J. Henry Fair is a photographer who snaps beautiful and unsettling images of industrial scars. I was recently turned onto this work, and stumbled upon a TED talk he gave last fall in Berlin on the impact of energy extraction on the environment.
At a time when many American politicians are stepping up rhetoric in support of the “extraction economy,” it’s important to see what that really means on the ground.
From coal ash storage to fertilizer production, Fair has accumulated an array of stunning industrial photos — making the invisible costs of energy and consumerism visible.
“Every product, everything we buy, everything that we spend money on has invisible costs. Those costs are hidden costs that usually result in some kind of environmental degradation.”
“Those systems which are providing us with free services — clean air, clean water — as we push those systems into failure, we will ultimately have to pay (or our children will have to pay) to replace those services. In actual fact, what we’re doing, it’s a massive transfer of wealth between the people who are profiting from these extractive processes and our grandchildren.”
Our deeply-held beliefs about never-ending economic growth are being challenged by limited resources and environmental degradation. Is this the type of economy we want to strive for?
Watch Fair’s TED talk:
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thanks Stephen and friends,
The manufacturing impacts can last much longer than the product, hence the impact could be the lasting product.
The photographs are stunning – and I am going to use the TED talk in my class. Visuals or even poems can convey what we can’t say in prose- and we need more creative people to start thinking about weaving climate change into our cultural landscape.
I wrote this poem (warning I am not a poet) while grappling with how to convey the vast complexities and interconnections of CC to my freshman seminar on climate change
Climate Change class preparation
Tell me how-
to weave these into
tapestry of words – string them up like beads
Without breaking into sweat; or curling up, with my knees against my chest
Breaking ice shelves in western Antarctica,
My student’s pledge to take shorter showers
Mt. Kilimanjaro’s vanishing white mane
The burp of the cows and the excrement of hogs,
Burning forests,
Derivatives in carbon
Kiribati, Satbhaya- the rising water,
Moving homes- farewell papaya tree.
skeletal silhouettes of naked pines
Pine beetles
Sudden raging fire
Pulses of carbon dioxide
And did you know, they talk about the compost bomb,
Stuff like permafrost and tipping points
Mr. Stern, your discount rates are too low/high;
Markets will take care- if only we can name a price
And learn to measure and monitor.
Oh we can get through- if we keep the borders intact
Build electric fences; along the Mexico border
And the unborn can surely look after themselves!
Empty eyes, empty field- corn stalks drooping in dried dust.
Food prices graphs jiggling, twisting
Is it really just speculation? Or flash heat waves in Ukraine?
And floods in Thailand?
Did you know that scientists tell us that there are heatpumps in the ocean
The dazzle of the sun from the ice really is critical- they call it albedo,
But then the seductions of the North-West Passage
and the Arctic oil
Kyoto, Copenhagen, Durban, Cancun
Jibber Jabber, Pitter patter go on the talks
The geese fly back in March
The tulips are out a month early
Dr. Masters, tell us if you think this is the future
upon us.
Prima facie in toronto – it seems not bad;
And anyway, I don’t know anyone from Satabhaya.
Tell me how, to weave all this into a semblance of sanity.
While the sun smiles, guileless
Now look at your home. Your computer. All the cool stuff on TV and internet. your grocery store and the endless shelves of food and goods. The hospitals and schools and police buildings around your city. The lack of polio deaths. The life saving gadgets of emergency responders. Your ability to travel around the world and experience different cultures. That too is part of the “extraction economy.”
Not sure why the lack of polio deaths is in there. It is true that many of the things that we have are made possible by a self-destructively unsustainable economic system.
It would be nice if you could define the “you” used – in terms of numbers, locations, consumption etc. Is it addressed to the whole of humanity or the 10-15% who enjoy the luxuries mentioned or the people who are fortunate enough to read this blog only. Does “you” and “yours” also include the 4/5th of the humanity, not to say the earth’s other denizens, who bear the burden of the extractive economy.
Normally I wouldn’t make such polemical response, being more interested in hope/ optimism/doing than in ideologies/ certainties/ fundamentalisms.
Its the Ying and the Yang of modern life.
THis is precisely why conservation is a critical tool — an invaluable tool.
Economists don’t measure it, or even define it, and even climatehawks rarely mention it. Conservation is simply consuming less than you can afford, perhaps no more than you need. Consuming less, fewer, smaller, later, less often; saying “No, thanks” or “That’s plenty, thanks” more often.
Conservation leaves you financially wealthier and more secure, and demands less extraction globally.
I can’t recommend it enough.
Let’s not forget the mining that makes the modern and future renewable electricity possible. Let’s not forget the mining that makes electric vehicles possible. The rare earths mined in China are toxic environmental disasters helping to keep China as the most polluted nation on Earth. You cannot have the renewable energy economy without pollution. It’s always about extraction and Mr Fair is right, everything has an environmental cost. You can’t get around it. Some things need to be extracted like rare earth elements. Some things should be left in the ground like coal and tar sand oil. We need to clean up our mess but we also need to produce more because the world will demand more. Population growth may be slowing but overall world population will continue to grow. More and more young people will join the middle class in India and China and they will need all the comforts of modern civilization: energy, fresh water, food, housing, education, jobs, transportation, sanitation, medical care. I wonder how we can meet their needs without consuming natural resources and without economic growth?
Do you know it’s hard to deal with the reality of future prospects?
Anyway, I don’t know which makes for the better stomach churning Halloween poster. The picture of the dead one of the Gulf of today’s news or the drawing of this article.
Either is too bad, I trust, for a fun celebration.
The poem is so very touching, it pulls at the strings of my heart.
Good on you Joe Romm, l
Lets end this civilisation forever (hope you have your escape pod at the ready).
I don’t claim to know the answer, but it is quite obvious that we can not keep increasing (and then increasing from that higher amount), over and over 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2…..~
We can’t do that. Sure, my laptop came from that economy, but this fact does not change the basic math of growth. It can’t continue. One indication we are on the right path is when we no longer need landfills, because it all is deasigned to be recycled.