Asia Society to shed light on warming

In September, while Gov. Jerry Brown hosts his Global Climate Action Summit, the Asia Society will present its own expansive and multidisciplinary look at the impact of climate change. The event, Coal + Ice, will bring a largescale photo and video exhibit to San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, and will also include three weeks of events, Sept. 4 through 23, tying in everything from discussions of science and business to film and music presentations.

The goal, says Orville Schell of the Asia Society, is to frame climate change in a way that people can relate to beyond the usual graphs of climbing tem-

peratures and CO2 emissions. “People need to have a little enjoyment and be able to participate in an issue more than just being scared,” Schell says. And participation is key. “Climate change is a big challenge. And Washington is dead.”

The full schedule won’t be released for a couple of months, but Schell says the society is planning a wide range of programming, much of it free and open to the public. The San Francisco Symphony will perform a concert as pictures of coal miners are projected around the room. Expert climbers who have scaled Mount Everest will come to town to speak with San Francisco industrialists. Musicians from China will play songs from Appalachia on traditional Chinese instruments. Entrepreneurs will compete in a “Shark Tank”-style event to see who can get funding for the best idea to address the ongoing crisis — whether that be carbon-capture technology or synthetic meat.

“We’ve all been to so many policy speeches and boring panels,” Schell says. “We really want to get into people’s consciousness in some other way.”