The Hidden Costs

Much contemporary art is so esoteric as to leave the incognoscenti out in the cold. Much of what is au courant in the world of “art” photography currently is far less remarkable than the story behind the picture - which is often the story of the artist’s travails.

This narcissist tendency is perhaps natural in a time when real issues are so murky and insoluble, but the classical concept of art being about the world seems suddenly relevant and necessary. Art should move people, not just be a cascade of insider references. The development of the techniques of manipulating emotions comprises most of the history of art, till the time “art” became precisely the rejection of such techniques.

My work is about creating a sense of irony by utilizing these techniques to make compelling images that have layers of meaning based on contemporary issues.

But narratives are what we crave, the balm for awareness, the explanation of the unknown. As a story-teller, one wants to relate those stories, and this current exhibit at the UmweltBundesAmt (The German Environmental Agency) is just that. For the first time, we assemble maps and satellite views, detailed explanations of the pictures in German and English, and a set of graphic icons that represent the various impacts of the processes.

Assembling all of the components, an old desire, has been several years in the making. The exhibit was born at Natur Museum Südtirol in Bolzano, Italy, but the creation of this extensive appendix was beyond time or budget.
Ideally, the appendix would be web-based, so viewers could browse at any time. One even imagines using QR codes with each image to link directly as the viewer is experiencing the picture. But ushering smart devices into an exhibit is a gift from Pandora, and it’s nice to make it physical, and to separate information from image so viewers must first contemplate. Also nice is to credit the many people who make an exhibit happen, especially one so complex, from pilots to curators and translators.

View of "The Hidden Costs" exhibition at Umweltbundesamt

Heroes

One has many heroes throughout life which seem to increase in complexity with our edge.

My heroes now are those that risk life and comfort in the service of others. And since the environment is my life mission, my heroes tend to be those that have worked in that realm. The Russian photographer that knowingly sacrificed himself to document Chernobyl, Anatoly Rasskazov, Edward Snowden, who gave up a comfortable life to expose a grave wrong by his country, Bradley Manning who exposed an even greater wrong, and suffered even more.

In my work as an artist, working on the environment I have been lucky enough to photograph many of my personal heroes, and will launch a tribute to them with a series of social media posts.

Most of them have guided me on missions in the flesh or direction, and all of them have clarified my understanding with their knowledge and experience. In the interminable battle to save our life support systems from parties that would profit by disrupting them, these individuals stand very large. #HeroOfTheDay

Larry Gibson, mountain top removal activist

 

Larry's death a few years back is still being felt throughout the MTR activist community and beyond. He was a leader in the movement to end MTR and a good friend. He is deeply missed.

A Day in the Life of A Photographer

One of the things I love about my job is that I never have to do the same thing two days in a row. On any given day it can alternate from satisfying and frustrating to terrifying, and the next day will surely be different. This is not to complain, rather to confess that if I don't keep changing it up, I get bored with myself, then self-destructive.
And I have been very lucky to have two branches of my art for which I am so passionate: making portraits of some of the greatest artists and thinkers of our day, and then being feted for my own body of "artistic work" about a subject for which I care so deeply.

It's a real honor to be able to make portraits of these women and men who are the best in the world at what they do. What I want to show is that mixture of intelligence, ability, curiosity, tenacity, and luck that makes them unique.
I make pictures of environmental issues because I care so much and believe I can, with luck, tenacity, curiosity, and ability, bring a unique viewpoint to their urgency and ubiquity.
So I pursue these two branches of my craft with equal passion, which inform and enhance each other. The essence of photography is the capturing of the precise moment in time when subject, composition and lighting come together to make a magic picture, and then I just count myself lucky to be there with a working camera.

The World's Great Composers

as featured on the cover of Gramophone Magazine

The Gibbes Vote

Sometimes it takes a while for me to get the picture.

When the Gibbes Museum in Charleston announced a "People's Choice" exhibit, I happily completed their questionnaire about favorite artists and what not, and basically ignored their further requests for me to drum up the troops via the various "social" interfaces that seem to be the rage.

Only at the last minute, the day before Easter, did I finally read the email and understand that I needed to call the hearty to arms to vote for inclusion of my piece in the exhibit.

Mind you, I was on a little agriturismo, eating oranges and drinking Portuguese wine. In spite of the intermittent internet, I valiantly put down my drink (we were on to port by this point), and logged-on to the one and the other and begged my friends and connections to perform two clicks and vote for my piece (“Pig Shit” (alternately titled "Bacon" in politer circles)).
And it worked, proving that you can get your friends to cast a few clicks on your behalf on short notice. Or, maybe that your friends don't have any other lives than to be looking at social media the night before Easter.

Ironically, if one posts an urgent call for action about an arcane but vital environmental bill, we are much less likely to act.
Somehow the information overload makes me less able to respond and act on weighty citizenship issues, and more in search of divertimenti. Ironic that we all seem so preoccupied in our digital world, when the physical world cries out for our ministrations.

Song of the Earth in Weimar

In 1905, having just been expelled from his position as court composer in Vienna, discovering his heart failure, and grieving the loss of his daughter, Gustav Mahler put the poems of Hans Bethge to his signature sound, creating one of the great pieces of modern music, and musically anticipating the turmoil soon to engulf the world.

Multi-media projects in their best iterations magnify the good of each of the component media, just as Mahler's music enhances the words of Bethge. Das Lied von der Erde was created during the apocalyptic collision of the historic narratives of Europe. Juxtaposing lyrical images of the detritus of our consumption with Das Lied von Der Erde is a natural fit for the creation of a larger work to address these modern issues.

Creating a multi-media piece involves interweaving multiple narratives, which sometimes speak to each other, and otherwise tell their own stories. Here was an opportunity for my work to reach a completely new audience, one that was largely unexposed to this message about the looming disasters that face us, and our causal behavior.

So many times a magic idea needs just the one person that “gets it” and makes it happen, seemingly with the snap of the fingers. In this case, that person was Stefan Solyom, conductor of the Weimar Staatskapelle. Then arise the complexities of actually executing a simple idea. The visual animation of the Industrial Scars images was redacted by Joel Plotch, done with an old recording by Bruno Walter and the Vienna Philharmonic to set the meter, a recording Stefan and I had agreed was our favorite.

What a foolish assumption to think that all would go according to plan. The two soloists, of course, had their own interpretation of the proper tempo, and it did not match that of Bruno Walter. The tenor, Andreas Conrad, preferred a much faster rendition, and the soprano Tuija Knihtilä, slower. So there I was, dripping sweat in the dress rehearsal as my masterpiece seemed about to crash and burn. With a deep breath, the idea of continuously adjusting the video playback rate to keep time with the music was the obvious solution, albeit one requiring intense concentration, especially not being a German speaker.

Ultimately, the performance was breath-taking - the projection of Industrial Scars images in HD over the heads of the orchestra was a transformative experience (at least for me).

ESQ

Last week, I had the great pleasure to photograph the Emerson String Quartet, one of the great music groups of our day. Confession: I have never heard them play live. With good humor they endured my imperious bullying, and we got many great shots which will soon be seen on their new CD for Sony.

It’s such a joy to work with people that are masters of their craft. I think it’s what I like best about my job. And of course, gentle teasing is also a great part of the day. Playing a little country music for the Juilliard mafia is always a must. And of course these things only happen when the real work is done by someone else, in this case, Dirk, Susan, and Katherine.

It turned out that the group was playing at the Met Museum the next night, joining the pianist Menahem Pressler. Only a small amount of begging was necessary to obtain a ticket. The evening opened with Mr. Pressler doing a Beethoven sonata and ended with him and the Quartet playing Dvořák. It is a great joy to see a group of artists that have been doing their thing for decades get up there and so clearly enjoy themselves, and play the pieces as if they had never been played. I was transported.

The complete program:
Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110 ~ Beethoven
Estampes ~ Debussy
Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81 ~ Dvořák

Upon arriving home and digging in my CD collection, I found a version of Schubert played by Mr. Pressler and the Beaux Arts Trio. This is one of my long time favorites, probably due to Kubrick’s adroit use of it in Barry Lyndon.

Who said this music was aging?

Sing A Different Tune

Even when traveling to speak, I want to carry an image recorder. And if I’m going to spend the time to make the images, I want the result to be worth printing and keeping. Of course, to carry the good quality digital means a mule-load of equipment, batteries, drives, chargers, zoom lenses with vibration control, and other such indulgences. Our impulse these days seems to be for the “does-it-all” solution, which of course speaks for the HD video camera that shoots the nice panorama still (if you remember to bring the screw-on wide-angle adaptor). But ultimately, it does not satisfy. If you shoot video, the audio doesn’t make it because there is no sound man, and the stills are too low-res for large applications. The answer is so obvious as to require an apology with its revelation: shoot on some of the film in the fridge. Which, of course, is all about pulling out the M6.

I’m someone who loves things well-made. Anything. Even if I don’t like that category of object. And I’m a photographer, who ultimately still loves the mystery of a photon hitting a light sensitive surface. I will admit I still sometimes pull the old Leicas out of the safe and run through the shutter speeds, several times on each one. That’s what I was taught to do to spread the grease in the shutter. The Leica M series is a wonderful, well-designed, lovingly-made celebration of the human’s ability to craft something that is both machine and artwork.

I hate the contemporary practice, inevitable with technology, of taking the picture and looking at it immediately to decide if that was what you wanted. Confession: I do it too. But how craven.

So to have the result of the evolution of knowledge of camera-making in hand again, and respond to the rigor it demands, is quite a joy. Of course, for the big jobs, it’s not possible not to digitize... between cost and schedule.

And let’s not forget, film has a tremendous footprint.

My hope is that Leica will someday produce a digital reflex camera that uses the wonderful lenses I have kept in pristine condition. Hard to slow the march of progress.

Thank God, the Ice is Melting...

...otherwise, how would we get all that oil that we know lies under the Arctic? It’s a bit of a nuisance that the northeast has to suffer from such a rotten winter for it, but believe me, and ice-free North Pole will be better for everyone. Of course, we might have to fight the Russians for the mineral rights, but we’ll kick some commie butt just like we did the last time.

Our hunger for petrol and dwindling supplies are driving exploration farther afield, and the Arctic is the next on the list for extraction.

The recent spill in the Gulf Of Mexico taught the world much about oil spills and response. Fortunately, the spill happened in the spring within 200 miles of some of the most well-equipped ports in the world for offshore oil operations. In the Beaufort Sea, where Shell is preparing to drill north of Alaska, there is not a deepwater port for a thousand miles, and that one is a one-horse harbor in the middle of the ocean. The water in the area is only navigable a portion of the year, and periodic storms with “sustained winds may reach 65 to 70 knots; significant wave heights can climb to 40 to 50 feet” occur every few years.

A recent European study on Arctic weather forecasts "large increases in the potential for extreme weather events" and warns that "commercial activities in the North (e.g. fisheries, oil industry, shipping) will become increasingly vulnerable" to severe Polar low-pressure systems, described as the "Arctic Cousins" of tropical hurricanes.

Of course, as the weather gets rougher, accidents will increase and remediation becomes more difficult.

Until recent years, technology limitations and low oil prices have kept this vast repository of hydrocarbon wealth essentially out of reach of extraction. Those limiting factors are rapidly diminishing and oil companies are rushing to get a stake in the action. Logically, disasters, delays, and cost overruns would be directly proportional to severity of site conditions and distance from logistical support.

Some recent developments in Arctic petroleum exploration/extraction:

-The Norwegian national oil company Statoil has been producing gas from its Snøhvit drilling site above the Arctic Circle since September 2007. The ambitious project is completely sub-aqueous, and has been plagued with delays, overruns, and un-permitted greenhouse gas releases since the beginning. Statoil is one of the biggest players in some of the dirtiest hydrocarbon projects in the world, including the Catskills hydro-fracking controversy.

-BP has recently signed a deal with the Russian state-owned Rosneft to explore the Arctic areas off Russia’s continental shelf. Neither Russia or BP are known for their attention to the environment or safety record.

-Shell has received permits to begin exploration off the north coast of Alaska in the Beaufort Sea, and is moving equipment, including a drill ship and a newly built spill response ship into the area in anticipation. When one remembers that thousands of vessels were involved in the BP Deepwater cleanup, and one specialty disaster response ship seems inadequate. Shell has a record of environmental destruction and governmental manipulations in their projects around the world.

-Cairn Energy began drilling off the Arctic Coast of Greenland this summer, but had to stop after GreenPeace activists suspended themselves from structure of the drill rig.

If you were hoping that peak oil would arrive and provide the restraint that we seem to lack as a species, vis-a-vis our carbon addiction, think again. The dirty oil sources (like the tar sands) will allow us to continue to push up the atmospheric CO2 meter at an increasingly accelerated pace. Of course, when all of the ice has melted, the oceans will only rise 220 feet, so if you are in the mountains you’ll be fine, except for the sunburn...

Artist or Activist?

28 September 2010

Artist or activist? This question frequently arises in relation to the Industrial Scars project. The work is first and foremost art [works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power]. Many years of study into the rules of composition, color, and lighting have gone in to their making. The images hang in galleries and museums, and fetch high prices from collectors. All that said, the subject matter is highly contentious, which inherently makes the work political. There is plenty of precedent for this in the art world from Goya to Picasso to the artists of the Third Reich. This is art with a message.

One current project, Coal Ash, is about the 140 million tons of toxic waste generated as power plants burn this most polluting hydrocarbon to produce our electricity. Coal combustion waste (CCW) contains mercury, lead, arsenic, boron, selenium, and so on, but the utility industry has managed to keep it designated as non-toxic. Most of the 600 coal-burning power plants in the USA dispose their waste ash in unlined impoundments, from which the ash leaches into groundwater, or worse, bursts out and poisons the surrounding land and waterways. The other method of disposal is in your home. Because of its designation, utilities are permitted to sell the waste to manufacturers who use it as a component in: sheetrock, concrete, fertilizer, fill, paint, and a host of other products.

The EPA is currently holding hearings about the designation, and environmental groups are fighting to have it reclassified under subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) so that it must be handled as the toxic waste that it is. Every citizen has a personal stake in this as this toxic waste might already be in your home, and given the dispersal of coal-fired power plants, there might well be a coal ash dump near your house, contaminating the groundwater with arsenic.

Today I am in Washington DC where I will, along with the help of EarthJustice, lobby congressmen about the rule change, and then hold a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building, Room B-369.

Long-lasting change in our society ultimately happens through political machinations, which are foreign to me. Since my art is about things that need to change, this is an exciting adventure. And thus, the artist becomes activist.

What Can I Do About It?

8 September 2010

Climate change is a contentious issue currently, generating heated rhetoric, tremendous media expenditures, and much disinformation.

Dr. James Hansen, the scientist who is the leading U.S. expert on climate issues is focusing on cutting our coal use as the most effective thing we can do about global warming. Coal combustion is a significant contributor to climate change, and comprises 50% of electricity generation (in the USA.) We can easily affect this by reducing electricity consumption (turn off the lights, unplug appliances).

About 25-35% of climate change gases are caused by deforestation, the greatest portion in the southern hemisphere. Agriculture, commercial logging, and homesteading are some of the major factors driving this conversion, and each of them has a host of contributing elements, many of which point back to consumption in the more “developed” economies. Deforestation will remain a complex, intractable issue, but the individual that wanted to minimize her contribution to that process could consider: not consuming fast food made from livestock raised in the southern hemisphere, not driving (biofuel use of palm oil), and avoiding other uses of palm oil.

Soda consumption is a little considered, but significant cause of climate change on several levels: aluminum production uses prodigious quantity of electricity and releases large amounts of other greenhouse gases. Recycling one aluminum can save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours (EPA, 2008). The climate change impact of the contents of soda would be another fascinating discussion.

Motivated by ideological agendas, it's easy to vilify the scientists who are trying to explain this very complex issue (climate change), especially if they make a mistake or are seen exhibiting human weaknesses.

Though the science now seems certain that warming is occurring, and that it is in part human-caused, no one can predict the exact effects or timeline of climate change, so there will inevitably be misestimations. We know that when all of that ice melts, sea levels will flood coastal areas. This will drive mass relocation of populations, putting a tremendous strain on the “higher ground” areas. Weather patterns have already started to change, which will affect agricultural production. Probably these changes will not happen overnight like in a science fiction movie, but there have been drastic overnight changes in the past, so they could. Bottom line: the risk is too great for inaction, and the individual can make a significant difference on the issue.

A World Gone Crazy

17 August 2010

The rest of the world clings tenaciously to the myth of Obama: that he will bring sanity to the USA and its relations with the larger world. Admittedly, the rabid opposition that would ruin the country before allowing progress stymies much of his effort. Politics is a curious melee wherever it is practiced, swinging back and forth between poles, which seem to gradually drift rightward with the influence of corporate money. This is written from the comparably sane vantage of Europe, but the comedy of Berlusconi and stalemate at the Bonn Climate Conference make clear the prevalence of illogic. Meanwhile, the USA is still the country that tortures, is still having teens kill innocents remotely, still fighting unwinnable wars in two countries with massive civilian death tolls, and even our best efforts at climate control are tepid. So Obama is really the same animal with slightly different stripes; and he is the American politician that received the most campaign contributions from BP between 2004 and 2009 ($77,051.)

Meanwhile, fisheries in the Gulf have reopened, with a small codicil from the FDA that if the seafood doesn’t smell like gasoline, it is safe to eat. And The New York Times is declaring that the Deepwater spill is really not as bad as initially reported, with much of the oil evaporated, dissipated, dissolved, or disappeared. Of course BP will write off much of the cost of the cleanup, thus passing the buck on to the shoulders of the taxpayers, and Obama wants to allow drilling again. In a world gone crazy, sarcasm seems the only logical response.

So all is again well in this best of all possible worlds, in spite of the annoying unwillingness of the economy to create any new jobs as we ship the old ones off to the undeveloped world. Fortunately, the fisherman in the Gulf can return to work. Clearly Tony Hayward was right all along: it wasn’t much oil compared to all of that water in the ocean.

And what about the all that extremely toxic dispersant that was pumped and dumped in the Gulf? What about those disquieting rumors of BP and its Coast Guard lapdogs secreting the carcasses of whales and dolphins away in the middle of the night for disposal? Where are those submerged plumes of oil? What will happen to coastal residents who inhaled all of that sprayed Corexit blowin’ in the wind? The stories of persistent flu-like symptoms and other health issues are un-discussed on the major media.

Clearly the dispersant corrected the problem: out of sight is out of mind. And though the issues it will cause are really just beginning, it and the spill are no longer news.
Another interesting issue to the whole situation is the climate change impact of the whole thing. Between the continuous burning of the skimmed oil (and inadvertent ocean fauna caught in the skimmers), the flares burning captured gases, and more important, the tremendous amount of methane and other volatile gases that gushed out of the hole while it was open (oil was only a small part of what came out), the climate change impact of this disaster is immense.

The larger question is what about the resolve, echoed by every president in living memory, to move the USA to a sustainable energy future? Have we wasted the potential benefits of this crisis?

The last trip I made over the Deepwater site was after the leaky cap had been removed in preparation for the tightly fitting cap that stopped the leak, so oil was gushing freely, thus leading to some of the most interesting pictures yet.

Whitesville

4 July 2010

I’m in Whitesville, WV with Jim Hansen, the climate scientist, to attend Larry Gibson’s annual July 4 party. I’m here to do a portrait of Dr. Hansen, see Larry, and to go to his legendary fete. To entertain myself, I decided to bring an old Rollei f, truly one of the great cameras; it’s such a joy to shoot a little film. Remember black and white?

Larry is truly a modern David, squaring off against the goliath of king coal, personified by Don Blankenship, president of Massey Coal. To look at a satellite image, or better, to fly over Larry’s land is to laugh and cry simultaneously. An island of green rises from a despoiled expanse of regurgitated overburden from mountaintop removal mining. Modern mining processes, through mechanization, have inversed the human cost with environmental damage. Ironically, the corollary human toll is unemployment and decay of the communities that were supported by human-powered mining.

Resource wealth rarely benefits the populations in the rich place, those fortunes tend to be extracted to the same place whence went the resource. The people that remain are generally left with poverty, decaying infrastructure, and environmental nightmares.

Main Street, Whitesville is evidence of that pattern; of the few operative concerns were two funeral homes, a few stores (chain saws, floor coverings, five and dime), and of course a few churches. Most of the storefronts are haphazardly boarded, some with love notes written in the dust covering the windows. Dust near coal facilities is a tremendous health issue, and asthma tends to be high. Down the road is the Marsh Fork Elementary School, next to another Massey Coal processing plant. Above the school is an earthen dam holding millions of gallons of “slurry,” the chemical soup used to clean coal before it can be burned and continue its life cycle of destruction.

One can only imagine what Whitesville was like in its zenith, hard to picture all of the stores open and people on the sidewalks.

The people in Appalachia are some of the most vocal supporters of coal mining, and who can blame them? Their lives are at stake. If you lose you lose, but if you win, you really lose. Without coal they have no jobs, but with coal they have desecration, pollution, and asthma. Just down the road is Coal River Mountain, a summit steeped in legend and controversy. For years Massey pressed for permits to begin blasting apart the mountain for the coal underneath. The residents floated a proposal to build an array of windmills on the top, a solution that would have provided clean electricity and jobs forever, as opposed to the dirty and short-term plan of Massey, after which would remain a wasteland. Blasting began last year and destruction of the mountain is moving forward.

There is a better way. It won’t mean loss of jobs and decimation of the economy, to the contrary.

We must demand it.

Saratoga Rig: Just the Facts

15 June 2010

Meaning has always seemed more important to me than fact.
A journalist, in theory, wants the facts; an artist, the essence.
I consider myself the latter.

While studying satellite imagery from the Gulf of Mexico, SkyTruth spotted an apparent slick from an oil platform and cross referenced the location to MMS info which showed it to be platform 23051 at 28.938022 - 88.970963. SkyTruth, knowing I was in the area shooting the BP Deepwater Horizon (Macondo well), asked me to investigate the location. SouthWings pilot Tom Hutchings agreed to fly by this site after our planned overflight of Macondo.


Upon navigation to the coordinates, a rig was spotted with an apparent petroleum slick on the ocean surface that extended beyond the limits of vision, and the assumption was made that this was the site in question. Next to the rig was a large boat with wake on both sides (as opposed to from the stern), but not moving. On the deck of the boat, men stood next to 9 barrels and a hose which hung over the port side of the boat. There was a yellow buoy or other flotation device where the hose entered the water. Several circles were made around the site, during which time the boat still did not move. Close-up photos show the name of the rig to be “Diamond Offshore Ocean Saratoga,” and the boat, the “Ram Charger.”Further examination of the photos shows in the distance an object with what appears to be another long slick, and comparison hand-held GPS coordinates taken from the plane are in a different location than the original coordinates given by SkyTruth. Thus, there are two leaks.

Taylor Energy (now owned by a Korean holding company) holds the lease on the well and states that they are:

“renting a rig from Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc. to plug wells that were destroyed by an undersea mudslide during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.” (Quoted from Reuters)

and:
"As a result of deploying three subsurface containment domes and performing six successful well interventions, the initial average observed sheen volume of nine gallons per day has been substantially reduced."

The leak we see in the photos appears to be much greater than “nine gallons per day.”

Taylor said:
“the photos had incorrectly identified a leak coming from the Saratoga, whereas at that time the company had actually been operating a 180-foot dynamically positioned workboat for a scheduled containment system drainage.”

But curiously, in the next paragraph we read:

“Gary Krenek, Diamond's chief financial officer, had said earlier that while his company was required to report spills off its rig, and had not done so, it was contractually unable to discuss anything further.”

He referred questions to Taylor.

So they broke the law and can’t discuss it?


The official story does not jibe with the observed facts.
Meanwhile, after we announced the spill, the share price of Diamond Offshore dropped sharply. Alas, I am neither clever nor stupid enough to short a stock prior to releasing my photos, and I spent a day dodging calls from media and hedge fund operators. The fixation on quarterly earnings, and the gyrations and machinations of the stock market place our society in great peril on many levels.

Rather that fixating on the possibility of a well leak in regards to what it might mean to the stock price of a company, we would do better to fixate on what it means to the dolphins and the turtles, and our grandchildren.

According to a reporter from the Mobile Times Register, there are 600 unexplained leaks per month in the Gulf. The Diamond Offshore occurrence(s?) may or may not be a leak. The BP Deepwater Horizon may or may not be the largest spill in the Gulf this year. There will be many, and at some point, the culmination will overwhelm the flora and fauna that have teetered back from the brink so many times before. Then we will have systemic failure, and the Gulf becomes a dead sea, the consequences of which exceed comprehension. Just the litigation around the impacts of this one instance is incomprehensible.

The Conservatives decry the Liberals for forcing the oil companies to drill offshore rather than get the easy oil in Alaska. But the fact remains that resources are limited by definition, and our increasing hunger for oil will drive acquisition to the darkest corners of the planet. To get there, we will push the limits of technology, which means more accidents…

Notes from the Gulf - part 2

4 June 2010

Another hot day.

Our plan was to fly west to Queen Bess Island, west of the Mississippi River where BP is rumored to be hiding oil-soaked animals, but a storm front prevented us from flying there. We instead decided to go straight for the source.

As soon as we leave the shore, we see oil. The wave crests have a strange texture, and the wind makes abnormal patterns. As a long time sailor, I can see it, and am more aware of it on this second flight. Oil calms the water.

Preparation is so important on these projects.

I have decided to try tapping off my lenses ad nauseam, instead of letting the auto focus work. Hopefully that will allow a faster shoot response time.

The source site is completely different.

We hear that overnight the LMRP was put over the severed pipe, but that only a fraction of the oil is being captured.


We see less oil on the surface, or rather it does not have the same multi-colored sheen. The drill ship is flaring gas, and a tremendous plume of oil seems to start there and extend downwind. It is a different color than anything we have seen before, very brown. There are more planes at the site which makes operation in the area hazardous. At one point a plane passes just below, disconcerting.

The flare is fascinating, and we circle repeatedly. Because of all of the traffic, we cannot go in as close as I would like. The skimmer teams do not seem to be so effective, as the quality of the oil is different. Two days ago the skimmers made a noticeable trail when they passed through the oil, but not today.

More later...

Notes from the Gulf

3 June 2010

Arrive at FairHope, AL Airport, thunderstorms approaching.

We decide to go eat breakfast and wait for storms to pass.  Grits not bad, biscuits mediocre.

Taking off in a Cessna 182.

Rear seats and cargo door have been removed to enable photography.

As we get offshore, I see sunshine on Dauphin Island, which has had “no swim” directives issued today, as the oil is supposed to hit Alabama shores today.

Seeing first oil.  Bright red tendrils and sheen on the water.  Dodging thunderstorms as we make our way out to “the source” as it’s called.  It’s a bit surreal like Apocalypse Now, going through the clouds, music playing in the headphones, knowing they are right now desperately trying to cap the gushing pipe on the floor of the ocean.

We count 37 vessels involved in skimming operations, and 15 ships at the source.  There are two drill rigs, one drill ship, and one utility rig at the source.

Everything leaves a wake of oil, either from its movement or the current.  The skimmers are generally two boats with a boom/net between them.  The oil is sometimes red, sometimes “oily” colored.  Interestingly, it’s hard to shoot as the red is more visible when reflections are cut and the oily layer on the surface shows up with the reflected light.

Other rigs on the water seem to be operating “business as usual.”

Don’t see the beaches covered in oil that the media has led me to expect.  Maybe that’s further west in Louisiana?

Everywhere there is an expectation of disaster approaching.  This must be similar to the approach of a hurricane.

For years I have expected an infrastructure disaster here in “hurricane alley” where 40% of our oil is refined.  Not sure what percent originates here.

To see a few more images from the Gulf, click here.

What Next?

2 June 2010

'Top Kill' has failed.

'Junk Shot' has failed.

Now they propose to cut off the pipe and drop a funnel over it.

The entity once known as British Petroleum behaves like a rogue cattle thief, ignoring government directives and the muted indignation of the population, who, in their misguided disaffection, are now blaming a president who inherited the patronage-based mess from the oil industry presidency that went before.

Meanwhile, the natural systems, oblivious to the machinations and hand-wringing of the humans above, continue to bleed the toxic goo into the ocean, where BP sinks it with the Orwellian-named dispersant Corexit, and then has the gall to say that it never existed. The public nods dumbly on, abdicating the responsibility of citizenship to the directives of the corporate big brother.

Where is the outrage?

Where is the personal commitment to stop contributing to the problem? Have we all sunk so far into self-indulgence that we can’t even see our complicity?

I’m flying from Houston (capital of the petro-based economy) to Mobile, a city bracing for the onslaught of oil tomorrow. The clouds seen from my window over the Gulf are a surreal red, lit by the evening sun filtered through the pollution above Houston.

Between the hydrocarbons bubbling out of the water into the atmosphere, and those being burned, the Macondo site generates its own weather.

What will it take for people to generate the appropriate outrage and demand sensible action? Dead dolphins floating to the beach? Pristine beaches covered in tar? Plummeting property values?

(BP will probably collect the dolphin carcasses in the night like during the plague, and tell us there were none)

There is a team of dedicated people watching the events unfold, and trying to clarify them for the media and the public beyond the usual sound-bite coverage.

Tom Hutchings, Southwings pilot, is out flying over the horrors of the Macondo site on a daily basis. John Amos and Skytruth are getting current satellite imagery and interpreting it so we have some overview of the progression. Don’t listen to the people that have a vested interest in this issue, listen to those lonely voices with a penchant for the truth.

This is big. Don’t believe otherwise.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

28 May 2010

Some days pass with hardly a thought of it. Other days are literally oppressed with the weight of the oil and gas pumping into the Gulf.

Our real Gulf crisis has begun. Perhaps it will be the first sea to die. Completely.

And the sight of the various guilty parties sputtering denials and accusations makes me think of teenagers caught red-handed at some obnoxious prank.

Hearing Tony Hayward (CEO of BP) say, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume," makes one either apoplectic or catatonic (depends on the day). The insight here into total corporate control of the regulatory process and government is a discussion of its own.

Three things confound in this situation:

-Corporate arrogance, greed, and short-sightedness

-Our blundering non-understanding of the natural world, its complexities and frailties

-Public indifference

The first two are to be expected, but the indifference of the public is staggering. We have managed to totally divorce action and consequence in our minds. Every time we start a car, every plastic bottle we buy contributes to this disaster, but like true schizophrenics, we do not connect cause and effect. We wring our hands in concern about the oily birds and beaches, and then wash our hands with soap from a plastic pump dispenser.

We are the problem, not BP, not the US Government, not the MMS.

And of course, the long-term battle of hearts and minds has already been lost with BP’s clever application of vast quantities of dispersant and tight control of media coverage coming from the battlefield. Corexit broke up and sank the oil, so the impact on the Gulf Coast beaches will be a fraction of the reality. The undersea flora and fauna, however, will never recover. The Gulf, already severely wounded from the phosphates pouring down the Mississippi, is really a large bowl, with a circular current fed from the Atlantic. As those submerged oceans of oil swirl around and sweep past Florida, they will be caught up in the Gulf Stream, and ultimately be deposited in the Georges Bank, thus finishing the decimation of the world’s greatest food source.

But the public won’t see it, thanks to the dispersant and BP’s adroit image control, and this will drop off our radar like all the other clarion calls warning of the imminent collapse of the natural world that sustains us.

Drive on.

Exposition at Spedition

12 May 2010

I knew Bremen as a town of beer. So, when asked to do an exhibit and symposium there, the answer could only be yes. Preparation for a large production in a foreign land is always stressful, and this one was par, but methodical and successful. Arrival to find the venue in some disarray from a previous production, but not worryingly so; and the combination of good preparation and a crack production team at the “Spedition” led to an under-budget, ahead-of-schedule event, thus allowing for final interviews, exhibit catalog production, etc.

Locomotive Turntable at Bremen Station

Spedition is an old industrial space, adjacent to the train station, which has attracted a variety of artists and crafts people, being home to exhibits, music, and theater productions and in this case, a symposium with students. The German alt culture has always been fascinating, and it’s not surprising that the society which produced Mozart, Durer, Marx, and Freud would produce some interesting unorthodoxes. Spedition is a wonderful fusion of these people, living and working in this large reused complex in the center of town, contiguous with the train station, that has become the edgy cultural space in Bremen.

Planning and preparation for this production have been proceeding for years, with Nicolai Burchartz of Koeln and Gregor Straube of Bremen doing the heavy lifting.

The mission was to put up a show of new work, all large murals, themed “What happens because of the things we buy.” The exciting new aspect of this exhibit was the inclusion of an interactive component that explains each mural with maps, satellite images, establishing shots, and information. These pictures can be seen on so many levels: aesthetic, documentary, political, that viewers demand explanation, and providing that information is a challenging enterprise. Working with several classes of German high school students would explore the cross-cultural impact of the images and the interactive program.

Gregor Straube, Senator Reinhard Loske, & JHF

The team at Spedition was relaxed, efficient, and thorough, so the exhibit went up like a balloon and looked fantastic, done in the unique “Spedition style.” The vernissage was quite the success in spite of the rain, boasting the senator of the environment, among many.

Talking to the students from the Wilhelm Wagenfeld School, and the other people passing through was the most rewarding part. The students were thoughtful, aware and curious, and gratifyingly intrigued with the interactive.

Environmental issues are making the world a frighteningly small place, and these teenagers would be the ones to bear the first major impacts. As estimates of the volume of oil spilled in the Gulf had grown too large for the brain to grasp, we discussed the root causes.

Middle Europe is colder than normal, and many Germans bemoaned the cold and rain. One wonders if the weather is the result of the volcano or other weather pattern alterations.

The Starbucks in DeGaulle Airport is surrounded with large backlit images, most of beautiful exotic animals, the others of beautiful exotic women in beautiful exotic vacation spots.

Meanwhile, the waste generated by just this one small franchise in one airport defies comprehension. The Starbucks in Köln/Bonn Airport at least offers the option of using china mugs, thus saving a good bit of paper cup waste…

Of course, the intrepid eco traveler never goes anywhere without his own air-tight mug that goes right in the bag. And who would throw away a good cup of java just for security, knowing the cost?

Up the Lazy River

5 May 2010

The Ruhr River area is one of the oldest and most concentrated industrial areas of the world. It has been the hub of German industry, and the foundry of their might, both military and economic. Concurrently, it is one of the oldest toxic areas in the world, and the patient reader knows of this writer’s fascination with such things. Having photographed other environmental issues in Germany over the years, a compulsion to study the Ruhr became stronger with the passage of time, and so arrangements were made for the lovely German spring of this year. As most people might know, gambling on bluebird days in middle Germany is like betting on the good sense of the American voter, but one must have faith, and so I found myself at a small airfield on the border with Holland, shaking hands with a taciturn expat Brit pilot.

WDR, the Deutsche television station was interested in documenting the process, so as Mark and I chatted about the flight plan, Cordula and Jurgen attached cameras to the struts of the plane.

After many takes of "spontaneous" greetings between Mark and me, we finally took off for real and headed toward Duisburg, one of the most industrial German cities. The industry there seems like a vision from a world gone mad, and perhaps it is. Beauty and nightmare intersperse so fast one forgets the difference, and the smokestacks and heat from the industry make flying and photographing difficult. Mark and I had a fantastic communication, though, and rarely did I even need to give directions as we swooped around cooling towers in our search for pandora’s secrets. Germany is generally better about containing contamination than the USA, but some things cannot be occulted, and my old friend coal ash is one of those. Every coal-fired power plant produces quite a lot of it (about 325,000 tons a year in the USA, probably more in Germany as they burn a lot of brown coal and it is nasty stuff (see previous posts.) We found it in spades, and Mark did an excellent job putting me where I needed to be. Very interesting the absence of TSA obsession here; in the land of the free (note the sarcasm) the TSA, police, FBI, and various other enforcers of the regime are all over you if you look twice at a power plant (or even photograph a public building for that matter), whereas here, nothing is said.

Germany has opted out of the nuclear game (though that is being unfortunately reconsidered) and is heavily reliant on coal like the USA. Meanwhile, there are these powerful rivers taking energy down to the sea that could easily light all of the cities in the area. And of course the German energy giants are digging up the country, displacing thousands of citizens, razing towns, and releasing tons of carbon, all to power their digging machines and light the bulbs of middle Europe.

As I write, the USA EPA has just released revised "suggestions" about coal ash. In an unsurprising Orwellian development, this toxic waste of the coal combustion process will continue to be "beneficially reused" in sheetrock, fertilizer, paint, carpet, etc. The list of ways how this toxic waste finds its way into your life goes on. Did i forget to mention that it is laden with lead, mercury, uranium, arsenic, cadmium and more?
Can we get smart about this?

The Maw of Our Desire

29 April 2010

The television screen sobs with the bereaving families of the workers lost in our industrial accidents; we glance, feel a touch of sympathy, and continue our days. The similarities among the recent hydrocarbon blow-outs bear some resemblance. Just as the voracious demand for drugs in one country fuels a ruthless genocide in another, so our thirst for hydrocarbons prompts this loss of life and habitat despoliation (that would be our habitat, btw.) From time immemorial, peons have been expendable in the service of the ruling classes, and so it remains. The media thrives on soap opera, which allows it to ignore the real drama, and we follow blithely along. We pause briefly in pity for the women in Louisiana and West Virginia, two of the poorest states in the USA, but give little thought to our culpability, or the devastation wreaked on our survival systems.

As I write, a hole on the ocean floor gushes vast quantities of petroleum into that ecosystem, while a “state of the art” robot will try in vain to plug it. Meanwhile, the wind will shift and blow the goo to shore, thus creating, horror of horrors, an unsightly mess. God forbid that we be discomfited by the detritus of our appetites, god forbid our ocean views be obstructed by apparati that might obviate the pollution. We would rather defer payment upon our children than curtail the slaking of our thirst. Like vampires, our consumer society sucks the essence from the planetary systems that support us, without consideration for those that slave to produce the goods or the debt being foisted upon our grandchildren.