Can Art Help Save the Environment?

1. Can Art Help Save the Environment? The Role Art and Popular Culture Play in Combating Environmental Issues Prepared by: Stephanie Pachon

2. Environmental Issues Climate Change Over Use Of Resources Waste -Global Warming -Deforestation -Waste Management -Greenhouse Effect -Fossil Fuels -Waste Treatment Technologies -Greenhouse Gas -Intensive Farming -Commercial Waste Conservation-Irrigation -Business Waste -Biodiversity -Land Degradation -Construction & Demolition Waste -Desertification -Over-illumination -Domestic Waste -Endangered Species -Overgrazing -Industrial Waste -Holocene Extinction Event -Over Population -Packaging Waste -Pollinator Decline -Resource Depletion -Radioactive Waste -Soil Conservation -Water Crisis -Sewage

3. What is Global Warming? Carbon dioxide and other gases warm the surface of the planet naturally by trapping solar heat in the atmosphere. This is a good thing because it keeps our planet habitable. However, by burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil and clearing forests we have dramatically increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and temperatures are rising. If the warming continues we can expect catastrophic consequences: • Deaths from global warming will double in just 25 years- to 300 000 people a year. • Global sea levels could rise by more than 20 feet with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica, devastating costal areas world wide. • Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. • Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. • The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050. • More than a million species world wide could be driven to extinction by 2050. And these are just some of the consequences of Global Warming !

4. Can Art Help Save the Environment? What is Eco Art? Environmental Artists or Eco Artists have been growing in numbers since the movement began in the 1960’s. Eco Art, is art that helps improve our relationship with the natural world. “Over the last two decades, as the urgency of our environmental situation has not only increased but become increasing known, so the Eco Art field has diversified considerably.”(Driggs 43) Some Eco Art: • Interprets nature, creating artworks that inform us about nature and its processes, or about environmental problems we face • Is concerned with environmental forces and materials, creating artworks affected or powered by wind, water, lightning, even earthquakes • Re-envisions our relationship to nature, proposing through their work new ways for us to co-exist with our environment • Reclaims and remediates damaged environments, restoring ecosystems in artistic and often aesthetic ways

5. “I think art has the power to change consciousness and this in turn should help protect the environment and everything in it” - Jack Hanley, Gallerist “Art cannot “help protect the environment” or turn back global warming; it cannot change the world except incrementally and by osmosis. I suspect that the only disciplines that will have any chance of “protecting the environment” will be the same ones that created the conditions in the first place: Science, politics, and philosophy.” - Jerry Saltz, Senior Art Critic, Village Voice “For me ecological issues are very creative ones. I have found this is a very exciting time to live, in a way, because we are reassessing our relationship to the land. For me it is not just doom and gloom; it is also a sort of celebration. It is a time when we can find a very personal way of establishing a relationship with the land.” - Andy Goldsworthy, Artist

6. Eco Artists and Their Work “What the warming world needs now is art , sweet art…” - Bill McKibbon, Environmental Writer Andy Goldsworthy “I want an intimate, physical involvement with the earth. I must touch…I take nothing out with me in the way of tools, glue, or rope, preferring to explore the natural bonds and tensions that exist within the earth… Each work is a discovery” - Andy Goldsworthy (Hand To Earth) Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, environmentalist and photographer living in Scotland who produces site-specific sculpture and land art situated in natural and urban settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create both temporary and permanent sculptures which draw out the character of their environment. Goldsworthy’s art is very much about maintaining a close relationship with his surroundings. Through his art practice he is working to develop a greater understanding of the natural world and its cycles. “It was very important to me when I discovered that I could actually learn from making art. Instead of it being a means of dumping my feeling s or ideas, it acted as a kind of vehicle for getting information. Learning how ice freezes, what the weather’s like, how long it takes for rain to fall before it can leave a shadow.” - Andy Goldsworthy (Hand to Earth)

7. Andy Goldsworthy- Carin at Penpoint 2000 Andy Goldsworthy - Dead Elm 2006 Dumfriesshire Andy Goldsworthy- Elm leaves laid on the wet trunk of an elm tree 2000 Andy Goldsworthy- Torn lines through elm leaves 2002

8. Noel Harding “Noel Harding is an international Canadian artist and urban innovator recognized for his monumental scale public art projects and environmental sculptures that address the role and plight of nature in the midst of twenty-first century urbanization. He is well known for his sculpture The Elevated Wetlands where vegetation lives in recycled plastic soil while cleaning polluted water. In general, his work is an engagement in public urban realities: planning, envisioning, and mapping toward the future, suggesting that much more is possible.”(noelharding.ca) “A wonderfully inventive artist .[His work] questions the relationship between nature and technology and man’s social and ecological existence. [his pieces] explore the visual properties of materials seldom used to create sculpture. Harding’s highly personal vision encompasses natural elements in a surprising manner. The artist’s fascination with organic and synthetic systems of living allows us to experience nature in an unprecedented way.” ~ John Bentley Mays, former art critic, The Globe and Mail Noel Harding- Elevated Wetlands 2000, Toronto Noel Harding- Green Corridor 2003 – ongoing, Windsor

9. Environmental Concern and Music Environmentalism has occasionally been the topic for song lyrics since the 1960’s and continues to be on the minds of musicians today. Their music serves as a successful way to relay a message of change to the general public. The following are examples of songs written in the past several decades addressing environmental issues: “Hey farmer, farmer Put away that DDT now Give me spots on my apples But LEAVE me the birds and the bees Please! Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you’ve got ‘Til its gone They paved paradise And put up a parking lot.” Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell 1970 “We live in the garden of Eden, yeah don't know why we wanna tear the whole thing to the ground” After The Garden, Neil Young 2006 “We got a job to do. We got to Save mother earth. Be the ocean when it meets the sky you can make a difference, if you really try. Be the magic in the northern lights six days....six nights. Be the river as it rolls along it has three eyed fish and it's smellin' strong. Be the rain you remember fallin‘ be the rain, be the rain“ Be The Rain, Neil Young 2003“And you know if one goes down we all go down as well. The balance is precarious as anyone can tellThis worlds going to hell. Don’t allow this mythologic hopeful monster to exact its priceKyoto now! We cant do nothing and think someone else will make it right. You might not think it matters now but what if you are wrong” Kyoto Now!, Bad Religion 2002

10. Musicians are also getting involved on other levels. Willie Nelson has helped establish “Bio Willie” a company which produces premium biodiesel. Their slogan says that they are : “American Family Farmers Growing Fuel for a Stronger America”. Many musicians such as Jack Johnson and Neil Young are now using Biodiesel to fuel their tour buses and personal vehicles. Record companies themselves are also beginning to take action, “As part of its ongoing environmental initiative with the Natural Resources Defense Council, WEA, the U.S. sales and distribution company of Warner Music Group Corp. has announced that all of its standard CD and DVD products in the U.S. will use ecologically-enhanced paper packaging by the end of March 2007. The company has also made changes inside it's offices that reduce paper use and promote recycling, the company successfully attains a goal toward which it has been steadily building. WMG also announced the a new company-wide program to reduce or offset greenhouse gas emissions associated with global climate change, beginning with a "carbon-neutral" Grammy party.”(www.hypebot.com)

11. What You Can do to Help Small changes to your daily routine can add up to big differences in helping stop global warming and other environmental issues. Reduce Your Impact at Home • Replace regular incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. • Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner. • Choose energy efficient appliances. • Use less hot water • Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible. • Turn off electronic devices you’re not using. • Unplug electronics from the wall when you’re not using them. • Be sure you’re recycling at home- you can save 2400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates. • Buy recycled paper products. • Plant a tree. • Buy locally grown and produced foods. • Buy fresh instead of frozen. • Buy organic foods as much as possible.

12. Avoid heavily packaged products. • Eat less meat – cows produce large amounts of methane, which is the second most significant greenhouse gas Reduce Your Impact on the Move • Reduce the number of miles you drive by walking, biking, carpooling, or taking mass transit whenever possible. • Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates. • Keep your car tuned up. • Check your tires weekly to make sure they’re properly inflated.

13. Places to Find More Information While doing my research I came across some really helpful and informative websites that you may want to check out: • www.ecoartspace.org • www.treehugger.com • www.stopglobalwarming .com • www.climatecrisis.net (The official site for the documentary An Inconvenient Truth) • www.arborday.org– “We inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees.” • www.ec.gc.ca-Environment Canada • www.ear thbiofuels.com • healthandenergy.com/global_warming_cartoons.htm • www.free-soil.org • www.myfootprint.org- Measure your Ecological Footprint You also may want to watch: • An Inconvenient Truth (2006) • The Corporation (2003) • Rivers and Tides (2001) • Manufactured Landscapes (2007)