I recently discovered Facebook and find it easier to post there than on my own blog. I confess it's because there are other people around. It doesn't feel as lonely. I just posted 3 photo albums there: about going to New Orleans, my Maine studio and Push Pull at LACMA last spring. I'm still a bit confused about what goes where on the net.
Here I can post in more depth about my own concerns. Primary right now are the Bush efforts to hamstring our future with his political appointees, as NOAA and legislative roll backs on critical legislation, as endangered species. It's hard to fathom if the man has any understanding or integrity at all but that's not my concern. My concern is how the new administration can put things back together. This Tuesday, Hannah Pingree will be on the Virtual Concerts and I shall ask her exactly that. Pingree is the Majority Leader for the Maine House of Representatives and daughter of Chellie Pingree, newly elected to the US Senate.
The US Supreme Court just ruled that the Navy can conduct sonar tests despite clear evidence of damage to whales, dolphins and other sea creatures. I hope the international court takes us to court over this. California, whose coast this concerns has recently passed a farm animal protection bill and Spain has addressed specism. Isn't it time to put Manifest Destiny on trial?
The artist Bonita Ely has sent me a link to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Nov 11, 2008 program on lost drift nets, ghostnets in the Gulf of Carpinteria in Northern Australia. As is happening globally, the lost & discarded gear of foreign, mostly southeast Asian, particularly Thai, fishing fleets has wadded up in enormous balls. The largest found so far: 6 kilometres, weighing 6 tons and 6 metres deep.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2008/s2415642.htm
The ghostnets kill mostly turtles, but also lots of birds, endangered fish as well as being threats to local small fishing boats manned by indigenous people.
It's hard (painful, wearying) for me to comment on these nets. For twenty years, ghostnets has been the moniker for the core of all my work: Ghost Nets, the project. I can still rage at their existence, despair at the short sightedness of people who use them and extrapolate about the implications for all the habits and routines of thinking and behavior that permits this horror and is reflected in so many other aspects of social and cultural norms. They have been outlawed in many places but ocean currents wash them up from illegal or simply unregulated boats to be deposited wherever the tides take them. I can still be sadly reminded of how apt the metaphor is.
What I can say that's positive, is that there are cadres of volunteers trying to clean them up. Gary Luchi of the Carpenteria Ghostnets Program wants to initiate educational programs in the countries of origin for these deadly nets and invite volunteers to come help clean them up. One day walking the beaches and seeing dead animals entwined in the monofilament wires may speak louder than anything else.
Since the election, I have felt a great sense of elation and deflation. The elation is that the Republican corruption and mis-management is at least temporarily purged; that youthful idealism and hope once more has a place in this democracy. The deflation is what a big job is ahead and the fact that all the same problems prevail.
One of those problems is the difficulty of being heard with innovative thinking. Al Gore posted a long editorial in the NY Times Sunday, listing what the administration needs to do to address global warming. It was shockingly tame. It included obvious points such as low emission cars. It did not mention the potential of art to introduce entire fresh thinking.
It was my honor to work with Dr. Jim White of the INSTAAR Institute and the Unversity of Colorado at Boulder, in 2007, to create "Trigger Points/ Tipping Points," an installation and DVD for the "Weather Report" show at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder. Now we are planning to resume work in January 2009. In our original project, we compared conflict zones in three deltaic systems impacted by global warming and climate change: Darfur in relation to the Nile, Bangladesh in relation to the Ganges and New Orleans in relation to the Mississippi. We are not sure where we will go now. Our goals are to break some new ground and open some doors and windows in how to think aboutt he problems ahead.
In sum, it's a heartening time despite the mountain of ecological problems to address. I sense in colleagues, that we are all entering a new era of possibility in the face of our challenges. May it be so.
These three were moderated today by John Roberts of CNN @ Columbia today and I understand it will air in a week or two- before the election on the EI. website. If you aren’t familiar with these names, Soros & Roubini predicted the current crash years ago and advocate a sustainable economic system based on natural resource sustainability. Soros bankrolled the Clintons and is now backing Obama. Basically, amongst other things, they said if McCain gets it, it will be the “end of the world” as we know it because everything will take a bottomless wrong turn crash of a cliff of economic fallacies. What we need, they said, is seeing the big picture and a skeptical attitude. In any case, tho we‘ve hit the economic bottom, the hard-landing fall out will probably continue to play out for as much as 24 mons as consumerism comes to a grinding halt globally. Unemployment, for example, now at 6.5% may soon hit 9%. The entire (excellent) session will be on the Earth Institute website by Tues. (see link below). I was able to ask the first question, introduced myself by name and as an ecological artist:
“First, I hope you run this every day on CNN until the election (which got applause & laughter). What you’re describing, in terms of a biological parallel, in disturbance theory, is that we’ve gone past oscillations to a baseline change, an opportunity for major change. Nothing is better at showing the big picture with skepticism than art. In an ideal world, I can ask this question as an artist, if Obama wins, what would a team look like that could address this whole mess?”
Soros, Roberts and Roubini perked up.
Roubini answered that he agreed about art’s role and that the real answer was in re-thinking how we invest (in sustainable systems.) Afterwards I introduced myself and he warmly added that he wanted to tell me he collects art. So, the upshot in terms of our dialog, is that now more people know there’s such a thing as ecological art and that there may be a connection to crisis policy. I gave him my card. Roubini will be testifying to the US Congress next week.
Monday, October 20
Environmental and Sustainable Development Programs Open House
The trip I took to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, esp in the light of Gustav was incredible for what I saw of the continuing devastation & grief and the courage & spirit of those addressing & solving problems. A good outcome of Gustav seems to be national attention to the ongoing & outstanding problems there, arguably at a time when we are all more aware of the global issues of global warming that are contributing to the regions woes (and opportunities).
The conference on sustainable deltaic modeling at LSU was amazing for the range of addresses to the local problems of wetlands restoration in the face in increased hurricane activity. I took 33 pages of notes from both days (see excerpt below).
New friends from the region and friends here who live in New Orleans during the winter have been in touch, comparing thoughts since Gustav. I also have several hundred photos from the trip and I hope to do a couple Virtual Concerts with folks I met. The first is scheduled for September 16.
I felt the scientists struggled with how ecological artists can be part of the solution. Artists as illustrators is familiar but not artists as equal partners to designing solutions. It helped when I used the word, "dirt." Then they were puzzled but enthusiastically intrigued.
Generally what I saw, was the extent to which New Orleans is a paradigm for the realities of how we must adapt to our dependence on natural resources if we are to survive what is now being called the anthropicene age. I also got lots of reminders of WHY the region so interests me. The solution, to which I think we as artists can pro-actively contribute, is in designing, as Dr Denise Reed particularly inferred in her talk at LSU, for the human infrastructure around the dynamics of a hurricane based (wetlands) ecology world wide.
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Everyone I spoke to is aware of the difficulties in implementing solutions. Local business people-politicos are now extremely engaged in the (excellent) science being done. Former Gov Blanco spoke to us the first night of the conference (Monday). She continues to push, even out of office to find acceptable compromises between oil interests and ecological imperatives. She stated that had she knowm, she would have told Pres George Bush up front from the beginning, that reconstrcution would cost $50 billion.
New Orleans is the most important port in this country for oil & gas. Those industries have devastated the incredibly rich ecosystem, which also happens to be the one of the most fecund deltaic systems in the world (most migratory birds in the North American continent need the system at some point for their life cycle).
Onshore oil and gas production during the 1960's and '70's devastated the natural ecosystems. That work accelerated subsidence. Oil and gas exploration canals and pipelines dissected right thru wetlands and barrier islands. This altered local hydrology, creating new pathways for saltwater intrusion. The combined effects of these processes made the city more vulnerable to the increasingly more powerful storms we've been seeing.
Coastal oil and gas production in coastal Louisiana has probably resulted in ten percent or more of the land loss problem. But fees and severance taxes from oil and gas production now comprise the major source of funding for the restoration effort.
It is interesting that these extractive industries have figured out that it is in their interest to restore what they have destroyed. Without necessary restoration work, they will have no platform from which to operate. Paradoxically, the perpetrators of local degradation are now making amends by being the largest source of funding for restoration work. But many suspect the catch-22 between ecosystem fragility and extractive processes makes it impossible to go as far as is necessary.
An unexpected problem seems to be the plethora of planners & community people trying to input into comprehensive plans, with sentimental attachments & variegated education about the natural resource issues. The local & federal politics are immensely complex & Byzantine, small-townish, caught up in feudal family histories, racial tensions, etc along with the exacerbated routine Republican vs Democratic stuff. Ironically, the Repub governor seems to be doing a good job, by all accounts. The Army Corps, is divided between local officials who are fairly aware of what needs to be done & eager to do it and federal level offices, which hamstrings them.
Administrative red tape is apparently the largest problem of all, endlessly delaying critical earmarked funding. For that reason, activism has stepped into the breach with good effect. My observation was that it's too simplistic, at least for New Orleans, to place blame or laurels on any demographic- whether business, science, art, community activists or politicians. Yes, there are a few individual villains, but mostly the problems are caused by personal/human issues and agendas that everyone seems to trip over.
The heroes are those who show up & keep plugging away at the solutions and coalitions that need to form and in many cases, have formed. The place of artists in this mix is a major uphill battle. I don't know how much Dan Cameron will chip away at that with his projected biennale. I do know that this situation tests the old-fashioned notion of artists (or anyone) as the white knight. The solution will be in the success of a pretty jumbled mosaic. What is most interesting to me, is that many of those models for solutions are essentially indigenous ones, as the design solutions are as well, for example, building on stilts. The science is good and scientists and NGO’s know they need artists but many are also pretty hide-bound so far in conceiving of how that will work.
Modeling plays a big role because it is the leverage to illustrate do-nothing consequences. I think LSU will be taking a major role in bridging some of the divides. They have initiated a new school of coastal environmental sciences and were open to discussing how artists could be involved.
Two articles caught my attention today in the NY Times. One was in the business section, by Peter Goodman, "Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Environment." The other was an op-ed editorial, by Bob Herbert, "Yes We Can." The way I interpret the relationship between those articles is that the land & petroleum based economic system is in free fall and our path to survival, in any way at all, will be tied to envisioning and acting on a different set of strategies. The first said we may be facing decades of economic downturns, costing trillions of dollars. The second said we must pay attention to Al Gore's challenge but have become defeatist. Is it a contradiction to consider how to invest vast sums to turn around entire global economies just as they are collapsing into free fall? I don't think so. Nor do I think we have a choice.
Recently, I've struggled far more than usual to keep my head and my health above water. I set myself the task of writing on this blog about the relationship between global warming, ecological art and living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The problem is that the latter limits my stamina. So I struggle to work, think, make ends meet and write here and often fail to find an acceptable balance. That is the same paradigm of dealing with the relationship between our economy and our environment.
Contradictory pressures to care for my financial well-being and guard my physical limits has been far harder than ever before. Yet I continue to believe, more than ever, that my struggle to live within the means imposed on me by my health and find solutions to life with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in the age of climate change-global warming, is the conceptual key to the door out of what can feel like a prison.
My first task is honestly confronting how dire the present is for many more people than myself and start making radical changes in all aspects of my life. The two articles tell me I have to see things differently and consider how to integrate that Vision into my practice. Like accepting we cannot own the earth (real estate) or rely on depleting limited natural resources vs wind & solar. Imagining the right to stamp our imprint on the earth with land ownership may be spiritually untenable. Presuming that one source of supply (petroleum) will meet all our demands may be childish.
The second task is being willing to accept our limits and then find sources of hope. There is some evidence, as people drive less, that this is beginning to happen. Perhaps we never were supposed to own & trade land, the way we have been and ground our wealth in that presumption. It goes against the wisdom of the Commons. Perhaps a petroleum based economy never was supposed to be our salvation. Perhaps, as Bob Costanza has advocated, it is truly going to be from a basis of an economy grounded in different values, that we will find our answers (hope). It may be counter-intuitive to concentrate our spiritual & psychological analysis on how we got here. Or maybe it's exactly correct. And maybe, since part of the question is too many people, we can't have children for a decade, another limit we have to accept but don't seem eager to.
Of course there's a large segment of the global society that isn't paying attention. Formerly third world countries are coming on board with American-modeled consumption goals that will out strip the West in no time flat. This country and others, are experiencing a baby boom and spends thousands of dollars on fertility treatments to birth twins. That's insane. The drug cartels, child prostitute enslavers and terrorist organizations seem to have created an unholy alliance for themselves and us. Global enforcement policies seem to be ineffective and these sectors seem better financed than official governments. Cynically, what I see, is that along with storms from global warming, these people are taking care of the problem we have created and refuse to deal with, by brutally eliminating large sections of the population. The painful part is that along with species loss, these "solutions" have no connections to justice. Wealthy, powerful perpetrators rarely pay the costs of their behavior. This country can't even impeach President Bush, not only for treason in the conventional sense of lies that have endangered national security but for his economic, birth control, educational and environmental policies that have run large sections of the world's population into the ground, destroying global security.
So as an ecological artist and a person with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), where do I model my strategies to move forward and address the systemic issues as well as the creative opportunities? Is it too simple to say I start by accepting how unmangeable this all is? I can concentrate on faith that where I put my creative energy is the right focus and then leave it open to constant reconsideration. I can keep sorting thru the data and my options with faith that working with others, I can find solutions. Is that enuf? If enuf of us do that, it may be. CFS forces me to a model of interdependency and limitation. What I've learned from my illness is that creative work and collaborative outreach give me hope and stamina. What also I'm seeing is that my increasingly limited income also requires me to rethink my practice, for example, my 2006 decision to phase out flying to work sites, that led to the Virtual Residency and Virtual Concerts. It is bringing me back to building carefully on what I already have instead of constantly seeking new projects.
But any period of commited action must be balanced by long periods of fallow inactivity for me to conserve my resources. During those times I survive on patience & faith. But at those times, I can also think, plan and design solutions based on consolidating and cross-referencing data and skill sets. Is that a soltuion for everyone? Perhaps partially: the fallow as a source of stamina to follow the mandate Gore presents us with.
In other fields, we are learning about emptiness and the value of the fallow. This is true about limiting consumption, getting enuf sleep, reducing stress, buying and living local, conserving historical, cultural and agricultural resources. Perhaps a clue there to think about.
The past weeks I've been gardening. My vegetable garden overlooks a medium sized quarry. Every summer I watch the level of water in the quarry to see an indicator of how my small watershed is faring. When the rocks in the middle appear, I begin to worry. The surface water is an imperfect gauge but I do see a decline. My other barometer of the aquifer is how quickly my plants begin to yellow in the sun. This tells me how hard the roots have to work to get water to survive. The rocks aren't yet prominent in the quarry but the soil in my garden is dust and the leaves that are suffering are curling at the edge of yellow with some brown. My plants required some deliberate watering. Meanwhile, the air has been off and on, uncharacteristically heavy with moisture that never comes to earth. The horizon is overcast, slightly yellowed and fogged in. The fog is fine. The yellow isn't. The horizontal yellow means ozone. The dry dusty soil is bad and the humidity is so oppressive that it's hard for me to work at anything. My Chronic Fatigue Syndrome gets aggravated and I struggle with vertigo.
As the economy worsens and conflict zones expand with dwindling resources, I wonder how we will all adapt: animal or vegetable. If I and others are going to return to truck farming to sustain ourselves but the air and soil stays dry, our sole source aquifer may not be sufficient to support this ecological corner, let along others. That is if climate change continues at the rate it is going and we continue to exhaust our global resources as we have been.
My money advisor tells me this is just cyclic. The economy will rise again because the nature of all markets is to find solutions that increase revenue. The trouble with that is that the economy, resources, the air, water and soil, and biological adaptability to climate change are all connected. I am not sure that the innovators of market revenue are tapped into that web of interdependence. if they were, it would be what some economists call a (potential) culture of abundance. Before lunch I am pessimistic. After lunch I am open-minded.
We have been fogged in. It's like being blanketed by quiet and softness. It is chilly despite record high temps on the mainland. So rather than go down to my studio on the shore to work, I'm working in my home office.
This morning, despite some ambivalence, I recorded the last Virtual Concert, at least, for sure until September. I'm burnt out and need to have some time to concentrate on other kinds of work. One of those work projects is finishing a book I've toiled over for almost twenty years, making my ideas accessible. Another is work on the visual level, where I do my best thinking, from the garden here to the "things," "artifacts" that emerge from that thinking. I also need to give some hard thought to earning some shekels.
I am watching the storms in the midwest and wondering how many such events it may take for people to pay attention to the threats of climate disruption from global warming. I am trying to rest, to pay attention to my own disruptions as I live with chronic fatigue syndrome. This is going to be a time for me to be a bit fallow and observe, even if I continue to work.
Doing the Virtual Concerts has flooded me with thoughts about the very issues we dicussed for two years in over 100 podcasts: the potential relationship between and policy potential of the intersection between art, science and climate change. It is time for me to let that digest.
