Eco-venues and no-flyer zones: Edinburgh fringe tackles the climate crisis

Mass extinctions, carbon emissions and freak storms will feature at a festival where artists are finding new ways to raise the alarm'I no longer think of this as a technological problem. I don't think of it as a political problem." Alanna Mitchell is assessing the climate emergency. "I think of it as a cultural problem." The Canadian journalist and playwright believes the arts play a key role in transforming public opinion. "That's the way humans understand the world," insists Mitchell. "We understand it in terms of narrative."Some of the most successful environmental activism has used theatrical or artistic gestures to capture imaginations. Think of Extinction Rebellion's dramatic funeral marches, or Liberate Tate's oil spill installations. At the Edinburgh festival this month, theatre-makers are bringing the crisis to the fore, from drawing the links between colonialism and the changing climate in Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools to Tom Bailey's meditation on the sixth mass extinction in Vigil. Continue reading...