Author: finnarnejorgensen

Blue Vinyl

With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning film maker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America’s most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.

Back at the starter ranch, Helfand coaxes her terribly patient parents into replacing their vinyl siding on the condition that she can find a healthy, affordable alternative (and it has to look good!).

A detective story, an eco-activism doc, and a rollicking comedy, BLUE VINYL puts a human face on the dangers posed by PVC at every stage of its life cycle, from factory to incinerator. Consumer consciousness and the “precautionary principle” have never been this much fun.

http://www.bluevinyl.org/

The Beloved Community

By Pamela Calvert/Plain Speech

Pam Calvert’s film on health issues arising from endocrine disrupters in the First Nation’s community surrounded on three sides by the chemical in Sarnia Ontario, across from Port Huron Michigan, is in rough cut and will be shown locally in mid September. The nerve center of Canada’s petrochemical industry, Sarnia, Ontario once enjoyed the highest standard living in the country—but now the bill has come due, in compromised environmental and community health. How do you stay in the home you love when the price you pay may be not only your own life, but the safety of future generations? In The Beloved Community, a petrochemical town faces a toxic legacy head-on. THE BELOVED COMMUNITY is a co-presentation of Detroit Public Television. Jeff Forster, Executive Producer.

For more information: pcalvert@plainspeech.tv

Baraka

Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on “where,” but on “what’s there.” It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred monks do a monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103767/ ($11.32 VHS @ amazon.com)

The Atomic Café

A collection of Cold War public service announcements and other kitsch synthesized into “a comic horror film” by Rafferty et al (1982). From the IMDb website: “An ostensibly tongue in cheek documentary about the nuclear age of the late 40’s and 50’s, juxtaposing the horrific realities of the arms race with cheery misinformation(and simplistic redbaiting) doled out to the public by the US government and private sector. The overall effect is chilling- for every scene of hilariously misguided propaganda and dismissal of nuclear danger(an army film cheerfully assures a fictional fallout victim that his hair will grow back in no time) there’s scenes of Pacific islanders affected by fallout from remote nuclear tests and US soldiers getting debriefed on the minimal dangers of witnessing a nuclear detonation a few miles away(with goggles on, to be fair). Not an objective documentary by any means – not that it should be – the filmmakers excoriate the duplicity of the government and the mock the complacency of the public with equal zeal, but there’s a certain absurdist charm to the whole affair.”

Affluenza

AFFLUENZA is a groundbreaking film that diagnoses a serious social disease – caused by consumerism, commercialism and rampant materialism – that is having a devastating impact on our families, communities, and the environment. We have more stuff, but less time, and our quality of life seems to be deteriorating. By using personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, and “uncommercial” breaks to illuminate the nature and extent of the disease, AFFLUENZA has appealed to widely diverse audiences: from freshmen orientation programs to consumer credit counseling, and from religious congregations to marketing classes.

With the help of historians and archival film, AFFLUENZA reveals the forces that have dramatically transformed us from a nation that prized thriftiness – with strong beliefs in “plain living and high thinking” – into the ultimate consumer society.

The program ends with a prescription to cure the disease. A growing number of people are opting out of the consumer chase, and choosing “voluntary simplicity” instead. They are working and shopping less, spending more time with friends and family, volunteering in their communities, and enjoying their lives more.

www.bullfrogfilms.com ($250) (can sometimes be found on amazon.com)

Aeon Flux

Animation by Chung (1996)
I have a VHS tape collection of the show’s segments that aired on MTV’s “Liquid Television” years ago. Female bionic anti-hero struggles against the forces of order and oppression, and with the great questions of postmodern ontology. From Wikipedia website: “Æon Flux is set in a bizarre, dystopian, future world of mutant creatures, clones, and robots. The title character is a tall, scantily-clad secret agent from the society of Monica, skilled in assassination and acrobatics. Her mission is to infiltrate the strongholds of the neighboring country of Bregna, which is led by her sometimes-enemy and sometimes-ally Trevor Goodchild. Monica represents a dynamic anarchist society, while Bregna embodies a centralized, scientifically planned state. The names of their respective characters reflect this: Flux as the self-directed agent from Monica and Goodchild as the technocratic leader of Bregna.

CFP: Ecological restoration and human flourishing in the era of anthropogenic climate change. September 5-7, 2008, Clemson University.

Sponsored by Clemson University Restoration Institute, College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities, School of the Environment, Rutland Institute for Ethics, and Department of Philosophy and Religion

Reports this year from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change place it beyond reasonable doubt that humans are largely responsible for global warming and that the potential consequences are simply unprecedented in scope and magnitude. It is also becoming increasingly clear that some of these consequences are now unavoidable. Preventative measures alone, if enacted, could only head-off the worst. What should be done with the natural world that will be inherited in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the 20th and the opening decades of the 21st century? As embodied and terrestrial beings, embedded in an emerging and unstable new world climate, how should considerations of justice, ecological and human flourishing influence prescriptive combinations of prevention, mitigation, adaptation, and restoration? What should we believe about ecological restitution or redress to citizens of third-world countries, or future generations? What are the meta-ethical, technological, biological, and geo-political considerations that underlie this range of normative concerns? Our focus will be on issues at the intersection of ecological restoration, global justice, and prospects of well being for human and non-human animals in an era of radial climate change, including the restoration or geo-engineering of large-scale biotic processes and the role of human flourishing in the practice of ecological restoration.

Confirmed speakers include Eric Higgs, Andrew Light and Martha Nussbaum.

Format
To make the conference and its expenditure of energy as useful as possible, the conference format will involve preconference paper sharing and preparatory dialogue, a combination of plenary and small group sessions, ample time for discussion both in and outside sessions, post-conference documentation, the creation of a network on the conference theme and related issues following the conference, and a conference volume to be reworked thoroughly for publication. Additionally, the organizers have set aside 10% of the conference budget to invest in accountable, well-proven reforestation and wind farming. Novel ways of participating in the conference to avoid CO2 emissions are invited. Ideally, we would have the conference entirely on-line but feel we need face-to-face time on this issue to begin the research discussions around it. As much of the conference as is practically possible for us will involve a sustainable ontology -e.g., recycled paper, on-line archiving, local and humane food sources with reduced packaging, etc.

Proposals
Send the proposal to ERHFconference-L@clemson.edu by November 30th, 2007. The finished papers of those accepted will be due by July 30th, 2008. Proposals should include an abstract of approximately 500 words, an optional explanation of some 200 words explaining the proposal’s relevance to the conference themes, a list of current research projects or of publications related to the conference themes, and full contact details (email, phone, address). Graduate students are encouraged to apply. There will be one graduate student scholarship to help with costs.

Organizing and program committee
Allen Thompson, Clemson University Department of Philosophy and Religion
Jeremy Bendik-Keymer, American University of Sharjah Department of International Studies and Le Moyne College Department of Philosophy
Breena Holland, Lehigh University Department of Political Science and the Environmental Initiative

Deadline: November 30th 2007

Walker and LeCain Awarded NSF Grant: Will Compare Japanese and American Reactions to Mining Pollutants

By Evelyn Boswell, Montana State University News Service, Bozeman

Originally published in the Spring 2007 Envirotech Newsletter.

Editor’s Note: I hope you all will forgive me in advance for including an article on my own work here, but I think the project will be of interest to many of you. By all means, please send me similar news service reports on your own work and I will be happy to include them. Although it is not readily apparent from this article, the research project draws heavily on the new thinking in envirotech many of you have contributed to over the past few years. A better sense of our intellectual foundations and goals may be had be reading the grant abstract at:
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0646644

Two Montana State University historians who see insightful similarities between former copper mines in Montana and Japan have received $306,000 from the National Science Foundation to investigate and share their findings.

Brett Walker, Tim LeCain and six MSU graduate students will compare how Montanans and Japanese residents dealt with the technology, science and pollution associated with two huge copper mines that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. One mine was at Butte/Anaconda, the other at Ashio, Japan.

The mines existed in different cultures, environments and religious contexts, but each used highly sophisticated technology that had never been used before, Walker said. They had underground electrical systems. They had railroad systems and complicated smeltering systems.

Each mine helped modernize its country and allowed it to thrive in an international economy, Walker added. Both operations were entrenched in local politics. At the same time, the mines created environmental disasters that appeared first in species that symbolized the earlier economies of those areas — cattle in the American West and silkworms in East Asia. Sulfur dioxide fell onto pastures and poisoned the cattle that grazed around Anaconda and Butte. It also fell on mulberry bushes and killed large silkworm colonies in central Japan.

“If you are a Buddhist and believe that all living creatures are part of a continuum of life and everything has a soul, do you view environmental destruction, particularly the death of animals, differently than you do if you’re raising livestock in Butte and Anaconda?” Walker asked.

LeCain said, “Two key symbols, cattle and silkworms, suffered very similar effects, but more interesting is that Americans and Japanese, because of their respective cultural differences, had very different readings of these two pollution events.”

Walker, head of MSU’s Department of History and Philosophy, is an expert in the environmental history of Japan. LeCain specializes in the history of technology, particularly mining technology. In a blending of interests, the researchers will travel to Japan, Butte and Anaconda to examine the mines and the effect they had on the environment. The area around Ashio is much steeper and damper than the Butte/Anaconda area, Walker said. Walker and LeCain will also study historical documents and interview area residents, then write a book on their findings, develop a web site and create interactive maps to show the impact of each mine.

“A lot has been written about both mines, but there have been no comparisons between the two,” Walker said. “We are asking different questions, more scientific, ecological and technological questions.”

The entire process will continue to develop MSU’s graduate program in history which added a doctorate program four years ago, Walker said. The graduate program will have about 25 students in the fall, 11 of them working on their Ph.Ds. Several of the Ph.D. students are working on dissertations that explore the environmental history of mining in Montana.

“The grant funds our research, but also funds what is a very vibrant, active graduate program,” Walker said. The researchers said their project isn’t meant to demonize copper; they appreciate the computers and other conveniences it allows. LeCain noted that a Boeing 747 contains about 9,000 pounds of copper, a typical house contains 400 pounds, and a car averages 50 pounds. Copper is an important component in video games and computers.

Mining may not be the industry it once was in Butte/Anaconda and Ashio, but it’s big in other areas of the world, the researchers said. Other countries are now dealing with the issues that Montana and Japan once faced.

“It’s not happening in our back yard right now, but it’s not that it’s not happening somewhere,” Walker said. LeCain said, “We all have to grapple with this ecological reality. We are not offering easy solutions, but moral dilemmas.”

Short Films on Air Pollution

Jeffrey Stine tells us: The Scout Report has reported on several aspects of the AIRNow website before, but this is the first time that we’ve noticed that they have a very fine selection of short movies on their website. These short films are designed for the general public, and they deal with such topics as air quality control, how ozone is formed, and a special presentation for children on ozone. The films range in length from 13 to 21 minutes, and one can imagine that these multimedia presentations could be used in a variety of classroom settings as they are quite accessible and jargon-free. Additionally, the air quality presentation is available in Spanish, and the rest of their website is definitely worth looking over.

Air Quality Movies [Macromedia Flash Player, Windows Media Player]
http://www.airnow.gov