if Porter and Adams had a son...

I came to the article The Death of Environmentalism not entirely liking the title and sort of already making up my mind as to whether or not I agreed with it... this is before I read it. The title was that off-putting it made me think it was environmentalists slamming the rest of us for not being "green" enough. I guess I was a little right and a little wrong. It turns out I actually do agree with most of the article and find most of the background on the political side of environmentalism fascinating.

The thesis of the article is on page 7: "The environmental community's narrow definition of its self-interest leads to a kind of policy literalism that undermines its power." Literalism meaning in a way where environmentalists are fixed on achieving goals and milestones that are actually quite unachievable and actually set back the environmental movement because instead of small gains, the end result is no progress and the other side has rallied against your cause only to gain more solidarity. If I had read this article when it was written in 2004, I might have been more upset or more reactionary to it. However, Environmentalism and specific people (Al Gore, one of their main examples) have really rallied in the past few years and the movement has been spurred by a strengthening and a defining of the movement and its goals, victories by Democrats in elections and a weakening of the Republican base in every level of government. Now, that has yet to create a tide of change but I get the feeling that an awareness is present in the U.S. that wasn't there when this article was written 5 years ago.

The article by Shellenberger and Nordhaus acknowledges the misguided perceptions of Americans about environmentalists and gets to the root of the issue, how America is actually a lot more conservative than anyone on the left likes to admit. Also, how environmentalists suffer from a really bad case of group think - mainly "what we mean by 'the environment' - a category that reinforces the notions that a) the environment is a separate 'thing' and b) human beings are separate from and superior to the 'natural world'" (page 12). Instead of harnessing public perception and creating a base of issues from which the movement can start and then branch out, the movement has been focused on goals that directly take on industries where political clout and money are so dense, that no one and nothing has made a dent in them for the last 50 years.

The mistakes of groups and individuals are made clear by The Death of Environmentalism. Maybe it was the kick in the butt that Al Gore needed to take his slide show to the big screen. Shellenberger portrays Gore as one of the most guilty parties of the left, backing down in the 2000 election when they needed him most. But he did come back with An Inconvenient Truth and now I worry that he's beginning to loose it again. Maybe it's a case of crying wolf and we all turn a deaf ear and then it actually is a bear - or maybe just a wild dog... But anyway, my point is that this article focuses on something that I have become aware of since the rise of the environmental movement and that's how with the rise of extremists attitudes on both sides of the issue have lead to a stalemate for any real reform in the way America makes and uses its energy.

Bringing these issues to art is difficult for me. I'd like to think that my work isn't predictably environmental but talks about the environment and our footprint in a non-threatening sort of way. I would like to think that I'm an environmentally aware photographer. I realize the amount of chemicals and wasted paper I churn out and I always get the highest mileage vehicle I can get (which is usually the cheapest). But this stuff isn't directly in my art and it definitely isn't in my artist statement. If I do these things and make work that talks about land use and beauty and then don't take any step to show the work in a venue where the environment is talked about, am I really aware? what is the point?

I guess this brings me to the next article by Rebecca Solnit on Eliot Porter, Every Corner Is Alive. The article was really enlightening on the life and work of Porter and I feel like his work gets slighted by both the art and environmental communities because it doesn't clearly come out on either side. It isn't definitely conceptual, a rising movement when he did his major work, and it wasn't exactly the spark that was needed to spur the environmental movement. It did however, take a new view of landscape that the prevailing and preeminent landscape photographer, Ansel Adams, was lacking.

Eliot Porter. Red Tree. Near Cade's Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park,Tennessee, 1957.

In looking at my own work, I think I'm positioned right in-between Porter and Adams. As Porter rarely incorporated evidence of human culture in his American work and Adams definitely did not, Solnit posits that the people in Porter's images from around the world were more integrated within their landscape as the "rootless" people of the U.S. were not. My argument with my own work has been that a) we are integrated with the land in the U.S. (in some poignant places) and b) this integration has come to defines us, so, we are not rootless anymore.

some images by me...

Duluth Central, 2008.

Look Rock, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2009

I think it is admirable for an artist to take dead aim at environmental issues in their work however, I think it might be a little naive to think that one's work, at this point, will singularly start a chain reaction that enables a shift in thinking and political movement. Burtynsky takes the middle road. Solnit states "facts themselves are political, since just to circulate the suppressed and obscured ones is a radical act" (Solnit 33). Burtynsky's work gives facts in clear, high-fi, large format detail. It's impossible to ignore or debate what is going on in his photos. If his work is political, and by Solnit's calculation it is, then Burtynsky has a responsibility to make sure his photos are seen in a context where the preservation and conservation of the environment is focused.

I just found this today... This is just one example of how the Environmentalism and Green Movement lately, have been a little out of whack in their rhetoric. Obama throws around "clean coal" in just about every stump speech. But what is "clean coal"? Does anyone really realize how dependent the U.S. is on coal and what the repercussions are of investing in coal technology instead of investing in solar, wind and other "sustainable" technology? The "clean coal" solution reminds me of the "low tar" and "light" cigarettes that came out in the 60s when they found out that cigarettes caused cancer. It's not really a solution. It's a way around a huge, systemic problem that will take more than a generation to fix.