I think I was around 11 years old when I first became aware the dire prognosis of climate change for humanity. Back then, and it was back then, (let's see if anyone can figure out when 'back then" is), the condition was known as "The Greenhouse Effect" but the treatment prescribed was the same - reduce carbon emissions.
Clearly we have failed. And every year, the signifiers and warnings grow less and less abstract, looming as large as an iceberg over a rowboat from the Titanic. Yet, nothing changes politically.
Back in the 80s, a grassroots campaign that evolved out of fear of global warming managed to produce a ban on Hydroflourocarbons in aerosols and greatly diminish the use of styrofoam. All the fast food chains stopped using styrofoam. It's clear that popular movements that lead to, wait for it, widespread government! action, can produce change (that goes for causes i don't so much like too, unfortunately).
We humans could still change things, but the lifestyle adjustments required have proven to be severe. And I think the only people not to blame are those who live off the grid. Not a lot of them around. I live in New York and could pat myself on the back for not driving a car to work every day. But Kevin and I fly so much we negate any of that. And I love flying. I love going places. I really want to do things like journey to China, which we did in April.
Speaking of China, the reports about their hideous air quality have been greatly under-exaggerated. I do believe the US was like that in the 1970s, but government took action - banned lead-burning gasoline, enforced emissions standards, and the economy survived such regulation hassles JUST FINE.
I speak of my own lifestyle adjustments, or lack thereof, but it's everybody. Humans want to fly, they want to get around, they want to produce and ship and travel and visit, and see and explore and consume. If we didn't, we wouldn't be in this mess. And no amount of brow-beating will change that. Nor, clearly, will any slow-moving apocalypses.
However, humans are also extremely innovative and have a wonderful track-record of problem solving at the last minute. That is what I am hoping for. However, this seems to happen only after a truly unnecessary amount of hardship has occurred.
Who do I hope this will come from? Some mythical cadre of scientists and engineers I suppose. Could we please learn how to make these professions sexier?
I am about to set out on my next life adventure - the first of a couple big ones I presume I will be embarking upon in the next couple years. If I were a less selfish person I would not have chosen art for a graduate degree, I would have chosen something to do with climate change research. But there is no reason I cannot involve research or science in my art practice.
I could envision the apocalypse. Or perhaps I can document it. Speaking of burning carbon, another road trip lies in my immediate future. And the purchase of an automobile (never happened before!). We will be journeying out to California so that I can attend graduate school. I will earn my MFA in Photo / Video and Interactive Media at California Institute of the Arts -- CalArts - just north of Los Angeles. And my fabulous husband, Kevin Cooley, is being gracious enough to come with me, at least part-time.
In preparation for imminent loans and income slashing, I have been doing nothing but working - as a front end web developer no less (who knew?). This has not been a summer for creativity but that is okay. New York suffers no drought, but the rest of the United States is combusting like an ant under a magnifying glass at a boy scout camp. As we burn through the Great Plains and the West, I plan on documenting the scorched earth policy that we've launched against ourselves. Maybe we humans really do have a death wish.
But I wish to bring more to this project than mere documentation. Photographs of withered wheat in Kansas will not be fascinating. It's kind of a problem with photography these days in general. I do not know what to do yet. I am open to suggestion. And it would probably be a good idea if I did some reading. Send over the recommendations, come on!
The blog has been... well, on hiatus for many months, but generally just a content-mess reflective of the content mess of my mind. I never really picked a theme and stuck to it. And maybe i never will, maybe it will continue to reflect that mushy mass of brain mess that floats around up here every day. I think about work, about art, about my baby a lot, about the world and politics, and i try to avoid the presidential campaign because it's all generally disgusting. Although all you people disappointed by Obama, he was never the messiah to begin with, i don't know what they were thinking. See, mess of tangents. I don't know if that's ok. I am kind of looking to the experience of grad school to tighten me up conceptually. And no one is going to appreciate that more than me.
Wish me luck, i am wishing it for all of us!
Showing posts with label a better world. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a better world. Show all posts
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, September 30, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
I was bullied as a kid... (too)
Wow, I am really impressed.
I have been paying minor amounts of attention to the anti-bullying initiatives floating around the internet (or press about the ones being installed in schools). But although I haven't completely repressed the bullying I suffered through (now, did I commit some? That's suppressed...), I haven't thought to personally engage with this as an adult.
The It Gets Better Project, begun by Dan Savage and his partner Terry, is a great start in bringing attention to this enormous problem, and hopefully helping people. Obviously I support it, but I cannot completely identify personally because I am heterosexual (I still feel pain on behalf of friends of mine though, but that could be a days-long rant...).
My own personal experience was painful enough to be extremely influential in the development of myself. Although the excruciating generalities of the memories of two particular points in my life - 5th Grade and 7th Grade - are clearly delineated in my brain, the specifics of those periods seemed to have been flushed down some sort of pain drain. So, I don't think about these experiences much. But then, I read this story on Salon, in which writer Steve Almond actually publishes an interview with his 8th Grade tormentor.
I am touched by the compassion and Almond's ability to actually place the transactions of junior high school "kids will be kids" bs into the context of real people's lives. The actions of every single force in our lives affect how things will be, and it is easy to forget that. Life is intricate, but the harder we work to unravel the complexities, the more deeply rewarding it is. It's so easy to simply write off people as "bullies" and "assholes." But what about envisioning a world in which that can be prevented, in which people no longer become (or pass through phases) in which they are such things.
We can continue to punish the perpetrators, but isn't it time to figure out how to prevent the crime from the beginning?
I think it's terrifying to envision a peaceful, harmonious world. It's frightening to even try to make a more peaceful, harmonious "self." I don't mean this sarcastically, I think this is a real thing for people, for our culture. What would we talk about? What kind of media would actually sell if people weren't scared to death all the time? If people didn't stress-eat bad foods and gain weight, they wouldn't buy weight loss products. If people were happy with themselves, they wouldn't need to buy as much cosmetics, plastic surgery, clothing, strippers, whatever... When there's a threat, you want information. Our major media keeps us in thrall to a constant low-level sense of fight or flight. Sure, it's important to know about the world, but I notice that I get less and less from consuming the news. Half of what goes on in the world doesn't get covered in the mainstream media anyway.
If the media and advertising industries cannot sell by tweaking our fear instincts, then wouldn't our entire economy collapse? Wouldn't that be even more painful?
The Hippies talked about a dawning of a new consciousness. It may be easy to ridicule the New Age Movement, but a shift in consciousness is such an enormous change that it's pretty much unimaginable. There is much to malign in corporations but they are made up of individual humans, and most of those humans, at least on a personal level think they want a better world. They don't want to cause "real" pain in whatever way they want to define it. But I don't think the powerful interests of the Western world actually can envision any way to act than how they do. Living in the harmony envisioned by the television-less residents of the state of Bhutan doesn't make any sense to most of us.
It's that vision, and it will be radical, that we need to develop.
But one step towards that is examining and investigating the elements of our culture that allow and even encourage bullying, which Salon.com is starting to do.
I have been paying minor amounts of attention to the anti-bullying initiatives floating around the internet (or press about the ones being installed in schools). But although I haven't completely repressed the bullying I suffered through (now, did I commit some? That's suppressed...), I haven't thought to personally engage with this as an adult.
The It Gets Better Project, begun by Dan Savage and his partner Terry, is a great start in bringing attention to this enormous problem, and hopefully helping people. Obviously I support it, but I cannot completely identify personally because I am heterosexual (I still feel pain on behalf of friends of mine though, but that could be a days-long rant...).
My own personal experience was painful enough to be extremely influential in the development of myself. Although the excruciating generalities of the memories of two particular points in my life - 5th Grade and 7th Grade - are clearly delineated in my brain, the specifics of those periods seemed to have been flushed down some sort of pain drain. So, I don't think about these experiences much. But then, I read this story on Salon, in which writer Steve Almond actually publishes an interview with his 8th Grade tormentor.
I am touched by the compassion and Almond's ability to actually place the transactions of junior high school "kids will be kids" bs into the context of real people's lives. The actions of every single force in our lives affect how things will be, and it is easy to forget that. Life is intricate, but the harder we work to unravel the complexities, the more deeply rewarding it is. It's so easy to simply write off people as "bullies" and "assholes." But what about envisioning a world in which that can be prevented, in which people no longer become (or pass through phases) in which they are such things.
We can continue to punish the perpetrators, but isn't it time to figure out how to prevent the crime from the beginning?
I think it's terrifying to envision a peaceful, harmonious world. It's frightening to even try to make a more peaceful, harmonious "self." I don't mean this sarcastically, I think this is a real thing for people, for our culture. What would we talk about? What kind of media would actually sell if people weren't scared to death all the time? If people didn't stress-eat bad foods and gain weight, they wouldn't buy weight loss products. If people were happy with themselves, they wouldn't need to buy as much cosmetics, plastic surgery, clothing, strippers, whatever... When there's a threat, you want information. Our major media keeps us in thrall to a constant low-level sense of fight or flight. Sure, it's important to know about the world, but I notice that I get less and less from consuming the news. Half of what goes on in the world doesn't get covered in the mainstream media anyway.
If the media and advertising industries cannot sell by tweaking our fear instincts, then wouldn't our entire economy collapse? Wouldn't that be even more painful?
The Hippies talked about a dawning of a new consciousness. It may be easy to ridicule the New Age Movement, but a shift in consciousness is such an enormous change that it's pretty much unimaginable. There is much to malign in corporations but they are made up of individual humans, and most of those humans, at least on a personal level think they want a better world. They don't want to cause "real" pain in whatever way they want to define it. But I don't think the powerful interests of the Western world actually can envision any way to act than how they do. Living in the harmony envisioned by the television-less residents of the state of Bhutan doesn't make any sense to most of us.
It's that vision, and it will be radical, that we need to develop.
But one step towards that is examining and investigating the elements of our culture that allow and even encourage bullying, which Salon.com is starting to do.
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