Essential Human Elements

Robert Bateman, Canada
Antarctic Evening – Humpback Whales

I'm still needing art. And I think it's interesting -- at a time when there is so much money being generated by and for oil in this country alone -- that there is no money for the arts. Some of this is a philosophical issue of what we choose as our values and what is important -- other is just logistics. Artists can't afford to do their work and live in this culture. In talking about funding for the arts -- and I include poetry and performance in this term -- we have to look at the role and purpose in art. Politics? Entertainment? Meaning? If we starve the arts what conversations do we end...

Yesterday, Andrew C. Revkin of the New York Times bemoaned the lack of initiative in this country. Hard to imagine I could possible be more cynical than a New York Times reporter, but really -- we don't even back the UN...

Following the environmental tenants of that organization is this statement:

Internationally co-ordinated work on the environment has been led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), since its inception in 1973. UNEP has provided leadership and encouraged partnerships to care for the environment, for example, through Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) which have addressed issues such as species loss and the need for conservation at a global and regional level. UNEP has created much of the international environmental law in use today.

The three environmental principles of the Global Compact are drawn from a Declaration of Principles and an International Action Plan (Agenda 21) that emerged from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janerio in 1992. Chapter 30 of Agenda 21, identified that the policies and operations of business and industry can play a major role in reducing impacts on resource use and the environment. In particular, business can contribute through the promotion of cleaner production and responsible entrepreneurship.

The UN is a supporter of the arts in this endeavor.

"Science informs the mind, music and the heart but art connects with the human spirit," said Achim Steiner, Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP.

I love that. The human condition, right -- great art explores the human condition. Maybe that is part of what makes this particular topic so compelling, and so easy to integrate in terms of aesthetics and politics in a way that doesn't alienate one from the other -- demise is not foreign to the soul at all...

Steiner goes on to say: "We urgently need to empower all three of these essential human elements if we are to rise to the challenge and seize the opportunities for economic, environmental and social renewal glimpsed through the lens of climate change."

25% of the worlds oil reserves are believed to reside in the Arctic.
The icebergs are melting at a rate that far exceeds all expectations.

For UN World Environment Day 2007, the Natural World Museum in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme produced an exhibition that addresses the theme of Climate Change from a global perspective - the melting and thawing of ice, snow and permafrost are environment-altering changes taking place around the world- from the Andes to the Himalayas to the melting ice caps of the Poles. "Change" the transition that occurs from same to different, the moment of transformation, a change of position or action. Change used in reference to our environment can describe the transformation of material substance -- from ice to water, liquid to gas - the changing conditions of our rivers, our rapidly melting glaciers,, and the overall changes in the earth's climate. Change requires organisms and organizations alike to adapt to new environmental conditions. Metaphorically, change can also refer to the transformation of society's mindset to act in a positive way individually and collectively to work toward a more sustainable future.
Press release from the Natural World Museum.

The Exhibit will be at the Field Museum in Chicago from April to October of this year.
I want to go.

I Learned One Thing About Amelia Earhart This Morning.

I'm having trouble focusing this morning. Sometimes you want to have one conversation, but others enter in -- sometimes information just rolls through without an ability to find a home --

This morning I came across an organization called Art Not Oil whose sole mission is to get oil companies away from art sponsorships.


Fruits For Whom? - Jorge Alcoreza (Bolivia)

The issue is corporate sponsorship -- does it limit freedom of discussion about issues of global climate change... there is no money in the arts -- for the arts. Corporate sponsorship has always been one of the ways that artists have found funding for such things as... well... eating. Corporate sponsorship has also always changed the subject of art. Think of European art of the 18th and 19th centuries -- the heavy emphasis on Catholicism has everything to do with the fact that the Catholic church had the money -- to commission, to support... now think missionaries.

The site is entirely devoted to the Shell Corporation -- this seems strange to me -- and I'm wondering about the motives...

I for one am obsessed with Exxon right now.

Exxon won a law suit yesterday barring the Venezuelan government from selling off their own oil assets to ease financial difficulties. An oil company won a law suit exerting control over the autonomy of a government.

Exxon (in its earlier manifestations) was the company that supplied fuel both for Amelia Earhart and the Wright brothers. For a nifty little interactive history you can go to the company's website.

But the thing that compelled me most this morning was that I learned that Amelia Airhart was beautiful.

You can try to have one conversation -- mean to -- maybe it's an important conversation -- about how we fund the arts or sell out -- the state of the world or say goodbye. Whatever happened to her... Maybe we meant to say that and a photograph came in -- and you are interrupted -- and you interrupt yourself to say good luck when you meant to say good bye.