I saw this Exxon Mobil commercial while home for Thanksgiving. I found it interesting that Exxon Mobil is trying to show themselves as caring for the environment while they have a commercial where people are constantly turning on a lot of lights. It also looks like they are showing fracking on the large screen. When I saw the commercial I was walking to the kitchen to get dessert when I stopped to take note of how ridiculous it was.

http://www.ispot.tv/ad/AIOJ/exxon-mobil-lights-across-america

I talked about this a little bit in my blog post about Koyaanisqatsi, but I think the Kiosk deserves a post of its own. Lori and I have been working on designing a Sustainability Kiosk for the Sustainability Module for the Connected Communities Program. Many members of this class are also involved in this project.

In Professor Smith’s blog post he asked, “Can art save the world?” I still don’t know the answer to this but I think its a very good question of if all the media made about environmental issues and climate change issues is really doing more harm than good. Al Gore flies around on his private jet talking about global warming, but how many more fossil fuels is he distributing by getting his message out about not using fossil fuels? It’s difficult to say.

In building our Kiosk, Lori and I tried to be as sustainable as possible. Lori got the branches from the tree her family was cutting down in her yard at home. My task was to find a base for the Kiosk and I thought I would be able to find one at my farm at home. I wasn’t able to find anything that worked at home but when I went to Walmart when I got back there was a box that would be perfect from Walmart for just $6.74. Who could pass up the perfect base for $6.74? I sure wasn’t going to.

By buying that box at Walmart however, I did my sustainability module an injustice. That box was produced in an unsustainable manner and probably shipped from thousands of miles away. I could have gotten or made the same box myself, but it would have cost about 4 or 5 times as much. The conclusion? people are not going to be sustainable until it is convenient to to be sustainable.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34980491

In this article, peppered with the dry, British sarcasm that keeps me coming back to BBC, Jon Sopel outlines the terribly ironic fact that the American media loves weather disasters, but is conveniently ignorant that these disasters are the implication of a changing climate. It goes on to discuss that, although President Obama has been making strides to make climate a policy priority, it is being systematically blocked and dismissed by Republicans.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this is rooted in money. Our system is set up in such a way that those who fund the media and political elections are the ones who potentially have the most to lose if humans are, in fact, causing the climate to change. This will always end in coverage to be skewed and blur the truth of climate change and politicians to always vote against changing the status quo. The only way for America to get its head out of the sand is to uproot this system.

Cultures of Nature Final Response Paper (RP6, 4-5 pages)

Due: 5:00 PM Wednesday, December 16

 Option 1: Your Personal Cultures of Nature Manifesto

Manifesto = a public declaration

of the views, aims, intentions, opinions of a person or group

Option 1 for the final response paper is an energetic vision, an articulation and final word on the issues raised in the course. Here you declare and assert your own ideas about nature, and how humans and nature are to coexist now and into the future. The paper should clearly integrate/bounce off/offer homage to some of the texts and ideas discussed in class as well as our out-of-class experiences, and could also incorporate relevant outside source material and perspectives. But the dominant voice and vision in this manifesto comes from YOU. This is your chance to synthesize some of what you have learned in the course, as well as a chance to tackle something you’ve not yet been able to address in a sustained way. The work may proceed from writing you have already done for the course (but be expanded and transformed) or it may be something entirely new. Use graphics, images, or quotes as appropriate, and citations and reference list.

Option 2: Story of a Place and You

Option 2 is your own personal written version of the Story of Place assignment. This is your chance to tell perhaps a more complete or somewhat different Story of Place, as well as to address something that didn’t make the final cut or that others in your group voted down for one reason or another. The paper may be about the same place as the video or a completely different place (about which you have done similar layers of research). This paper may also proceed from writing you have already done for the course blog (e.g., the research log reports). As in your video, your paper should tell an engaging story of change, including historical details and demonstrating knowledge and perspectives on both nature and culture, with connections to some of the texts and ideas discussed in class. What is different here is that you should account for change in YOU as connected to the place. Use graphics, images, or quotes as appropriate, and citations and reference list.

This film had a powerful message about human society and its impact on the Earth’s landscape. It used different images to compare what an uninhabited Earth looks like compared to an inhabited planet. The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse footage of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. There was a lack of narration and powerful music was played through out it. I am unsure how I felt about the lack of speech in the film. The music had a very large influence about how the viewer felt while watching the movie. At certain times I felt bored because I think the images duration were too long and I wanted to jump to the next scene. I think the time period of when the film was made was also a very important factor to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of its message to the viewer. It was made in the early 1980s in a time when everyone thought they were going to die in a nuclear explosion so it felt very real.

The filmmaker Godfrey Reggio said that the Qatsi films are intended to simply create an experience and that “it is up [to] the viewer to take for himself/herself what it is that [the film] means.” He also said that “these films have never been about the effect of technology, of industry on people. It’s been that everyone: politics, education, things of the financial structure, the nation state structure, language, the culture, religion, all of that exists within the host of technology. So it’s not the effect of, it’s that everything exists within [technology]. It’s not that we use technology, we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe.” I really like that Reggio wanted everyone to take away whatever they wanted from the film. It allows the viewer to think their own opinions on the film even though Reggio is clearly trying to change people’s opinions of society. He shows no happy people singing at a birthday party, but rather the bad side of society like collapsing buildings and factories being torn down.

I have pondered the question “can art save the world?” many times. I think its important to consider the carbon footprint of every action we make and review the impact it makes. For example, in the EVST Capstone class we are building a Kiosk which is basically just an artistic tree that is supposed to represent how people have no idea where their resources come from. It is a tree covered in newspaper with little branches sticking out. It is a piece of art but most of the supplies to build it came from Walmart. By shopping at a store that is as unsustainable as Walmart to build our art, is our message really valid? This is what I wondered about while watching Koyaanisqatsi. These film makers traveled all over the world to film this film, being flown all over the world to continuously distribute more and more fossil fuels into the sky. The film was not filmed in such a way that is sustainable, so is its message still valid? I am still unsure if I am willing to say art can save the world, but maybe it can change people’s minds.

You’d think that after seeing this film for a second time that I’d be less interested and not overwhelmed, but that was proven false on Monday. Seeing it through older eyes and with more environmental knowledge under my belt, I was even more moved and transfixed by the cult film. My heart rate increased, I was greatly affected by the music, and I had a hard time peeling my eyes from the screen. It’s hard to describe my initial reaction, but after reading my blog post from last year’s class, I had similar feelings of being overwhelmed and angry. This time I was less angry. Does that mean I’ve come to terms with the film and/or with society? There are so many grand and memorable moments that create an out of body experience. In the first section of the movie we are presented with tons of beautiful nature shots and pans along with intensifying Hopi music. The combination of the two make the scene so intense and pure that my thoughts are racing a mile a minute even though I’m only looking at a waterfall or the desert. When normally looking at these things, we are peaceful and calm.

I’m curious to know why the director chose to use lower and slower music during some scenes. What do these moments offer? One scene where this occurred was a shot of the dam, so were the film makers giving us a second to breathe to take in the human impacts on the land? A different scene that was difficult to watch was the plane moving slowly towards the camera. It was happening at an uncomfortable pace, but coupled with intense music made it almost unbearable. The film overall gives the idea that humans through industrialization/machines/technology have altered this landscape so quickly after so many years of it being pristine. We are made aware of tribal peoples at the beginning and end through the cave paintings. This gives the message that the land was taken away from these people and then absolutely slaughtered by our industry. I don’t like to think about it because it happened so long ago and there is little to do about it now.

The built environment has allowed Americans to recreate indoors, shop indoors, move from city to city indoors, and basically do everything with a roof above our heads. Our views of the moon are obstructed due to buildings and bright city lights, and there is no way of escaping what we’ve created/built. We move too quickly through life, and that is displayed when the cars are moving north/south/east/west in the city in sped up time. The lights are moving so fast before our eyes, like a video game or TV cartoon. You feel as if there is no way out, you’re trapped in this maze. So what does this film want to accomplish? I left feeling overwhelmed and exhausted after enduring this 1.5 hour sensory overload. The end of the film ends with words, the five Hopi definitions for Koyaanisquatsi which are almost an environmental call to action. Number 5 is the most intriguing which says “A state of life that calls for another way of living”. We aren’t told how to alter our ways, but this movie instills so much fear that maybe it can be possible? Is this film capable of changing our life styles?

I was following this car yesterday on Rt. 22. This dead buck looks much less regal on the back of this guy’s car than the trophies at Cabela’s.

I haven’t been able to get the chant out of my head since Monday. Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi, Koyaanisqatsi.

Like many others in our class, the movie weighed really heavily on me. From the very start, I was confused. The film seemed like some type of torture material rather than a documentary. As the film continued, however, I started to feel depressed. I think that many environmental documentaries, like Cove, are presented with a sad or depressing message. This movie was different.

The emotional weight of the film didn’t come from a narrator or a distinct plot line. Instead, it burned analogous images into my brain until I was so overwhelmed with modern society that I could barely keep watching.

The shots of New York City have stuck with me two days later. Although I’m from a densely populated suburb of Boston, I’ve always felt more comfortable in rural settings (you probably know that by now). I’ve been to New York a number of times but I’ve never really enjoyed it. I’m completely overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle. There is always too much going on and everything is cramped and dirty.

Watching Koyssnisqatsi amplified that stress. The film kept repeating the escalator images and the shots of thousands of people in the streets. Everyone seemed so generic, bored, or sad.

Since this piece was filmed in the 1980s, it was interesting to see it with from a modern environmental perspective. The film isn’t addressing climate change or wildlife conservation. Instead, I interpreted it to be a message of warning. “Look what our planet has become. It started as this lush, untouched world that was beautiful. Now, by the billions, we build and move around our cities like robots in an assembly line.”

There was certainly a lot thrown at you in this film. It is hard to process all of it and while I’d like to take another shot at it, I’m not sure if I could stand to watch it again.

The biology class that I am in talked about “The Cove” earlier this semester after reading a scholarly article* about genetic analysis of whale meat sole in Japan. In 1982 an indefinite moratorium was placed on commercial whale hunting. There are exceptions to the moratorium, such as hunting by indigenous people and hunting whales for research. The study we read analyzed whale meat, sold under the umbrella term “kujira”, that was found in grocery stores. While many of the samples of kujira were matched to whales that if they were being hunted now would be illegal, some of the meat was actually identified as dolphin meat. This is where “The Cove” came into discussion, as we shall see in class today. While the Japanese people happily eat whale meat as part of their culture, eating dolphin meat is unthinkable, like how Americans would not want to eat dog meat. I’m a little nervous about watching the film because the trailer that we watched in my biology class was disturbing enough, but I think the issue it addresses is important.

*Baker C.S., S.R. Palumbi. (1994). Which whales are hunted? A molecular genetic approach to monitoring whales. Science 265: 1538-1539.