Earth Day
Interactive Earth Day site asks us to slow down, find “What Is Missing”
Vietnam Memorial creator Maya Lin's new project is an exercise in self-control in the hyper-frenetic world wide web
This is not Christian the Lion. The Internet is about quantity over quality, speed over content. I’m not saying everything on the web has to be Nyan the Poptart Cat, only that Cute Roulette is the hottest site this week precisely because it lets you click through adorable animal videos with amazing speed. Don’t like the raccoon taking a bath? Boom, you’re looking at a Great Dane trying to knock over a giant tortoise.
In comparison, Maya Lin’s Earth Day site, “What Is Missing” seems slow and creepy by comparison. You click on dots on a map — which read anything from “bats” to “bees” to “the natural sounds of the ocean” — and are immediately submerged in a sensory overload about the danger of its disappearance. The videos last a particularly long time as new information about the animals appear on the screen, during which you are forced to turn down the volume on your computer so your officemates don’t think you’re getting attacked by a jaguar.
Why would I want to go on a site like “What Is Missing,” which seems long, cumbersome, and uncomfortably submersible, when I could just as easily watch 10-second videos of kitties all day?
Maybe because Lin — whose design for the Vietnam Memorial back in 1981 initially received criticism for being too abstract, too odd, and too “weird” considering her ethnicity — doesn’t necessarily go for quick comforts in her projects. She makes you think about what you’re looking at: forcing you to slow down and consider the images and sounds as they dissolve out of focus on your screen.
In this way, watching a longer, abstract video about humpback whales and their “beautiful songs” serves as an important reminder that not every aspect of animal life happens in 50-second YouTube clips on your laptop, but is slowly disappearing from the real world as we click again and again on our tickling penguin video.
Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.
Earth Day protest: Clean up this mess
To residents of one predominantly black neighborhood, environmental issues mean how, and how long, they live
Earth Day may have devolved from a spontaneous outburst of benevolence toward nature to a green marketing opportunity in its 40-year history, but for a group of activists and residents of contaminated areas in San Francisco, the day has retained its value. Standing outside the Pacific Gas & Electric headquarters this week, residents of Bayview-Hunters Point, a predominantly African-American section in southeast San Francisco, and activists from the group Greenaction chanted for clean air.
Continue Reading CloseAxe’s Earth Day: Shower together!
A new ad suggests you save water by "showerpooling" -- but you'll smell worse
Axe "showerpooling" commercial Happy Earth Day! The nice gentlemen at Axe have a suggestion for saving our planet’s most precious resource: water. Just turn your hygiene habits into a group activity and “showerpool.” Get it? See, it’s funny because it’s about getting “friendly” with naked girls, under the guise of conservation. The Canadian Axe ad drives home the point by illustrating it with cute icons of one male showerpooling with several curvy females, “all over zee planet.” (Axe’s ambitious suggested ratio: four ladies per Axe man.)
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Mary Elizabeth Williams is a staff writer for Salon and the author of "Gimme Shelter: My Three Years Searching for the American Dream." Follow her on Twitter: @embeedub. More Mary Elizabeth Williams.
The hypocrisy of the green-living bullies
Activists are guilt-tripping me about my food choices -- but the fact is, I'm just too poor to do what they say
Young woman shouting at another woman through a megaphone(Credit: Mateusz Zagorski) A version of this post initially appeared on Ann Nichols’ Open Salon blog.
As a lefty/crunchy granola/pop-culture influenced foodie type, I am well aware that “green is the word.” I read Michael Pollan, Russ Parsons and Barbara Kingsolver. I watch the network entirely devoted to all things green, from Ed Begley Jr. installing solar panels and a rain barrel to Emeril teaching the clueless how to cook entire meals using only the vegetable section of Whole Foods. I’ve seen “Food, Inc.” and “King Corn.” I recycle, I repurpose, I always try to buy local, I shop at the farmers market, I covet the Prius, I make my own non-toxic cleaning products, and I just started composting. I am a (good) home cook, and prepare meals from scratch seven nights out of seven. Conceptually I am in. Way, way in.
Continue Reading CloseEarth Day: Rebellious roots, but mainstream now
After 40 years, the environmental holiday is a sophisticated institution, but some of the initial passion has faded
There was no “Green Movement” yet and little talk of global warming. Instead, the original Earth Day 40 years ago emphasized “ecology” and goals like cleaning up pollution and litter — along with a more anti-establishment vibe than today.
“Welcome, sulfur dioxide, hello, carbon monoxide,” a woman sang from the 1968 countercultural Broadway hit, “Hair,” at a rally in Philadelphia that day. Across the country, activists donned gas masks or spread out in grassy parks to hear speeches about overpopulation, smog and dirty rivers.
Continue Reading CloseCan technology cool the planet?
Why desperate scientists are considering outlandish ideas, from brightening clouds to dumping iron into the ocean
These days, it’s hard not to feel disillusioned about the fight against global warming. The 2009 Copenhagen climate summit failed to create a binding agreement to reduce CO2 emissions, and predictions about the impact of climate change are growing increasingly dire (some are predicting an ice-free Arctic by the end of the decade). Recently, many scientists have begun to embrace the notion that, barring a massive policy change, we’re going to have to learn how to live with global warming. (It’s a sobering fact that even if emissions drop to zero today, existing CO2 will keep our planet warm for the next several centuries.)
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Thomas Rogers is Salon's Arts Editor. More Thomas Rogers.
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