Disconnection from Nature

Michael Jackson's album Off the Wall came out 21 days after my 17th birthday, and at the time thanks to ABBA, I really did think I was a Dancing Queen. (lol) My 8-track of Off the Wall was played and danced to over and over and over again. That album and Michael Jackson have made an ever lasting impression on me. Music, art, and film always have the greatest impact on you when you are open to receiving the message.

Michael Jackson's Earth Song which came out in 1995 was his first single that overtly dealt with the environment and animal welfare. I was not completely surprised when I read this past week how Earth Song was a top five hit in most European countries, and in the UK, it remains Jackson's best-selling single. Sadly, Earth Song was not even released as a single in the United States. I wonder why? Maybe the reason was the US was not open to receiving this message at the time.

Earth Song was accompanied by a lavish music video which had an environmental theme, showing images of animal cruelty, deforestation, pollution and war. Jackson and the world's people unite in a spiritual chant Earth Song which summons a force that heals the world. Using special effects, time is reversed so that life returns, war ends and the forests regrow.

The video was filmed in four geographic regions. The first location was the Amazon Rainforest, where a large part was destroyed a week after the video's completion. Natives of the region appeared in the video and were not actors. The second scene was a war zone in Croatia, with residents of the area. The third location was Tanzania, which incorporated scenes of illegal poaching and hunting into the video. No animals were harmed in the making of the Earth Song, as the footage came from documentary archives. However, a poacher killed an elephant within a mile of the shot. The final location was in Warwick, New York, where a safe forest fire was simulated in a corn field.

Michael said this about Earth Song:

"I remember writing Earth Song when I was in Austria, in a hotel. And I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering of the plight of the Planet Earth. And for me, this is Earth's Song, because I think nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the Earth. And with the ecological unbalance going on, and a lot of the problems in the environment, I think earth feels the pain, and she has wounds, and it's about some of the joys of the planet as well. But this is my chance to pretty much let people hear the voice of the planet. And this is "Earth Song." And that's what inspired it."

I was happy I came across so many eco-bloggers like Treehugger, Ecorazzie and many others blogging about this song since Michael Jackson's transition last week. I hope this music video gets shown all over the world and especially here in the United States.  Here's wishing that we are now more open to receiving this message and the wonderful gift of music and video from a true genius.

You can view Michael Jackson's Earth Song video HERE.

Do you know where to get the best local, sustainable seafood?  Do you clean up plastic litter, even if it’s not yours and no one is watching?  Do you take reusable bags to the grocery store? In other words, do you live blue? 

 

Well then, here’s a marble.

 

If someone hands you a small blue marble don’t be surprised.  Here’s what to do:  give it away to someone who is also taking care of our little blue planet.  Or give it to someone else along with a tip about how to live blue: where to get the best local organic food, how to avoid plastic waste, or which politicians and businesses are true blue.

 

Then pause for a moment and consider that thousands of similar recycled-glass blue marbles are passing from hand to hand right now, making their way around the Earth, our big blue marble.  If you get one, give one.  And then, please share your story with all of us at BlueMarbles.org and inspire others to live blue.  Next June, we’ll check in on all the stories those blue marbles tell.  

 

Blue Marble is the name given to the most replicated photo ever, it’s the one made by Apollo 17 astronauts as they pointed their Hasselblad camera back at an illuminated Earth.  From up there we looked small, fragile, beautiful…and blue.  Sort of like a blue marble.

 

Understandably, the green patches of our planet get most of the eco-attention—albeit not nearly enough—while the blue expanses quietly take the hit.  I’ve heard it said that less than 1% of eco-funding goes to caring for the blue world. But, the fact is we live on a blue planet, not a green one, or a brown one.  Earth is mostly water, surrounded by a light blue or dark blue sky.  Life came from the ocean, and most of our planet’s life and habitable space is in the ocean.  We know all too well that the ocean gives us our climate, the air we breathe and food to eat.

 

But we’ve treated Big Blue like a giant dump.  Our chemicals, exhaust, emissions and trash are blown away with the breeze or washed away with the tide.  Invisible.  Out of sight.  Out of mind.  Global warming, ocean acidification, toxic seafood and plastic-laden seas and beaches mean that dilution is no longer a viable solution to pollution.

 

But our hope isn't false or shallow.  Soon, the health of the ocean, once the wallflower of the environmental movement, will move center stage, and not a moment too soon.

 

Those in the know say that 2010 is going to be a big year for the blue parts of our planet.  Beginning with World Ocean Day this June 8th (now recognized by the UN) a string of ocean events flows outward including the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Archie Carr, the father of sea turtle conservation, the premier of the IMAX film OCEAN, World Ocean Day 2010 and the anniversary of Jacques Cousteau’s 100th birthday.  Ocean explorer Dr. Sylvia Earle, aka “her Deepness,” has made a global network of marine protected areas her TED Prize wish.  Our new administration is poised to change the way climate change and energy politics are played for the better (to put it mildly).

 

The message is quite clear: we must do more for the ocean, we must do it better and we must do it now.

 

Your local “blue” organizations—the frontline warriors—need your help.  These days “help” means money, so update your memberships at Save Our Shores, Surfrider, O’Neill Sea Odyssey, FishWise and all the other blue orgs today.  While you’re at it, renew your commitment to the national organizations like Ocean Champions, Ocean Conservancy and Oceana, the people who, day-in and day-out, lobby for and shape the plans and policies that will restore healthy oceans.  Hit the beach, roll up your sleeves and volunteer to pick up that trash even when no one is watching.  Without local support these groups are not going to make it, which means neither will we.  

 

If you’re not convinced, just consider what our ocean would look like without the people who have fought for it through the years.  More oil rigs, an extra few thousand tons of trash, lots more runoff, fewer fish, whales and turtles, lack of public access and poorer ocean illiteracy leap to mind. 

 

We all owe these ocean saints a world of thanks.  Maybe your neighbor, teacher, co-worker or partner is one of them.  In fact, I’ll bet you’re one of them, too.  If so, then one day, very soon, I hope someone puts a blue marble into your hand and says, “thank you.”  

 

And then, when that blue marble is yours, you’ll know exactly what to do with it.

 

On June 5th Celebrate World Ocean Day and Ocean Revolution 5 at the Catalyst with the Mother Hips and Hot Buttered Rum (catalystclub.com)

just joined the 11th hour action movement. Will arrange a screening of this film in Regina.

Earth Day is Every Day, And For Adults,Too, Most of All

On Earth Day, as the world celebrates the miracle of Mother Earth and all that she provides, I also often hear the phrase“Earth Day is every day.” And I agree. While I appreciate and understand the need for a special day to heighten awareness around the earth’s biosystems that are currently on life support, because the state of the world IS so dire, our consciousness around environmental issues must remain at code red every day. 

While this may sound exhausting and perhaps impossible, I also want to up the ante. And my next point comes from the many 11th Hour panels and discussions that I have been fortunate enough to attend.  The discussions are always rewarding and it is so heartening to engage with people on the issues directly.  However, in almost every Q+A, there is someone in the audience who raises their hand somewhat solemnly and says something like: “Yes, I agree that the ecosystems are in trouble and this crisis is real, but, have you considered really targeting children? I mean, it’s really difficult for adults to change, and, really, the future belongs to children, so this message is really for them.  They can change, we can’t.”  And, usually, many in the audience nod in agreement, and there is a sensation that flows through the room that if I could put words to it, it would be something like “Whew, we are off the hook!!”

Hmmm…I pause and then reply: “Well, if we wait for our kids to get old enough to act on the information I give to them today, it WILL BE TOO LATE!” 

Really. It will be too late. 

Consider that almost every data point on the ice melt in the Arctic and Antarctic has been too conservative – it’s melting faster than predicted.  Consider that there are crises that the public at large still has not been hit with yet, like endocrine disruption and acidification of the oceans, both of which (and there are more) could need as much attention as climate change. (Google Theo Colborn for endocrine disruption and NOAA for ocean acidification as I don’t want to digress on those here).

So when that “Adults can’t change, but kids can” comment comes along, I have to suppress a growing anger at our, adults’, collective lack of responsibility for our lives and the lives of our children. (Much less the lives of the thousands of life forms that are going extinct every year due to our actions.) How dare we be comfortable with passing along a trashed planet because we couldn’t cure ourselves of our addiction to stuff fast enough?  And I count myself among those who are having a tough time changing. Even with all the things that I know, I still do not live a fully green lifestyle. Far from it.  So I acknowledge that this addiction to our way of life, even in the face of human extinction and massive die-off of life on our planet, for some reason is not hitting home to the degree that will cause all of us, adults, to make radical, personal change. 

So what is it going to take?  Well, I think that the first step is for all of us to stop counting on our kids and start counting on ourselves. And the second thing is that we must work together, in community, locally as well as further afield if you can. Yes, of course, educate our kids, but, please don’t count yourself out. YOU ARE IT. And yes there still is time – like a Hollywood ending, the odds are stacked against us, but we really do have the technology and the ideas “on the shelf” that can reduce the human footprint on planet earth by 90%.  So what we do today to make substantial change does matter, and it will give our kids the future we would want to live in ourselves, and if we don’t act, a dark future awaits us all, and yes, in our lifetimes. 

Leila is Director, Writer and Producer of The 11th Hour and President of Tree Media Group. http://www.treemedia.com 

I wrote a blog back in October 2007 about photographic artist Chris Jordan who began a series of digital photographs that present contemporary American culture by way of inconceivable statistics regarding American consumption. In his photographic series, Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, each image portrays a specific quantity of consumption: Plastic Bags, 2007 - Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds; Plastic Bottles, 2007 - Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Jordan portrays these statistics by incorporating them visually in large, intricately detailed photographic prints assembled from thousands of smaller images.

In his new series, Runninng the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture (2009) Jordan depicts mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. The first few pieces in this series depict statistics about threats to the world's marine ecosystems.

Gyre (2009) is the first set of images in this new series which represents the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. The Pacific Gyre is the largest garbage swill floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco and is roughly the size of Texas containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash.

The below photographic image Gyre (2009) is composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic – the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour.

  

                              Actual image                                                                    Partial zoom

  

                           Zoomed in further                                                                  Viewed up close

Next in the series is a set of images called Shark Teeth, 2009. If you have read the 11th Hour Action blog about how sharks are under a global threat and yet may be a key to our survival then you may appreciate the significance of these images, and the serious consequences to killing sharks.

The below images depicts 270,000 fossilized shark teeth, equal to the estimated number of sharks of all species killed around the world every day for their fins.

  

                         Actual image                                                                                        Partial zoom

  

                              Zoomed in further                                                                            Viewed up close

To fully appreciate these photographic images you should really view them directly from Chris Jordan’s website. There are 11 images from the Gyre series, and 5 from Shark Teeth. Plus there are 5 images that depicts 20,500 tuna, the average number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes.