Pat Kop: Covid is just a rehearsal for climate crisis
mainThe controversial Swiss-based violinist was pointedly ignored at the fat-cat Lucerne Festival when she tried to draw a broader context for the present pandemic. She writes:
In yesterday’s podium discussion in Lucerne about COVID and music I tried to point out that the COVID crisis is the general rehearsal of the climate crisis which will be much much worse.
She better get on with playing her violin incase she gets swallowed up in a cloud! Get on with life as it is all too short. One day you are 40 and then you are sudenly 70!
This is very true, excellent advice Maria – thank you!
“I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely years.”
——Truman Capote, The Grass Harp
Patricia is just past 40, married to a writer and neurologist who is past 70. So her experience, direct or shared, spans the bracket which seems to matter to you.
More importantly, as a mother of a young daughter, she has perspective: the perspective of someone looking beyond her immediate short-term interests, maybe even beyond her own life expectancy, giving sober consideration to the world she is leaving behind for her daughter. Would that others on this thread, and outside it, could muster as much.
That’s only when you skip these 30 years.
“In yesterday’s podium discussion in Lucerne about COVID and music I tried to point out that the COVID crisis is the general rehearsal of the climate crisis which will be much much worse.”
#delusional
That’s YOUR view from America.
Yes, a particularly idiotic view from America. Many people there do not share this view, funny how he/she has to pretend to represent an entire nation to feel better about their small existence and mind.
She’s right. And when the proverbial s**t finally hits the fan, everyone will be taken aback, just as they are in the current crisis. In fact it’s already happening; we just don’t see the full effects just yet. Everyone knows it, most are in denial. Glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, species are dying — such as this incredibly sad footage, last year, of an emaciated polar bear no longer able to feed itself.
On a more optimistic note, Pat Kop is a genuine artist and one of the very few violinists I would actually pay money and travel to go listen, because I know that I would always have a unique musical experience worth remembering. No single soloist in the world can surpass her masterful and inspiring Ligeti concerto performance a few years ago with the Berlin Staatskapelle.
Her Ligeti for free (and then Death and the Maiden, all from Salzburg): https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/098981-009-A/patricia-kopatchinskaja-und-die-camerata-salzburg-spielen-schubert-ligeti-dowland-kurtag/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JhaVNJb3ag
Instead of getting off your fat ass and doing anything to help, you film a hungry animal and want everyone to weep?!?!
Your own enmity towards anyone who doesn’t think like you along with your physical assaults and money grabbing through sympathy leaves people emotionally cold at this point.
Go to a nursing home, an ER or street corner any day of the week to see the cycle of life, humanity and death instead of selling more impotent talking points!
Wow, an angry person with access to keyboard. Going after a commenter on a music blog. Do you feel better now?
WRONG! Fake news, David – you need to get a serious grip on reality.
Yes, I do indeed. Have you ever heard of the psychological concept of “projection”? It’s your “concept” of reality, if one might call it that, that is deeply flawed and tragically out of touch.
The left normally begins with projection in order to create their fictional narratives.
That’s why so many people turn away from them and continue to leave Democrats in droves.
Mental illness pervades those who ‘follow’ the left like mindless sheep until they become violent and end up on psychotropic meds. We see that all over the map in ‘Blue States’ across the US. It’s a good thing they are getting arrested for rioting and looting but ultimately put away so they can receive care. Glad we have a caring adult in the White House who will easily win for for more years.
Renee gets political. Why? we don’t know. Does she want to be heard because rarely she is listened to? Or she just can’t help herself being negative. What is it Renee?
Heay Ms. MENSA!!!
Most people are unable to travel to see you in a concert hall let alone afford a ticket since they’re immobilized with no income unless they are 1% who can AFFORD TO SUPPORT YOU!
So many HUMAN BEINGS can’t even make a living, afford MORTGAGES or RENT and some are sick or DEAD from something real which already consumes the “globe” and this CHILD is MANIC about whaaaat???
Enjoy flailing around, screeching in your padded room spouting off fringe theories in your clown suit while others are facing REALITY.
Ughh!!!
You don’t have to shout. We’re right here.
Spoken like the true voice of reason, albeit with a malfunctioning “Caps Lock” key.
Take a chill pill, H.
Climate change is hardly a “fringe theory.” Climate change denial is positively living in fantasyland.
She’s a terrific musician but seems to labour under the delusion that this means the public is interested in what she has to say makes her worth listening to about other matters.
I am challenged to determine which I like better — her political insights or her music making.
Does it reduce her right to form and utter an opinion?
Unless she’s a legal US Citizen, yes.
Girls like her can’t spout off like that in Iraq, India, Israel or the UAE unless they are willing to be deformed by the men in charge.
I’m much enchanted by her openness about her intimate relationship with her violin.
Sally
Death Valley hit 130F (54.4C) the other day. Trees have been ripped up all over NYC after the most recent wind storm, Greenland’s ice shelf is at the point of no return. Make what you will of individual events but in the short and long term, we will begin to see more of these events and we will study the consequences. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to forecast a great calamity in the not too distant future.
While the rest of us are too busy to give a F**K!!!
There are the sick who need care, nursing home patients who remain cut off from their loved ones and some of us are still trying to bury our DEAD.
Go act out your trashy political theater in its proper place…a MORGUE!
Chill pill for you too, CAB. I’m sorry for your loss(-es), but we’re all in this together.
Pat Kop is the one who needs to take a chill pill.
lol
So what?
You’re going to die one day just like everybody else.
This planet will fade into oblivion as will our galaxy one day just like all the rest.
Your (and those who covet this fatalism) lack of respect for human life is what’s alarming to others.
You might as well enjoy your life while you have one just like all of the fear-mongers before you who already ended up incarcerated for your leftist antics or are already dead while the population has GROWN.
A friend recently commented….”This Covid thing….
get ready….it’s just a shot across the bow.”
You and she need to be checking your white privilege along with how far away your money keeps you from any legitimate humanitarian crisis.
Funny how money does that, eh? Why don’t you get some?
So what? What can we do about it all? Just get on with life and be grateful for every day. Killer cancers, strokes and heart attacks haven’t suddenly just gone just because of the virus.
Yours are all legitimate concerns. But catastrophizing won’t help. Governments do what they can but the short terms sees calls upon its resources for housing, public health, education and defense. Much of this will be paid for by energy resources and commodities.
This is the opportunity cost of nations being mired in devastating debt. Climate action will cost money, jobs and standards of living. Are you prepared to surrender yours right away? Serious question.
When I say not too distant future, I’m thinking 100-200 years (or maybe much more); sure I won’t be around, but I for one would like to learn and do what we can while we also enjoy our time here and now. I think the rabid hysterical deniers are the ones who need to chill out.
Sue Sonata Form is wrong to portray tackling the climate emergency as less important. In fact, it is related to issues of “housing, public health, education and defense.”
Housing: people are losing their homes as a result of flooding, rising sea levels, forest fires, and other causes that can be attributed directly to the climate emergency.
Public health: people are dying as a result of air and water pollution (air pollution is widely believed to have exacerbated the COVID-19 death toll in northern Italy).
Education : we all need to better educate ourselves in how to consume less and make our remaining consumption of resources as sustainable as possible.
Defence: as more people are made homeless and vital resources such as water become more scarce in many parts of the world, it is inevitable that conflict will escalate and many people will become refugees. And, as COVID-19 has demonstrated, many so-called “developed” countries have very fragile supply chains for various goods. We need a more holistic concept of national security based on avoiding conflict and ensuring that we have resilient supply chains for food, water, medicines, and other resources. In that context, reducing “food miles” and obtaining more resources locally is a sound policy not only environmentally, but in terms of security.
“Climate action will cost money, jobs and standards of living.”
Doing nothing will cost far, far more. And climate action creates jobs. As for standards of living, perhaps we need to reconsider how to define them. For example, we need to stop the appalling sense of entitlement to fly to exotic locations for unsustainably low prices.
Taking cars, buses and planes to riot/protest is indefinitely more self-serving and harmful to everyone along with torching anything in their path.
Glad they’re getting arrested or swapping COVID-19 amongst themselves since they run in packs like the animals they are. Less human waste as they die off..
Where’s the in-depth studies and media pieces on “how riots are ruining our planet”???
Just to be clear, I am *not* of the “riot/protest” type at all. Instead, I endeavour to do the right thing in how I lead my own life, which means being a vegetarian (since 2003), avoiding the more polluting forms of transport, continuing to use a 10-year-old laptop (electronic waste is a massive problem, and the environmental impact of mining the metals required for shiny new laptops/tablets/&c., especially the lithium batteries, is enormous), and boycotting Amazon (a tax-dodging company that treats its workers appalingly and is attempting to establish a monopoly position).
Ed Klein is right to observe that there is a lot of hypocrisy among many people in that crowd.
Climate action will cost the billionaires more than any of us… which is why we’ll never see it.
Utter bosh.
I’m looking through mrs. Kopatchinskaya’s CV – I can’t find any education in science there? Forgive me if I’ve overlooked it.
More likely religion.
When searching, even a little context helps. Or a modicum of curiosity.
Failing that, one click on the appropriate link can help widen the horizon.
Patricia is referring to a fresh entry on her husband’s blog:
https://lukasfierz.blogspot.com/2020/08/eine-tour-in-die-holle.html
Her husband, writer, retired neurologist and environmental activist Lukas Fierz, discusses ‘Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency’ by Mark Lynas, reviewed in the current issue of the New York Review of Books by Bill McKibben:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/08/20/climate-emergency-130-degrees/
As for Patricia’s expertise in matters environmental, I’d venture an educated guess: she may have picked a thing or two from her hubby, who has been at it for nearly fifty years now.
Listen troll, no one needs to be a scientist to see what we are doing to the planet…. anyone who’s not a fool can see the destruction. PK is absolutely correct!
Is there a longer text we can read, or was communicated directly to SD?
It doesn’t matter what any of us think, the earth will be the final arbiter in this debate.
It makes me so sad to see how many people have nothing better to do than to make unpleasant, negative comments about this musician’s observations.
Mostly people who are bothered by Pat Kop’s immense talent and/or people who have absolutely no qualms plundering the earth, as long as their consumer needs are being met.
I didn’t know Greta Thunberg played the violin (badly…)
St. Greta of Thunberg. The new St. Bernadette of Lourdes. Both of them teenagers. It’s the filthy looks of the former which put me right off!!!
Ms Kopatchinskaya is a terrific violinist who should stick to what she is best at. Mind you she probably knows a lot more than the 16 year-old girl the media swoons over!
Cio e, antani, come trazione, per due, manco fosse la supercazzola bitumata, ha lo scappellamento a destra…
Climate change is fake news. Humans will adapt to the changing world and the earth will sort itself out.
No, You are “fake news.” Your comment is preposterous.
The earth may sort itself out once you and your type are gone, if it’s not too late by then.
All of these nasty, snarky, over-the-top anti-PatKop and anti-Greta Thunberg comments…. everyone just get a grip for a moment.
I think we can all agree that we are now in the middle of a deadly worldwide crisis.
But is it so wrong for PatKop and Greta to point out that there is ANOTHER deadly worldwide crisis looming just a few decades away, a crisis that wearing masks and washing your hands will do nothing to combat?
I’m glad I won’t be around to see it.
Yes, we are in the middle of a world health crisis. Climate change is NOT a crisis, it is the way The Universe operates!! And it has nothing to do with epidemics or pandemics. I 100% agree with you.
Unfortunately we are past the point of no return regarding global climate change. We can no longer afford to live with materialism. Yes, it is possible to eliminate the things that can confront us, but not without joy on our side. Without consciousness, one cannot self-actualize.
The complexity of the present time seems to demand an ennobling of our dreams if we are going to survive.
What?! Joss, are you joking?
Perhaps she should take a look at the real science and not the “fake news” media. The climate cannot, I repeat, CANNOT be controlled by humans. This outrageous commentary is nothing but scare mongering by the “radical” leftists. Let’s be rational humans.
Also, I cannot wait to see Maestro Luisi with the Dallas Symphony. Who’s with me? Hope all is well with you Norman, this website is a jewel.
You are 99.999% right! Humans can contribute a basically negligible effect on climate.
people believe what they want, such as the cuckolded old rich fool of a husband who refuses to believe his young and beautiful wife will ever cheat on him even when he catches her in bed with another man.
An erstwhile Prime Minister of Australia spent his years in office talking about climate change being ‘the moral challenge of our times’. Just recently be bought a beautiful waterfront home on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.
Absolutely priceless.
Obamas did the same thing!! Talk about climate and buy a $16M mansion on the waterfront
That’s fantasyland heard from.
Does recognising that there is climate change prevent one from having a home? And is it a better or worse home for being beautiful and located on the waterfront? At least he will be on the front lines if the sea rises.
Luckily we young folk don’t have to give even an iota of a damn what you old codgers deny and down-vote in your divine ignorance, as you’ll all drop off the planet hopefully soon enough that there will subsequently be enough people willing to believe in actual science and will be able to do something about the absurd mess you’ve all bequeathed us. The environmental message has been repeated to you for decades by scientists but you don’t listen, so you can hardly take issue when people in other professions have to take up the mantle of trying to tell you that your kids and grandkids are gonna face big big troubles. But why the hell would you care about your kids eh…
You have been lied to. Look at the REAL science. Not the “fake” news. The earth is fine. Why not get rid of all the cows? Next thing you will tell us all to be vegan. With all due respect, this is not the way to live life. We should all know better.
All the best
-Brendzamani
Try reading Michael Shellenberger.
This is a significant part of why I chose not to have children. I couldn’t justify subjecting future generations to a world where so many don’t even pretend to care about potentially life-extinguishing crises.
P. S. Any so-called adult who mocks Greta T. on the basis of her appearance is lower than shit. Your parents would be so terribly ashamed of you. Your kids will be, one day, if not already.
And we are all glad that you didn’t have children if that was the kind of anti-science , anti-rational nonsense you were going to pass on to them.
Why is it that very talented musicians, artists, writers should comment on politics? This “climate” thing was debunked already by numerous scientists all over the world. And these are being paid for research and opinions.
Rehearsal? More like one musician practicing at home before a performance of the Symphony of a Thousand.