Digital vs. Analog

I had the biggest laugh of the day while shaving the other morning and first hearing about Volkswagen's special emissions reduction software that works only when... being tested for emissions. Brilliant! 

Reminds me of the time when Hyundai had to cut the weight of their cars in order to meet US gas mileage standards. Solution: take the stuffing out of their fenders. Classic!

The Salt Of The Earth vs. Sebastião Salgado

OK, OK! So I am no doubt at least partly to blame, I'm the one who put Salgado on the god like pedestal, for all that he has shown and taught us photographically, concerning not only the human condition, but the state of the entire planet. I'm the one old enough to know better; no one is perfect- we're all mortal and flawed and sinful and weak... And I was also wrong when I said that Burtynsky should have been more openly critical of the giants of industry and commerce that he so famously documented in Manufactured Landscapes. Truth is, had he been so, he would have never been granted the access necessary to photograph in the first place- and the resulting images would have never even seen the light of day, let alone spoken as loudly as they did. 

But goddang, Sebastião! Now, whenever I hear your hallowed name, think of the spectacular work you have produced, the eyes and minds you have awakened- the grand legacy you sought to so gloriously immortalize will forever be tainted and marred by the rationalizations of such lesser men. I don't know what the budget was for Genesis, but maybe if you had taken one less helicopter ride, had your book weighed one pound less- had your exhibition prints measured in feet, rather than... meters, maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't have had to accept money from Satan himself in the guise of Vale Mining ("a Brazilian mining corporation that in 2012 was voted the worst company for human rights and environmental credentials")! For in doing so, your work has not only documented what man has wrought upon this once great planet, it also explains how all of us, great and small, have contributed to that destruction- be it in full knowledge, sheer ignorance or absolute denial...   Update: Erratum...

ClimateChange/Climate March

"...more than 2.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide released into the air every second."

Climate change means, amongst other things: less land to live on, and less potable water and food, particularly in areas already stricken with famine and drought- which in turn means... more (many more) people fighting for whatever remaining: food, land and water.

What promises to be the biggest climate protest will occur in NYC this Sept. 21st...

Self Destruction

Unfortunately, since this video was made, we have not only failed to curtail our own self destruction, we have redoubled our effort to destroy the very planet we live and depend upon and everything within it...

Blinded Them With Science

To say this is so scary on so many levels is, of course, a cliche. And yet scary is exactly what it is- and this I found particularly chilling (and telling)...

And eventually, when I spoke with the lawyer here at the University, I was told that, "Well, I represent the university, and I protect the university from liability. You’re kind of on your own." And I remember I looked at him, and I said, "But the very university, from the Latin universitas, is a collection of scholars, of teachers and students, so who is this entity, the university, that you represent that doesn’t include me?" But clearly there’s some entity that doesn’t really include us, the professors and students, and doesn’t really protect our academic freedom, I think, the way that it should.  (emphasis mine)

No- WE Are Broken...

Not just the ocean.  The simple fact is- we cannot exist without it...

Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff

At the end of this century when people no longer have access to what was once the biggest source of protein on... earth, some will ask why we allowed our biggest giver of life to turn into an open sewer where only jellyfish can survive amidst the tons of floating plastic, garbage and other detritus. They will ask why we simply watched it happen, allowed it to happen, and still did absolutely nothing- knowing full well that we cannot possibly survive without it.

And all we'll be able to say is... because we're human; and when you come down to it, killing is what we do best. Oh, we can build and create, sing and even love, but killing is what we're best at. Sometimes it makes no matter what we kill, or how we do it, long as there's something left to kill: human, plant or animal. We can always ask why later...

http://theterramarproject.org/

http://saveourseas.com/threats/overfishing

Photo: Kambou Sia

Fracking- It's What's Good For You!

We all need our daily minerals. And as everyone knows, a little radiation only makes you stronger...

So What's The Rush?

People act like all this radioactive shit leaking all over the place could get into their water supply or something!

"In all, since that very first leak in the 1950s, at least 69 tanks are known to have excreted more than 1 million gallons of waste — and possibly far more — into the soil."

The tanks create their own chemical environment. Between the heat and the radionuclides and the chemicals that are already in there, they're just their own nuclear reactors," Whalen said. "They're generating their own little world in there."

There now- ya see, things just have a way of... working their way out!

We Destroy Around Us Everything...

Yes, we can do this, it can still be done; we can save what remains of our home (planet) even this late in the game. But we won't- at least, not in time. We rather destroy whatever's left for the next iPhone, the next mega plasma HDTV screen, the next bright and mesmerizingly shiny new object that will occupy the next five minutes of our attention span. Plant a tree??? There's a sale on high capacity magazines! Lohan, Kardashians, I'm a Belieber...

Mange!

The Virus That Is Mankind

I suppose I should be just as ever the more outraged by the amount of human suffering openly visible on the streets of any major city on any given day. I suppose it is, in fact, the every day commonality of it all, and our everyday indifference- particularly since it is we ourselves who have purposely designed and created our very own living hell on earth, which we perpetuate throughout every succeeding generation.

Nevertheless, this disturbed me to my core. To see this majestic, and most graceful of animals suffer such an agonizingly slow and painful death in the poisonous toxic remains that we have so casually made of our earthly home- a scene that was repeated countless times in the Gulf of Mexico (courtesy of BP), and annually in Japan by the thousands.

Our very planet is dying all around us and all we can think of are our god given rights to own iPhones and semiautomatics. The human experiment was a brave and noble experiment, and it would be truly heartbreaking to witness our own demise- but better us (and infinitely more noble) than the entire planet, and better sooner, while it may still have a chance...

PBS: We Know Better & We Look The Other Way

Because it's all about the $$$, don't ya know. And we at the Petroleum Broadcasting System will take it any way it comes, from whoever wants to give it- no matter how red their hands run with the blood of their victims. Because... it's all about the $$$, don't ya know!

So give us your tired, your poor chemical conglomerate and worldwide petrochemical corporate dollars; we don't care what you've done, how you've done it, and who or how many you've done it to. Shit, we don't care if you're even still doing it! We swallow our pride with the best of 'em- in fact, we do it better than anyone else 'cause, fact is, we know better (and unlike FOX- so should our audience).

A few dead villagers here or there- no problem, entire local economies or environments devastated for generations... hey, the cost of doing business! How else would we bring you our wonderful nature programs, if not through the support of the very people who do so much to actively promote its destruction?        

We're PBS-  Happy Holidays!!! 

PS- This whole tirade resulted from watching the vomit inducing Chevron commercial promoting their feel good Nigerian AIDS program on PBS. The latest in the continuum of corporate killers they enthusiastically court and profit from so they can green wash themselves of their sins on our public airways.

Yes On #37

GMO's + Roundup = Cancer + Birth Defects

California has a chance to lead the nation this Tuesday- and catch up with the rest of the civilized world...

The Future Imperfect

Sometime this mid to latter century, your children's children will ask their parents whatever happened to these magnificent animals, when all that's left are hordes of jellyfish floating in a toxic soup of oxygen depleted water, man made chemicals and islands of wandering plastic waste. They'll somehow find the time to ask the way kids inevitably do- whenever there's a break from the recurrent global conflicts over potable water and arable lands.

And someone will have to tell them that no one cared enough about them or any other living thing (with the exception of their own venal selves)- so we knowingly continued to pollute, over fish, and enthusiastically convert two thirds of the world's surface area into the largest open air sewer known to humankind. Someone will have to tell them, that yes, the signs were both abundant and evident that our largest life source was in obvious, imminent danger and yet we continued to abuse it unabated, somehow maniacally setting aside the obvious conclusion that it would ultimately endanger our own survival.

Someone will have to answer them, but it won't be me, and it won't be you. And with that reassurance we'll continue to mine every last remaining gasp of fossil fuel no matter the environmental cost, we'll continue to vote for every policy that benefits wanton, short term economic growth, and we'll most happily continue to deny that we have reached that point of no return where the earth itself can no longer rebound, forgive or maintain us...   (BoingBoing)

HOME, SWEET, HOME!

Be it Romania, China or Tennessee, USA we're all more than adept at shitting on our own home planet...

Photos: Lu Guang