Global Warming Bonuses
It is true the Polar Bears are starving. The melting ice caps mean they are now too far from the seals they live off. They can't sustain enuf body fat to carry and nurse their young.
But the Spring bulbs ARE coming up early. When I am enjoying the warm air and thinking about my garden, it is very hard to remember the bad news about all this melting.
I understand the multi-nationals are even happier about global warming. As soon as the Polar Bears vacate, they can go in and mine the Arctic for all sorts of resources. No matter that we already squander most of the irreplaceable resources we extract from the earth.
Is there hope for the Polar Bears?
I am thinking about art and specifically ecological artists I know. I have always had faith that art can move people in ways nothing else can. Also, from art, we can always gauge the future. If the current Whitney Museum show is any example, the future is going to be angry. It will be full of information organized to convey ideas about the source of that anger.
I don't mind informed and thoughtfully organized anger. Education organizes information into arguments, polemics and ultimately, ideas. Ideas without information sometimes scares me. I think that's why fundamentalist zealots of all kinds can be dangerous. By definition, education and information require an ever-expanding mind. An open mind is the antithesis of fixed ideas at the core of much organized religion.
That's a long ways from Arctic meltdown and starving Polar Bears. Or is it?
It often seems to me that at it's best, ecological art has an educational component. Research is a resource for ecological artists just as marble is for a traditional sculptor. Perhaps then, I can hope that art foresees a future in which education has an expanded role in culture. And if enuf people are informed about the options to prevent and slow further global warming, a Polar Bear might live another day.
The bonus of global warming for people who are not multi-nationals is only in the very short term. It is in the hope that some ecological artists, including myself, are so angry that we might give a voice to a starving Polar Bear. Even as the Spring bulbs come early in the warm air we might consider that.
But the Spring bulbs ARE coming up early. When I am enjoying the warm air and thinking about my garden, it is very hard to remember the bad news about all this melting.
I understand the multi-nationals are even happier about global warming. As soon as the Polar Bears vacate, they can go in and mine the Arctic for all sorts of resources. No matter that we already squander most of the irreplaceable resources we extract from the earth.
Is there hope for the Polar Bears?
I am thinking about art and specifically ecological artists I know. I have always had faith that art can move people in ways nothing else can. Also, from art, we can always gauge the future. If the current Whitney Museum show is any example, the future is going to be angry. It will be full of information organized to convey ideas about the source of that anger.
I don't mind informed and thoughtfully organized anger. Education organizes information into arguments, polemics and ultimately, ideas. Ideas without information sometimes scares me. I think that's why fundamentalist zealots of all kinds can be dangerous. By definition, education and information require an ever-expanding mind. An open mind is the antithesis of fixed ideas at the core of much organized religion.
That's a long ways from Arctic meltdown and starving Polar Bears. Or is it?
It often seems to me that at it's best, ecological art has an educational component. Research is a resource for ecological artists just as marble is for a traditional sculptor. Perhaps then, I can hope that art foresees a future in which education has an expanded role in culture. And if enuf people are informed about the options to prevent and slow further global warming, a Polar Bear might live another day.
The bonus of global warming for people who are not multi-nationals is only in the very short term. It is in the hope that some ecological artists, including myself, are so angry that we might give a voice to a starving Polar Bear. Even as the Spring bulbs come early in the warm air we might consider that.
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