On the Beach w/Zoe Strauss

I've been on a hiatus for a few weeks. Just painting and such, nothing exciting. One of the highlights though has been following Philly based photographer Zoe Strauss on her blog as she documents the BP disaster down in the Gulf. She's provided compelling images but has also been a sort of on the ground surrogate for me and I assume many others as we watch from afar. This is what artists do of course and it helps to have honest commentary about her inner dialogue as she engages this calamity.

Tyler Green has an interview with Zoe at Artinfo. com: Q & A One and Two.


image: Zoe Strauss

Artists Responding to the BP Disaster

I've been coming across some sites and news about artists addressing the BP sponsored disaster in the Gulf Coast. These are small actions but they matter.

The Tate Britain has recently "celebrated" 20 years of sponsorship by BP which has to be the most ill timed celebration in museum history. The sadness of this is beyond words. Platform reports on a group of artists denouncing the event and the practice of BP sponsorship. Some major names on the list are Hans Haacke, Lucy Lippard and Rebecca Solnit.

A letter today was published in the Guardian today signed by 171 figures from the art world condemning BP’s sponsorship of cultural institutions in the UK. The letter has been published on the day that Tate Britain is hosting a party to celebrate 20 years of BP’s sponsorship. [1] A group of artists under the banner of ‘The Good Crude Britannia’ are planning on protesting outside the event, and will be handing out the “Licence to Spill’ briefing to people attending the party.[2]

Arts/activist organisation Platform [3] has gathered 171 signatories from the international arts community, for a letter that says:

“As crude oil continues to devastate coastlines and communities in the Gulf of Mexico, BP executives will be enjoying a cocktail reception with curators and artists in the Tate Britain. These relationships enable big oil companies to mask the environmentally destructive nature of their activities with the social legitimacy that is associated with such high profile cultural associations.”[4]

continue here

Also, I've just come across Poets for Living Waters which describes itself as a poetry action in response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There is a call for entries and I thank Poet Brett Evans for leading me to the site.


image: Poets for Living Waters

Tracking BP's Disaster

If you're looking for a map that really puts you there and helps with understanding this ever changing oil spill then check out the following from NOAA.

An interactive map with information about the oil spill’s trajectory, the position of NOAA’s research ships, spilled oil’s coastal location and the areas closed to shipping and more.

hat tip: Cheryl Rofer

YOU are responsible for spills

Some irony from BP stations around the country. Climate Progress is asking people to send in more images.

BP's shit show from Space

image:NASA

Gulf plume -live stream

Live Broadcasting by Ustream
The live footage of BP's underwater black hole is now up.

Via FDL:

Note: The video seems to be coming in and out, so if it appears to be down just give it a few minutes and a couple of old fashioned refreshes and it should come back.

I encourage you to bookmark it and monitor the leak’s progress (or lack there of) for yourself. After all, we can’t really depend on anyone else to do it for us.

internet/data 'Cloud" fueled by coal

You have to appreciate the symbolism here despite the bad news.

SAN FRANCISCO - The 'cloud' of data that is becoming the heart of the Internet is creating an all-too-real cloud of pollution as Facebook, Apple and others build data centers powered by coal, Greenpeace said in a new report to be released on Tuesday. Facebook facility being built in Oregon will rely on a u utility whose main fuel is coal, while Apple Inc is building a data warehouse in a North Carolina region that relies mostly on coal, the environmental organization said in the study."The last thing we need is for more cloud infrastructure to be built in places where it increases demand for dirty coal-fired power," said Greenpeace, which argues that Web companies should be more careful about where they build and should lobby more in Washington for clean energy.The growing mass of business data, home movies and pictures has ballooned beyond the capabilities of many corporate data centers and personal computers, spurring the creation of massive server farms that make up a "cloud," an emerging phenomenon known as cloud computing.

via:commondreams.org

diagnosing symptoms of anti-science syndrome

This is an old post from Climate Progress but worth reading again as the attacks against Gore get dusted off one more time.

One tell-tale symptom of ASS is that a website or a writer focuses their climate attacks on non-scientists. If that non-scientist is Al Gore, this symptom alone may be definitive.

The other key symptoms involve the repetition of long-debunked denier talking points, commonly without links to supporting material. Such repetition, which can border on the pathological, is a clear warning sign.

Scientists who kept restating and republishing things that had been widely debunked in the scientific literature for many, many years would quickly be diagnosed with ASS. Such people on the web are apparently heroes — at least to the right wing and/or easily duped (see “The Deniers are winning, but only with the GOP“).

If you suspect someone of ASS, look for the repeated use of the following phrases:

• Medieval Warm Period
• Hockey Stick
• Michael Mann
• The climate is always changing
• Alarmist
• Hoax
• Temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide
• Pacific Decadal Oscillation
• Water vapor
• Sunspots
• Cosmic rays
• Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark
• Ice Age was predicted in the 1970s
• Global cooling

Owning the Weather

“Owning the Weather,” which is being screened in Copenhagen, tomorrow, Sunday the 13th.

OWNING THE WEATHER tells the story of weather modification in the United States, from Charles Hatfield’s infamous rainmaking days to modern plans to engineer the climate.

There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the “legitimate” scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature.

continue reading at Climate Progress

the artist as public intellectual

I received a blurb about the upcoming fairs in Miami that went something like this:

" the return of decadence to Art Basel Miami Beach this year just might signal the economy’s comeback"

I'll pass on the decadence and the spin that this is a good thing for us. I would rather have more of the following on display in Miami.

The essay puts [Edward] Burtynsky’s work not in the context of art history, but in the context of research on recent environmental scholarship. It indirectly makes a powerful case for including artists among the ranks of our most significant public intellectuals. It aggressively pushes art out of the contemporary art ghetto and places it in the mainstream of discourse on the future of our planet. (MAN)

Via Hrag Vartanian

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse vs. drilling trolls

great question and the appropriate response - dead silence

WHITEHOUSE: Gentlemen, we’re in the middle of a near total mortgage system meltdown in this country. We have a health care system that burns 16 percent of our GDP, in which the Medicare liability alone has been estimated at $34 trillion. We’re burning $10 billion a month in Iraq.

This administration has run up $7.7 trillion in national debt, by our calculation. And there is worsening evidence every day of global warming, with worsening environmental and national security ramifications. In light of those conditions, do any of you seriously contend that drilling for more oil is the number one issue facing the American people today?

(Long silent pause during which nobody answers.)

WHITEHOUSE: No, it doesn’t seem so.

via: kos

29 years ago....

The following from Jimmy Carter - 29 years ago. Some things never change, especially American amnesia.

CARTER: Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never...

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas...

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation's history to develop America's own alternative sources of fuel...

I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation's first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay...

Point four: I'm asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation's utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source...

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board...

Point six: I'm proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems...

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation's strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives...

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation's problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Continued reading at A Tiny Revolution

Green Cloud

Here's a fascinating eco-visualization concept - "Nuage Vert" ("Green Cloud"). This is a city-scale light installation representing the actual energy consumption of a coal burning power plant. A high power laser beam illuminates the vapor emission of a coal burning CHP power plant, converting the emissions into a green neon cloud.


Learn more at the Nuage Vert home page.


via: information aesthetics.

damming

Some very interesting observations on the surprising relationship global damming has on rising sea levels.

Sea levels have been rising for decades, due mostly to global warming caused by greenhouse gases.

The oceans are on average about 6.3 inches (16 centimeters) higher now than in 1930, when they started a noticeable upward climb. Melting glaciers and ice caps, along with ocean warming—water expands as it heats up—are the main culprits behind the increase.

But the new study shows that reservoirs are also an important factor. Rather than adding to sea-level rise, however, they have counteracted it by storing more water on land.

Since 1930 the storage of water has prevented a total of about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) of sea-level rise.

Without dams, sea levels would have risen 30 percent more than they already have, according to research led by Benjamin Chao of National Central University in Taiwan.

Chao and colleagues report their findings in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.

more reading at National Geographic

image: Reuters

spiral jetty update

According to Winkleman the deadline to take action in protecting Spiral Jetty has been extended. Which is great news.

This just in from the Utah governor's office: The comment period about the Spiral Jetty-impacting energy development has been extended to Feb. 13. For more information from the state of Utah, click here. For more information on how to comment, click here.

UPDATE: The Seattle P-I's Regina Hackett says that the state of Utah has already received 1,000 comments, and that those comments have alerted them to the importance of the Jetty. "I think they were impressed to be taking calls from Europe and Japan about an artwork in Utah," the acting director of the Salt Lake City Art Center, Leslie Peterson, told Hackett.

Don't almost do something here! Take Action Today! Here, I'll make it easier for you [from Tyler]:

If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov.

Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference, they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.

that petrol emotion

something to chew on. (click image to enlarge)


via: Phronesisaical

world energy flow

couldn't resist swiping this map from Kazys! needless to say but we're not exporting much....and this is 10 years ago.

(click map for full size)

it takes 80 times more energy to feed four times more people

Alternet has a fascinating (and yes disturbing) interview with Thomas Homer Dixon regarding our unsustainable use of energy and various tectonic movements developing underneath our societies. The discussion looks at energy production beyond the barrel of oil template with some practical advice on how we need to be honest with ourselves about the coming disruptions.

THD: In fact there's a whole way of approaching economics that uses thermodynamics. Herman Daly in particular has pioneered this. Energy is a currency that is fundamental and physical, and it gets you away from prices, which are often distractions. The price of something -- a barrel of oil, a bushel of grain -- includes so many other factors that may not have anything to do with underlying abundance or scarcity of these things.


THD: There will be times of frustration and fear and anger on the part of many people when fundamental verities and patterns of life are suddenly challenged. They'll be scared. And in those moments, extremists can take advantage of the situation and push our societies in directions that are very bad. Those of us who are nonextremists need to be prepared to push in other directions and create something that's good.

* Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Trudeau Centre for the Study of Peace and Conflict at the University of Toronto. He is the author of "The Ingenuity Gap" and his newest book "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization."

The Brink and The Pump

Really want an excellent critique of US Media and the lack of humanity that TV instills during times of crisis (or any other for that matter)?
Then watch this scathing rebuke from Jon Stewart at Truthdig.