Archive for Environment
“Hummersaurus Wrecks”
Karen Fiorito
“Hummersaurus Wrecks”
Here’s what Karen Fiorito has to say about her art at her online portal, Lil’ Fury Industries. Read the rest of her statement at the link.
I make art to combat apathy, provoke consciousness and unite people around humanitarian or political issues. Art can play a subversive role in society, offering an alternative narrative to the dominant culture. Traditionally, visual artists, especially in the United States, have been taught that political themes will devalue their work. University programs have largely ignored the history of posters and murals in their curriculum and critics often dismiss political art as “bad” because it is “propaganda.” However one feels about the subject, the fact of the matter is this: Art is about life, and politics affects every aspect of life on this planet.
Follow the link to read the full article, “Hummersaurus Wrecks” at the Agonist.
Animals Save the Planet
This is just really cleaver. What I find most interesting is how this reflects the trend towards a majoritarian progressive world view. It’s not all about politics, and in deed, among the more powerful political tools progressives have at their disposal are found in areas of creative cultural production, which can help establish life-long “values” impressions. I’m heartened to see cultural production that has the potential to move core ideologies of the next generation towards a more sustainable framework.
Eventually I’ll get around to a project I’ve been wanting to start which would explore environmental activism through the lens of art and other forms of cultural production.
Mr. Green Jeans
Question? Can you guess which high-profile American politician recently said the following;
Hint: He/She is currently not currently serving in government.
“The environment is constantly changing, constantly evolving. But I think that you want to nurture the environment and protect the environment from undue damage largely for moral reasons. It’s part of our quality of life, and part of our relationship to a larger world. We ourselves are diminished when the environment is diminished.”
Well if your first thought was Al Gore, you’d be wrong.
Second Hint;
“I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican. I like the fact that the government requires that I have clean water to drink no matter what restaurant I walk into anywhere in America.”
Answer: Newt Gingrich. These comments were taken from an interview at Salon. Gingrich has a new book out, “A Contract with the Earth.”
Gingrich constantly finds his way into my research on Al Gore. In some ways they are opposite sides of the same coin. Whether its science and technology, the internet or the environment, these two have historically run parallel to one another.
The timing of this book leads me to believe that a substantial shift in US policy towards environmental issues in general and a “green economy” in particular are on the not so distant horizon. There is tremendous momentum behind the burgeoning green sector. If the Democrats win the presidency and maintain both the senate and congress (which looks extremely likely), then the Republicans will need a new platform for the future. Gingrich perhaps sees the writing on the wall. Any Democratic administration will most likely aggressively push for a “greening” of the US economy. Could “A Contract with the Earth” be the Republican blueprint for countering the likely Democratic environmental agenda?
Future of Food
This is a “must see” documenary for anyone interested in US agri-business policy, patent law, and environmental policy. You Tube has the entire film available. I recently came across this very interesting related piece in The New York Times Magazine.
Ecotopian Activist Warns Congress of ‘Planetary Emergency’
Former Vice President Al Gore, rejecting complaints by Republican lawmakers that he was waging an alarmist war on coal and oil use, insisted before Congressional panels today that human-caused global warming constitutes a “planetary emergency” requiring an aggressive federal response.
A Merry Prankster and Environmental ‘Heresies’
Since we just finished one “Merry Prankster” I thought you would appreciate this article about another. It’s getting spooky how everything is all coming together. Just what the heck was Janice Radway getting at anyways?
“He divides environmentalists into romantics and scientists, the two cultures he’s been straddling and blending since the 1960s. He was with the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead at their famous Trips Festival in San Francisco”
American State to enact 25% renewable electricity standard
via The Agonist
Today marked a milestone in the pursuit of America’s renewable energy policy, as I watched the Democratically-controlled Minnesota State Senate Committee on Energy, Utilities, Technology and Communications pass Senate File 4 moments ago, a bill which mandates about 25% of Minnesota’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2020, and the gradient of renewable energy will rise every few years until then. This will be America’s most aggressive renewable electricity policy, once it passes the Legislature.