synopsis of the output of Professor Phil Jones at the UEA Climate Research Unit? Many CRU pronouncements may not be ‘poetry’ but, rather than being based upon rigorous science, may eminently qualify as both ‘prose’ and ‘fiction’?
Here’s the text from: UEA–Broadview–August+12 (PDF)
£5,000 creative writing bursaries launched
Two new bursaries for postgraduates wanting to study creative writing at UEA have been announced. The Corsair Bursary will be awarded annually, and has been created to enable
someone to study for the MA Creative Writing (Prose Fiction).
The annual bursary, worth £5,000, is open to students undertaking the course who
will be aged 25 or younger at the start of the academic year in which they begin their
masters degree course at UEA.
The recipient will be chosen by a panel from Corsair, the literary imprint of publisher
Constable & Robinson, and based on the creative material submitted by students for
admission to the course. Meanwhile, the Onoto Creative Writing Scholarship will enable a student to study for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA.
The scholarship is open to all applicants to the Prose Fiction and Poetry strands
of the MA, whose writing demonstrates a commitment to environmental themes,
in particular to furthering the general understanding of the impact of climate
change.
The award is worth £5,000 towards the recipient’s course fees, plus an Onoto pen
worth £300. The first scholarship will be awarded in September 2013.
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This is will a fine addition to their current offering Creative Statistics (Numerical Fiction).
Hmm.
It was a dark and unprecedentedly rainy night…
Just when you think it’s safe to come out of the bomb shelter..
The gods and goddesses do have a refined and delicate sense of humour.
Hey — I have a candidate to suggest…
http://pesticidetruths.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Reference-Culprit-Forman-2010-00-00-Biography.pdf
Mr. Forman holds a Master’s degree in philosophy from McGill University. He interned at The
Nation – America’s oldest weekly journal – and studied creative writing at the Banff Centre for the Arts. From 1997-2004, he was Vice President of Strategic Communications Inc., a firm that
provides political consulting and fundraising advice to the non-profit sector. In 1999, Strategic
Communications was named to The Profit 100 as one of Canada’s fastest growing firms.
In 2004, he became Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the
Environment (CAPE). Under his leadership, CAPE won a gold medal at the 2006 Canadian
Environment Awards. In 2007, he was the co-winner of a Virtuoso Award from the International
Association of Business Communicators (London, England). He is currently a Judge for the Green Toronto Awards. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Forum, and The Toronto Star, among other publications.
As head of CAPE he makes things clear:
About the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE)
The association is an award-winning group of 5,400 doctors and concerned citizens working to provide education and advocacy to win environmental protection across Canada. Based in Toronto, the association is now working to close asbestos mines in Quebec, phase out coal-fired power in Ontario and ban lawn pesticides in British Columbia.
In its coal campaign, association members met with cabinet ministers to present reports showing coal contributes to cancer, climate change and brain damage. In recent years, the association has had a lot of success – banning pesticides in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes and pressuring the Ontario government to close all its coal plants by 2014 – the equivalent of removing six million cars from the road.
What more could you ask from an environmentalist…???
Ah, I see Blair (August 24, 2012 at 10:34 am) is mining the same muse.
However, not many remember how Bulwer-Lytton’s notable fiction continues:
A powerful work of fiction.
Clearly, all of us should submit a piece to this contest to give them something of substance to read on their way to acclaiming the usual puff-piece as the winner. Given a few thousand additional skeptical pieces they might ponder the truth.
The prize should be carbon credits. And may be they get to live “Green” for 6 months. In a grass and mud house without electricity or toilet paper or toilet..
How about a poetic climate blues riff…….
They call it Stormy Monday
But Tuesday’s just as bad.
They call it Stormy Monday
But Tuesday’s just as bad.
Mann, and Wednesday’s worse
And Thursday’s all so sad.
The eagle fry’s on Friday,
Saturday I can’t go out to play.
The eagle fry’s on Friday,
Saturday I can’t go out to play.
Sunday I go to CAGW church,
Gonna kneel down and pray.
Mann have mercy,
Team have mercy on me.
Gore have mercy,
Team have mercy on me.
Though I’m tryin’ and tryin’ to find my Gaia,
Won’t someone please send her home to me.
Apologies to the song writers and all the great blues bands that have performed this song. Please have mercy on me.
Hmm, five grand, huh?
Will this do?
Yesterday, all was fair
I noticed Mann just wasn’t there
He turned up when it rained today
I wish that Mann would go away
Can the Onoto pen write on Bristlecone pine paper? If not, I don’t want it!
Derek Sorensen says:
August 24, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Hmm, five grand, huh?
Will this do?
http://dereksorensen.com/?p=119
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
EXCELLENT!
By now. surely, “furthering the general understanding of” needs to be included with ‘terminological inexactitude’ and ‘economy with the truth’ as one of the great euphemisms for ‘telling lies’.
Hmm…just about anybody at UAE can write some garbage about the sky falling – Jones probably sponsored the prize too – he needs some fresh creative writing skills to replace his severely lacking scientific portfolio! Still, my 7 yr old writes better (as in, more believable) science fiction than those folk……..
Neil says:
August 24, 2012 at 1:36 pm
lol – have you seen east anglian women? you’ve seen Deliverance, right? nuff said……..
Unfortunately, nobody at the UEA knows how to operate ‘The Excel’ (hushed silence).
…consequently these suggestions will be stored as pieces of paper in Phil’s shoe box. After some months, Keith will make a shambolic effort to rank the entries – but this will be halted when Keith loses his loaner laptop in Norwich. Finally Mann will write an abrupt email announcing that he is the winner.
On an isle south of England known as Mann,
Loomed bird mincing towers and their fans.
While those props spun the rotors
Of their giant backwards … motors
The Manx cursed the soul ‘o Mike-E. Mann.
They already have the Hugo Award….
Now we know how we can all do our part to save the world from global warming.
Here’s a hint — it’s not by writing poetry.
If the CO2 rise we cannot stall
Then the sea will rise over the atoll
But if golfers fret
That their balls will get wet
The Maldives won’t sink after all.
Many CRU pronouncements may not be ‘poetry’ but, rather than being based upon rigorous science, may eminently qualify as both ‘prose’ and ‘fiction’?
———-
But isn’t the CRU temperature record your favorite? Because it shows a recent plateau that supposedly means that climate change had turned the corner.
And now your claiming this plateau is a fiction?
I am so confused.
Can Kenji enter?
Sorry. Try as we may, no one can compete with the stuff that’s already been published in peer reviewed journals, and on RealClimate.org.
Maybe I can plagiarize Ray Ladbury.
Here’s my entry. I first entered this under “Weather Cows” back in April. (“Weather Cows” had to do with which direction cows face in a storm.)
“All this talk of cows and weather predictions got me curious about something. So, to satisfy my curiosity, I checked out some old emails on the UVa. server. Lo and behold, I discovered that the lesser known but very first “Hockey Stick” wasn’t based on tree rings at all! It seems a certain someone studied a series of preserved hoof prints. Not being a farm boy, he could only tell which direction they faced by noting the location of any assoiated cow pies. After discarding those that didn’t have a cow pie, he determined the direction of the remainder. Assuming any wind coming from the direction of Tennessee would be warmer (for some unknown reason), he plotted his proxies and the very first “Hockey Stick” was born! But … alas … someone saw his raw data and it was discovered that he wasn’t looking at cow prints and cow pies at all but rather bull prints and bull … scat. But he liked his “Hockey Stick”! Rather than admit what “The Stick” was really based on, he looked for something else to plot that would produce the same results as the original bull-based plot. When he noticed the first rise of his stick seemed to correspond to Al Gore’s winning his first election, he turned to something wooden. This is how the second but better known “Hockey Stick” was born. And now you know the rest of the story!”
(Of course, I’d be disqualified if this turns out to non-fiction.8-(
If, as is quite possible, the IPCC use the winning entry in it nth Assessment Report, will it then be classified as non-fiction and the winner will have to hand back the Onoto pen and repay the monies paid towards their MA?
I thought I’d written fiction
but, my diction,
whilst quaint
was used by the IPCC
so my fiction,
ain’t
It was the best of climes, it was the worst of climes, ……