Tag Archives: #ClimateChange

An Insurgency of Interconnectedness: Bridging Gaps in Jamil Dehlavi’s The Blood of Hussain

One of the most common themes this semester and the 21^st century world, has been interconnectedness. Whether it’s the interconnectivity of the global climate project with local grassroots efforts, or the ways in which time is reworked through weather patterns shifting the lengths of days, for example or how the duality of two worlds – East and West – can converge through the channels of Capitalism and the effects of Climate Change, interconnectedness seems to be at the core of understanding Climate Change in the contemporary period. This sense of disparate spaces – the global, the local, yesterday (the past), today (the present), East and West – becoming increasingly interconnected lies at the heart of my analysis of Jamil Dehlavi’s 1980 Pakistani film, The Blood of Hussain.

The film is about the insurgency of farmers and villagers against the local tyrannical and shrewd army. Taking place in the Punjab region of Pakistan, the film follows two brothers – Salim, the Western educated banker who acts as a power broker for the newly established tyrannical government and Hussain, the sympathetic farmer who becomes inspired by a holy soothsayer to hold an uprising against the same government for whom his brother works. Along with the obvious themes of fratricide and the East and West dialectic, Dehlavi’s choice of the farmer as the central figure and the materialistic neoliberal as the brother invites an analysis of the film from a contemporary environmental perspective, with a refined definition of “eco-cosmopolitanism” at the crux of the analysis.

Though a debated term, I conceptualize “eco-cosmopolitanism” in Pakistani terms, as a tool that can be used to study the ways in which characters with nationalistic tendencies (Hussain and his followers) and imperialistic characteristics (Salim and the army) are exposed as such through their relationship with their local environment. With their connection to the local environment, such relationships inevitably relate to the greater, global project of Climate Change.

This conceptualization of “eco-cosmopolitanism” is grounded by Shazia Rahman’s paper on eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel Trespassing, “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” In the paper, Rahman explains that Ursula K. Heise’s idea of eco-cosmopolitanism as an “attempt to envision individuals and groups as part of a planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both humans nonhuman kinds” (Heise 61) is a “way of extending nationalism to include the planet and nonhumans” (Rahman 261). Rahman offers an alternative conception of eco-cosmopolitanism, using Khan’s novel as the site through which her definition is presented, for “Khan posits an eco-cosmopolitanism that is rooted in the local in such a way that it implicated the planet globally. This local rootedness is not nationalism but a materiality of place, and the global thinking not necessarily imperialist cosmopolitanism but rather a kind of planetarity” (262).

Ursula Heise’s Sense of Place and Sense of Planet

Similarly, in this analysis, I highlight how Jamil Dehlavi’s film showcases such a brand of “eco-cosmopolitanism” through the filmmaker’s depiction of the ways in which the unseen, marginalized class in society associates with nature through agrarianism and a conservative lifestyle and the ruling, tyrannical class relates to nature through their use of modern weaponry and advanced technology.

Shazia Rahman’s Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism

In addition to eco-cosmopolitanism being used to show how the local connects to the global, the story of Hussain leading a rebellion against the dominant classes while protecting his own kin is a modern rendition of Imam Hussain’s demise from the Quran (the holy soothsayer makes reference to this tale when speaking with the film’s Hussain about his destiny) and like eco-cosmopolitanism threads the line between the local and global, the film’s reference to and manifestation of an older Islamic story mitigates the distance between the past and the present, mirroring the interconnectivity of different fields of time in a Climate Change-ridden world. Here, I use anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner’s conceptualization of the temporal reality of Australian Aboriginals, “everywhen.” In Stanner’s essay from 1953, “The Dreaming,” the anthropologist writes of “The Dreaming” as conjuring “up the notion of a sacred, heroic time of the indefinitely remote past” which is, “in a sense, still part of the present” (58). For Stanner, one “cannot ‘fix’ The Dreaming in time; it was, and is, everywhen” (58). With “everywhen” defined as the ontological marker of the temporal character of Aboriginal reality, it is important then to use it to describe the temporal interconnectedness of the climax in The Blood of Hussain as the parameters of time collapse, with the past of Islam standing with the present conflict of the Hussain’s group of insurgents.

In addition to the interconnectedness of different parameters of time and the global and local, this analysis of The Blood of Hussain gives rise to studying the East/West dialectic of the film’s characters, most specifically the brothers and their respective insurgencies, with Salim representing Western imperialism and Hussain, religious nationalism. Such a tension and dialectic between Western imperialism and religious nationalism is a Pakistani motif, with Dehlavi contending with the presence of “both religious nationalism” and “imperialism” for “anti-imperialism has historically been linked with religious nationalism in the region” (Rahman 263). As mentioned, this East/West dialectic is captured in the background of Dehlavi himself, who is both French and Pakistani, raised in Pakistan but educated in both America and Britain.

A Bloodied Horse in the middle of a Muharram ceremony, in commemoration of prophet Hussain

As mentioned in the opening paragraphs, interconnectedness is the most apparent theme of Jamil Dehlavi’s film. This evidenced by the characters who are connected to the environment in an eco-cosmopolitan sense to the life of the filmmaker himself, whose East/West life story can be projected and connected to the political battle at the heart of Pakistan, where Pakistani nationalism coexists with Western imperialism, mirroring the internal conflicts of Salim and Hussain to the Imam Hussain story, which the film manifests, connecting the present moment to the “sacred, heroic past.” With this, it can be observed that the film’s interconnectedness demonstrates the kind of interconnectedness central to the project of Climate Change, where the local and global converge and spatial and temporal gaps are mitigated.

Astoundingly enough, Dehlavi’s chosen artform is film and considering the film is not directly about environmentalism nor does it lay bare its environmentalism, in this essay, it is looked at as an environmentalist film, a form of allegory that can help shed light on the most important environmental project of the contemporary world.

Soldiers of the local army face the valleys of Punjab

Main Sources:

Ahmad, Ali Nobil. “Meeting Jamil Dehlavi – Pakistan’s Most Intriguing Filmmaker.” The National, The National, 9 Aug. 2018, www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/film/meeting-jamil-dehlavi-pakistan-s-most-intriguing-filmmaker-1.758505#2.

Bhutto, Fatima. “Jamil Dehlavi: ‘In Pakistan, There Is Always Something in the Offing’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Aug. 2018, www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/09/jamil-dehlavi-pakistan-film-maker-blood-hussain-interview.

Crossette, Barbara. “Mahbub Ul Haq, 64, Analyst And Critic of Global Poverty.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 July 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/07/17/world/mahbub-ul-haq-64-analyst-and-critic-of-global-poverty.html.

Dehlavi, Jamil, director. The Blood of Hussain. Dehlavi Films, 1980.

Haq, Mahbub ul. Human Development in South Asia: 1997. Oxford University Press, 1997.

Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Rahman, S. “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-Cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, 2011, pp. 261–282., doi:10.1093/isle/isr040.

Ruddiman, W.F. The Anthropogenic Greenhouse Era Began Thousands of Years Ago. Climatic Change 61, 261–293 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa

Sayeed, Raza Ali. “Weekly Classics: The Blood of Hussain.” DAWN.COM, DAWN, 7 Sept. 2012, www.dawn.com/news/747719/weekly-classics-the-blood-of-hussain.

Talpur, Mustafa, et al. “The World Bank in Pakistan: See No Suffering, Hear No Cries, Speak No Truth.” The Reality of Aid 2008: Aid Effectiveness: “Democratic Ownership and Human Rights”, IBON Books, 2008, pp. 86–94.

“The Blood of Hussain (Dual Format Edition).” BFI Shop, British Film Institute, 2018, shop.bfi.org.uk/the-blood-of-hussain-dual-format-edition.html.

“The Dreaming.” The Dreaming and Other Essays, by W. E. H. Stanner, Black Inc. Agenda, 2009, pp. 57–72.

FYI: I have included a link to the film below (it is available ad free on YouTube):

Sense of Place and Sense of Planet by Ursula K. Heise

Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.

Summary:

Introducing “eco-cosmopolitanism” and its connection to different forms of artistic, philosophical and practical expressions, the Introduction and Part 1 of Ursula K. Heise’s A Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global provides an approach to environmentalism that transcends place and is interconnected to different locales and regions, mirroring the interconnectedness of a globalized world.

In her meaty introduction which provides a broad overview of the conflicting opinions and thoughts on the subject of localism as place as an environmentalist strategy, Heise writes, “With this wave of countercritiques, the theoretical debate has arrived at a conceptual impasse: while some theorists criticize nationally based forms of identity and hold out cosmopolitan identifications as a plausible and politically preferable alternative, other scholars emphasize the importance of holding on to national and local modes of belonging as a way of resisting the imperialism of some forms of globalization” (12). Heise then presents one of the central ideas of this text, “eco-cosmopolitanism” which she defines as an “environmental world citizenship,” arguing that “ecologically oriented thinking has yet to come to terms with one of the central insights of current theorists of globalization: namely, that the increasing connectedness of societies around the globe entails the emergence of new forms of culture that are no longer anchored in place…”(13).

Exploring the ways in which the Earth’s inhabitants, regardless of cultural differences, can be tied by a borderless ecosystem, Heise strongly argues against a sense of place tied exclusively to the local writing “…what is crucial for ecological awareness and environmental ethics is arguably not so much a sense of place as a sense of planet – a sense of how political, economics, technological, social, cultural and ecological networks shape daily routines” (55). Heise projects this “sense of planet” on her conceptualization of “eco-cosmopolitanism,” which acknowledges “varieties of environmentalism,” “preservation of natural ecosystems and their sustainable human use” and the awareness of an interconnected world where the “‘more-than-human world’” is connected to the human world through “animate and inanimate networks of influence and exchange” (59-61).

By recontextualizing the greater environmental project in this globalized sense, Heise believes it being a more viable strategy for handling all things environmental in a world already marked and situated around the forces of globalization.

Recommended Reading:

Le Guin, Ursula K. Vaster than Empires and More Slow: A Story (A Wind’s Twelve Quarters Story). Harper Perennial , 2017.

In Guin’s short story, a group of human space travelers find a Earth-like planet, with one of the explorers sacrificing himself to the humanless nature of the planet. Heise decorates Part 1 of her book with an excellent climate analysis of Guin’s short story, writing “The idea that all the planet’s life forms are linked in such a way that they come to form one world encompassing, sentient superorganism echoes James Lovelock’s well-known Gaia hypothesis, according to which Planet Earth constitutes a single overarching feedback system that sustains itself” (19). Heise then writes on the importance of “allegory,” specifically the challenge of artists to create “a vision of the global that integrates allegory – still a mode that is hard to avoid in representations of the whole planet – into a more complex formal framework able to accommodate social and cultural multiplicity.” In this work and her overall art, Guin demonstrates Heise’s conceptualizations of eco-cosmopolitanism and allegory through metaphorical and symbolic representations of a world that is interconnected to a world both familiar and foreign to us, a manifestation of the network that connects the “animate to the inanimate.”

Rahman, S. “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco Cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing.” Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, vol. 18, no. 2, 2011, pp. 261–282., doi:10.1093/isle/isr040.

Rahman, Shazia. Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism: Pakistani Women’s Literary and Cinematic Fictions. University of Nebraska Press, 2019.

In Shazia Rahman’s paper on eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel Trespassing, “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of Place: Pakistani Eco-cosmopolitanism in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing,” Rahman identifies Ursula K. Heise’s idea of eco-cosmopolitanism as an “attempt to envision individuals and groups as part of a planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both humans nonhuman kinds” (Heise 61). For Rahman, Heise’s eco-cosmopolitanism is a “way of extending nationalism to include the planet and nonhumans” (261). The writer then offers an alternative conception of eco-cosmopolitanism, using Khan’s novel as the site through which her definition is presented, for “Khan posits an eco-cosmopolitanism that is rooted in the local in such a way that it implicates the planet globally. This local rootedness is not nationalism but a materiality of place, and the global thinking not necessarily imperialist cosmopolitanism but rather a kind of planetarity” (262). In reading this essay, along with her book on eco-feminism which has chapters in eco-cosmopolitanism in Pakistan Punjab, the reader receives two differing perspectives on an idea that seems to connect the world through an awareness of modern environmentalism. “eco-cosmopolitanism.”

“The Dreaming.” The Dreaming and Other Essays, by W. E. H. Stanner, Black Inc. Agenda, 2009, pp. 57–72.

At the center of this essay from 1953 is anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner’s expression, “Everywhen” which borrows from approaches to temporality from Aboriginal Australians, highlighting how interconnected the past, present and future is for Australia’s indigenous population. Though Heise doesn’t make an explicit connection to Stanner in this portion of her book, Stanner’s methodology of bridging the gaps of understanding nature and the environment between different cultures and locales (The Modern West against the Aboriginals) as well as the Aboriginals’ sense of temporal interconnectivity exemplifies Heise’s structure of a “sense of planetarity” and make Stanner’s essay a prescient, important work in climate literature.

Discussion Questions:

Given Heise’s insistence that her mode of “eco-cosmopolitanism” is influenced by the work of postcolonial scholars’ work on cosmopolitan (I.e. Homi Bhaba) and how separated it is from imperialism, to what degree are Rahman’s arguments justified? Are these arguments reactionary or is there perhaps something substantial in Rahman’s writing when it comes to developing a unique perspective to Heise’s “eco-cosmopolitanism”?
Given Heise’s consistency in holding globalization as a harbinger of contemporary life, is she too much of an idealist who may not fully appreciate and recognize the detrimental effects of the current capitalist framework and how tied it is to globalization and instead, see globalization’s potential for environmental thought?
One of the most provocative elements in Stanner’s essay is the research itself; considering that Stanner is a white, Westernized man performing research on indigenous tribes, when may Stanner become too problematic in his research and could that expose flaws in Heise’s eco-cosmopolitanism? Meaning, if an outsider is to connect himself or herself to another locale in the name of eco-cosmopolitanism, how can we “check” the West to ensure cultures of other locales do not become further eliminated and acclimated to a globalized, less localized world?

“Communicating Climate Change: Closing the Science Action Gap”

Core Text

Moser, Susanne C., and Lisa Dilling. “Communicating Climate Change: Closing the Science Action Gap.” The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, Jan. 2012, pp. 1–18., doi:oxfordhandbooks.com.

Summary

Susanne C. Moser and Lisa Dilling’s article published in The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society discusses different manners of communications and their effectiveness in society. Moser or Dilling do not promote and particular response to climate change throughout their article, however their goal is to present research on how communication on climate change can be carried out more effectively. They offer four main reasons that climate change communication has been less effective: lack of information, motivation by fear, lack of diversity in framing issues to diverse audiences, and utilization of mass media. Moser and Dilling believe more efforts should be implemented in diversifying strategies for communication on climate change to get more people engaged.

Teaching Resources

Norgaard, Kari Marie. “Climate Denial: Emotion Psychology, Culture, and Political

Economy.”The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society, Aug.2011, pp.1-17.,

doi:oxfordhandbooks.com.

Kari Mari Norgaards article, “Climate Denial: Emotion Psychology, culture and Political Economy” published in The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society discusses the very real problem of climate denial. Norgaard highlights the roles of emotional, culture, social structure and inequality that plays into individual’s response towards Climate Change. She also uses psychological and sociological explanations for climate denial. The denial is often cultural and can be attributed to positions of privilege. This article is relevant in discussing communication on Climate change as there are often other barriers to receiving information in addition the the manners in which the message is conveyed and disseminated.

Daggett, Cara. “Petro-Masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, 2018, pp. 25–44., doi:10.1177/0305829818775817.

Cara Dagget writes a compelling article in the Millennium: a Journal of International Studies, “Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire”. It is a unique article looking at climate change denial through a feminist lens that argues that the proliferation of fossil fuel extraction and consumption can be held up by the white male patriarchy. Dagget notes that extensive networks of privilege are sustained by the fossil fuel industry and are threatened by climate change initiatives. Dagget further discusses how climate denial obviously serves fossil-fueled capitalist interests, however it can responsible for the catalyst of authoritarianism as the profits from fossil fuels secure cultural meaning, identities, and political opinions. This article is relevant in discussing climate change communication as in addition to reasons of denial there may be larger systemic patriarchal hindrance to making real change towards sustainability.

Bina, Olivia, and Francesco La Camera. “Promise and Shortcomings of a Green Turn in Recent Policy Responses to the ‘Double Crisis.’” Ecological Economics, vol. 70, no. 12, 2011, pp. 2308–2316., doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.06.021.

Bina and Camera’s paper analyzes six international-scale responses to the financial and climate change ‘double crisis.’ The paper predominantly focuses on the role of economics as the dominant model and belief system that controls responses to climate change. They discuss a global Green New Deal which would not only combat sustainability on a global and cooperative scale but would address issues of vulnerable people, job loss and a disrupted financial system. Bina and Camera also discuss how responses to the double crisis need to be addressed with better regulated markets. Overall Bina and Camera argue that without an economic approach to climate change, solutions will not be achieved regarding the double crisis. They also suggest the response to the crisis has been poor and development without the promotion of justice and environmental sustainability as a sustained goal will continue to fall short. This article is important to discussing climate change communication because in addition to sociological, psychological, and patriarchal that pose obstacles to progress on climate change initiatives, economics is predominant force that will be necessary to address in addition to addressing climate change communication effectiveness.

Discussion Questions

In what ways can communication on climate change be geared towards diverse audiences so that a ‘one size fits all’ approach can be avoided in order to facilitate understanding of issues and inspire real initiatives?
What are some examples of ways that we can combat cultural climate change denial?
If economics are interrelated with climate change, what types of incentives can be given at the corporate level to achieve real climate change goals?

In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism by Isabelle Stengers

CORE TEXT
Stengers, Isabelle. In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism. Translated by Andrew Goffey, Open Humanities Press, 2015.

SUMMARY
In this book, Isabelle Stengers reminds us that we’re at the juncture of two histories: one that is familiar to us and one that is to come. The familiar history is dominated by capitalism. It is a history in which we deify the market. Progress is defined as economic growth and scientific and technological innovation. We must strive for progress at all cost in this history, even if that progress will cause widespread environmental damage and profound suffering of humankind. Stengers encourages us to question who benefits from the systems and narratives we take for granted. She gives us the theoretical tools and language to question the status quo. It is the only way we can top being complacent and prepare for the coming history. The history to come will be dominated by the intrusion of Gaia, who will be just as indifferent to our reasoning as capitalism is. The intrusion of Gaia is climate change personified. Stengers suggests that we provoked Gaia to intrude because of the destructive way in which we treated the planet. Rather than struggling against Gaia, we should be struggling against the systems that provoked Gaia. If we fail to do so, Stengers warns, we will be complacent in creating a barbaric future in which we will be condemning millions of lives to the hazards of climate change. We have been taught to believe that our existing way of living, no matter how destructive it is for the planet, is the only way to be. To question this narrative and to think and imagine a different kind of future are political acts, according to Stengers.

TEACHING RESOURCES
Arendt, Hannah. “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of The Rights of Man.” The Origins of Totalitarianism. Ohio: The World Publishing Company, 1958, pg. 267-302. In her seminal essay, Hannah Arendt describes the way inmates of concentration camps were treated and suggests that what is barbaric are the concentration camps designed by civilized society. She states. “Deadly danger to any civilization is no longer to come from without. Nature has been mastered and no barbarians threaten to destroy what they cannot understand. . . The danger is that a global, universally interrelated civilization may produce barbarians from its own midst” (Arendt, 302). Without the complicity and indifference of civilians, it wouldn’t be possible to maintain systems that are designed to inflict structural violence. That’s why it’s necessary for civilians to participate in structural violence and crimes committed by political leaders. Indifference is a passive form of participation. Arendt claims that the inmates of camps were the model citizens of a totalitarian state because they will behave as they’re trained and won’t question authority even when they’re led to their death. This depicts what is at stake if we don’t question structural injustices and don’t fight against them.

Coetzee, J.M.. Waiting for the Barbarians. Penguin Books, 1999. Throughout J.M. Coetzee’s novel there is a constant sense of anxiety about the barbarians who are considered enemies of the Empire. The Empire symbolizes civilized society which lives according to law and order and the barbarians represent those who exist outside of civilized society. Therefore, it’s presumed that they don’t have any order or law that prevents them from being violent. They’re portrayed as rapists, looters, and ultimately a threat to the sense of order created by the Empire. However, the paranoia about the barbarians draws the reader’s attention to the internal world of the Empire itself rather than the barbarians. Coetzee shows us that under the control of a regime like the Empire, no one can claim innocence. In exchange for the protection of the Empire from the Barbarians, everyone must participate in the Empire’s crimes and be complicit. Therefore, everyone protected by the Empire is collectively guilty.

Human Flow. Directed by Ai Weiwei, AC Films, 2017. In this documentary film, artist Ai Weiwei travels across twenty-three countries to capture the mass human migration that is taking place due to war, famine, or climate change. The current mass migration event is bigger than one war or one incident. The film documents individual narratives of suffering as well as the massive scale of population migrating worldwide. It’s a glimpse of the future that is ahead of us, as climate change continues to alter the political and physical landscapes we live in. Ai Weiwei’s film depicts the consequences of the choices we make to address migration and movement.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Stengers describes our political leaders as our guardians who are responsible for keeping us complacent. She states that we must distance ourselves from their perceptions and narratives, and we can’t expect much from them aside from “disappointment and indignation” (Stengers, 35). Can civilians take meaningful action to prevent social injustices without engaging with political leaders?

Stengers personifies climate change by referring to it as the intrusion of Gaia. She describes Gaia as “as the fearsome one, as she who was addressed by peasants, who knew that humans depend on something much greater than them, something that tolerates them, but with a tolerance that is not to be abused (46).” To what extent is climate change a spiritual crisis?

The writers and artist listed above demonstrate that civilians play a key role in upholding structural injustices. Are inaction and indifference passive forms of participation in structural violence? In what ways do we contribute to harmful systemic injustices and how can we prevent them?

Kintsugi: Repairing Our Damages (Art)

In attempting to post a creative segment for my “blog post” this week, I was reminded of the cost of giving into the charms of contemporary technology, specifically the ways in which artists, especially those working with more technologically advanced mediums (such as film or photography) can lose sight of the overall damage left behind by the remnants of such a technology. In chapter four of T.J. Demos’ book, Against the Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky’s Oil Fields #27, Bakersfield, California, USA is described as a photograph wherein “technology merges with nature, unified aesthetically, composing a picture that is, monstrously, not only visually pleasurable…” (65).

Though Burtynsky acknowledges the dangers of Climate Change, he does not see the full repercussions of the moment. Despite this, Burtynsky’s art is beautiful and tends to evoke strong feelings from the viewer. However, Burtynsky’s photographs “naturalize petro capitalism” with their framing choices and editing.

Therefore, I found it liberating to work on my art pieces with the desire to perhaps open the door to more pressing discussions and questions about Modern Art and Climate Change. In these works, I use super imposition along with other photo editing techniques to try and make sense of the paradox of working with advanced technology, of having to give in to different media platforms upon which capitalism has made its mark, to ultimately critique the system by showing the ways in which it fractures the world. In this series of photographs, I seek to find a balance between our world and the one outside of us, hoping the worlds can be reconciled through the “putting together” of disparate parts (in this sense, Art is contrary to Capitalism which, despite appearing to also “put together” the world’s disparate parts through the global supply chain, only further fractures and divides the world through growing inequality and growth models which exploit the environment).

Influenced by “Kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending broken areas with various materials (lacquer, gold, silver, platinum), this artwork is aesthetically fractured, but whole, desiring to repair our world through the stitching of its various broken and damaged parts. In this sense, photographic superimposition is a symbolic reification of a harmonious repair of what is left and what is damaged.

I hope everyone enjoys this “Climate Change/Art” post and ponders interesting questions and thoughts on the project.

Through the Climate Artist’s Lens

Following are profiles of a few climate artists and how their works explore our relationship with the environment. Though the artists mentioned here create various types of work, this blog focuses on their installations in urban spaces where we are most likely to forget our relationship with nature.

STACY LEVY – The site specific installations of Stacy Levy visualize natural elements such as wind, rain, sunlight, and waterways. These installations are weaved into urban design and placed in public spaces. They invite the public to interact with the natural world that lives and breathes alongside them, but is often unnoticed. Levy’s series of works called Tides are installed in city parks. “River Rooms” are boat shaped structures placed along the Schuylkill River. They allow people of the city to sit by the river and observe it all year round. Similarly, “Tide Field” in the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia and “Tide Flowers” in the Hudson River in New York are floating devices that respond to the river’s tides. They change based on how high or low the water in the river is. Both installations are placed where city dwellers can see the rivers change throughout the day. It’s a reminder that the rivers are alive even in densely populated urban areas.

*Reduce Speed Now!* by Justin Brice Guarriglia, 2019

JUSTIN BRICE GUARRIGLIA – Messages about the existential crisis of climate change are brought to public spaces through Justin Brice Guarriglia’s LED light installations and marquees. Guarriglia reminds us that “We are the asteroids” that are threatening our world. His project, Eco-Haikus for Marquees, places haikus about climate change at the entrance of theaters in Los Angeles and New York City. Guarriglia draws inspiration from the writing of Bruno Latour and attempts to make abstract ideas about climate change more accessible to the public. Reduce Speed Now is another project of Guarriglia’s. It’s an installment of solar powered LED lights that share messages from climate activists, artists, philosophers from around the world. This project was created for a 2019 Earth Day event in London and it invited the public to share their own messages through the LED light installations during the event.

OLAFUR ELIASSON – When looking through the images of Ice Watch and how people interact with it, we see a combination of spectacle and mourning. Olafur Eliasson created Ice Watch, an installation, by transporting floating icebergs from the fjords of Greenland to public spaces in London and Paris. It confronts the public with the fact that the glaciers are melting in a more intimate way. The installation evokes the cathartic feeling of time running out and watching something bigger than us slowly fall apart. While walking through these icebergs, some people are in awe and can’t help but take selfies with them. Others kiss, hug, or hold the icebergs in a regretful way because they understand what we’re losing. For most of us, the melting glaciers is something that is happening far away. Watching videos of glaciers melting in the news or in documentaries doesn’t begin to describe the profoundness of this loss and the danger associated with it. Eliasson tries to change that with “Ice Watch”.

(Yes We Can) Change the Story

A pond collects soil and water residue from oil-sands mining near Fort McMurray, Alberta. The oil sands account for 60 percent of Canada’s oil output.Credit…Ian Willms for The New York Times

This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein’s 2015 documentary based on her book subtitled “Capitalism vs. The Climate,” did not—yet. But it has had important impact. Klein’s overarching message hits home especially now given the world-changing pandemic disruption and activism for social justice as we face endemic racism and inequality. The documentary does feel current as though today’s moment is our “Best chance to build a better world.”

Klein’s message is revolutionary, based on the timeless truth that humans are inveterate storytellers, are compelled to tell stories to make sense of our world. The problem is that for the last four hundred years, the dominant cultures of the West have been telling a story based on the idea that the Earth is a machine, and humans are its master. Through the course of the documentary, Klein shows that the economy is a machine, too, capable of being manipulated to feed perpetual growth.

Klein intimately narrates the journey from a Royal Society gathering, where an energized scientist sunnily proposes we have the ability to solve climate change by essentially putting a hose to the sky and spreading tiny particles to block a bit of the sun and therefore the heat. Switch to a clip of Stephen Colbert interviewing this surely brilliant man, “You’ve buried the lede: it’s sulphuric acid!” A touch of levity, but it offers enough of a glimpse of the hubris behind the exercise. By beginning with the Royal Society, the film places Enlightenment thinkers at its outset. Locke and property ownership–the use of the land–forefronts the displacement and removal of indigenous peoples in North America. The film is about the abuse of the land.

Deftly directed by Avi Lewis, the cinematography is breathtaking: boreal forest in Alberta, prairies stretching to the horizon, and verdant tropical landscapes contrast with the savage rape of the earth and the flight of its native communities. The scenes of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, are akin to barren moon shots. ‘No one would ever have a reason to come here if we weren’t extracting the bitumen (thick, tar-like oil)’ one company manager says, without a trace of irony. The tar sands site produces 60% of Canada’s oil, itself the 4^th largest oil producer in the world.

The documentary explores seven areas around the world, including Canada, the US, Greece, India, and China, where fossil fuel extraction and gold mining is a blight on the land and in communities mostly powerless to fight the exploitation. The film’s strength is in the human narratives elicited: a grandmother and granddaughter switching naturally to their native Cree Nation language (think about the forced assimilation schooling and denial of native languages), even if it’s to call a white bureaucrat a Moniyaw for blocking their access to see their ancestral lands. “The land owns us,’’ says the Cree activist, not the other way around.

“Sacrifice zones” are offered as a source of profit; it’ll grow back to the way it was, they say, thirty years after the extraction, while releasing toxins to the communities downstream. There’s a gross but real scene of a brash young oil worker—making 150k for 6 months’ work—excusing himself to blow his nose on some cash, gleeful over the scads of money he’s making.

In Beijing, a small boy is asked whether he’s ever seen a star, a blue sky, or a cloud. No, he answers to each, though allows for ‘a little blue’ in the sky, due to the horrible air pollution.

“Sustainability is a Marxist concept” masquerading as the redistribution of wealth, shouts one capitalist.

There’s good news: China has since closed its last coal mine and is heavily invested in producing solar panels. The Alberta tar sands expansion proposal collapsed in 2019 under pressure from environmentalists and indigenous groups https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/business/energy-environment/frontier-oil-sands-canada.html.

We can take care of the Earth and each other, creating a path to a different future where we can improve quality of life, create meaningful work, greater equality, and an end to ‘sacrifice zones.’ There’s a beautiful transition of Cree Nation singing segueing into Greek, the ethereal nature of the intonations being universal. It is the less powerful who are compromised by unregulated capitalism and who suffer effects not of their making. As we protest that Black Lives Matter in our unjust society, we also know the relationship of climate change is one of exploitation. They are tied together and an epic Best Chance to make a better world is upon us.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/alberta-canadas-tar-sands-is-growing-but-indigenous-people-fight-back/

The New Normal: Climate Change Spurs Hudson River Fish Die-Off

*Thousands of dead fish floating in the Hudson River. Image courtesy of UWS Live.*
Hudson River Fish Die-Off Was Exacerbated by Climate Change, Scientist Says by Carol Tannenhauser

Did anyone notice the dead fish floating all along the Manhattan shore of the Hudson River on the 4^th of July weekend? It is another glimpse of the new normal in our rapidly-warming world: a substantial fish die-off in the Hudson barely receives attention. Days of dead fish for miles, almost all of one species—Atlantic menhaden, also known as bunker fish—were to be seen floating in the tide. The cormorants and seagulls were not interested—I thought they must already have gorged themselves on these fresh-dead fish to pass them up—yet an odd sense settled in that the seabirds’ instincts told them to leave those fish be. Every now and again, a fish could be seen swimming on its side, swimming in a tight circle, in its death throes. It was a horrifying sight, juxtaposed with people enjoying a sunny day on the waterfront.

The official word, hastily looked up and reflected on my phone on July 3rd was that the bunker, which swim in schools, must have hit a pocket of low-oxygen water and essentially suffocated en masse. Low oxygen is caused by climate change as the water warms, and by fertilizer runoff in the water, the resulting algae blooms consuming more of the oxygen fish need to survive. When water warms it holds less oxygen because its molecules are more kinetic than that of colder water. The fish die from hypoxia, a lack of oxygen. A ‘natural occurrence,’ it’s been known to happen, but apparently never as bad as this year. (I did see a dead eel and what I think was a striped bass as well, but the others were uniformly Atlantic menhaden.) Some were headless, but some were completely intact, reflecting a continuing scenario—one in which it took some fish longer to succumb.

What sources to turn to for information? New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, in contrast to the federal government, has taken an active role in reducing emissions and fighting climate change. I would have a healthy dose of skepticism in considering anything put forth by the gutted federal EPA in the current administration, after our withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and alongside continuing, wrong-headed and confounding efforts to support the fossil fuel industry as though climate carnage was not a thing. New York State, referred to as a “subnational actor” in the UNEP Emissions Gap Report of November 2019, is among the states whose policies adhere to Paris Agreement levels of cutting emissions, regardless of the cynical federal retreat. Riverkeeper.org is the organization to which I turned for information in this very disturbing case of the impressive fish kill.

I first learned about Atlantic menhaden, bunker fish, in Montauk last year. On our annual camping trip to Montauk, we saw humpback whales spouting and jumping from where we stood on the beach. Bunker, we were told, travel in large schools and whales follow them. Never in a quarter century of summer visiting did we see whales from the beach. It, too, was an astounding sight, two whales jumping in graceful unison. We joked, slightly uneasily, that these were the End Times and evidence that the world is changing.

Jonathan Watts, summarizing UN findings in the Guardian in 2018, in which the headline 2 years ago blared: “We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN” notes that in the most stringent, optimistic, best-case scenario, in which we limit ourselves to 1.5° C of climate increase, 1.5 metric tons of fish will die from ocean acidification and heating. An additional half-degree warmer would double the die-off to 3 metric tons. The specter of massive fish die-offs is suddenly imaginable.

At the 79^th Street Boat Basin this summer, the usual sunset sight of the Clearwater Sloop docking and dispersing its groups of happy passengers is missing due to the pandemic. People traditionally set sail on the Clearwater for a several-hour tour to learn of the Hudson River’s ecology, the restorative cleanup of toxic PCBs from the 1970s, while enjoying the beautiful vistas of the Palisades and the Hudson itself. For those who remember the polluted years of the Hudson, it was a victory lap of sorts. I wish more people could see the sight of those dead fish, an unnatural alarm bell.

Riverkeeper notes that the Hudson is a delicate ecosystem. I worry that these ‘little’ signs, while explainable, are ominous. I’ve always known seagulls to be voracious feeders; even they seemed suspicious. Radical climate change is already upon us and we cannot become inured to the obvious. It is time to commit to action to preserve and to protect our ecosystems, not to shirk our responsibility. The Fourth of July scene on the Hudson must be a clarion call for the U.S. to recommit to the Paris Agreement.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Climate Change

MALS 78500 Summer 2020 Dr. Kaitlin Mondello