Mesocosm Prints (in progress)

I am working on large format archival prints this summer/fall from the behemoth formerly known as The Friend Feeder, now to be titled Mesocosm (Northumberland). Thanks Timothy Morton for introducing me to the term.  Morton, ‘dark ecologist’ looking at literature, ambient poetics, ecocriticism (and more),  authored two  texts I find really clarifying and expansive: the book  Ecology without Nature , and an amazing essay, Queer Ecology. He also keeps two blogs:

Ecology Without Nature
The Contemporary Condition

Mesocosm (Northumebrland), Winter Night 1

Mesocosm (Northumebrland), Summer Day 1
Mesocosm (Northumberland), Winter Night 1 and Summer Day 1

HEAT records set in the u.s. (in us), 2010

hottest year on record?
hottest year on record?

I find it amazing and exhausting that people are surprised about The Weather. But then there are those who make silk purses out of it, like pollution magnate David Koch:

“Global warming could be good for the planet, Koch says. ‘A far greater land area will be available to produce food.’”
– from New York Magazine, via Climate Progress (continued below)

“Lengthened growing seasons in the northern hemisphere, he says, will make up for any trauma caused by the slow migration of people away from disappearing coastlines. “The Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food,” he says.”

Koch is  a major supporter of deregulation and the Tea Party. Koch’s Family Foundation’s philanthropic arm funded a permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins, cancer research, and the arts (Lincoln Center’s State Theater has been renamed after him)…

Rand Paul doesn’t think we’ll miss a couple of little mountaintops…

Rand Paul believes people can do what they want with their mountains. (satellite image of a mountaintop removal site in Mud River, West Virginia from thinkprogress.org)
Rand Paul believes people can do what they want with their mountains. (satellite image of a mountaintop removal site in Mud River, West Virginia from thinkprogress.org)

Words from Mr Paul on Kentucky coal mining:

I think whoever owns the property can do with the property as they wish, and if the coal company buys it from a private property owner and they want to do it, fine. The other thing I think is that I think coal gets a bad name, because I think a lot of the land apparently is quite desirable once it’s been flattened out. As I came over here from Harlan, you’ve got quite a few hills. I don’t think anybody’s going to be missing a hill or two here and there.

And some people like having the flat land. Some of it apparently has become quite valuable when it’s become flattened. And I think they do a good job at reclaiming the land, and you know, adding back in topsoil, bringing in help. So the bottom line is, it’s not just me pandering to coal. It’s me believing in private property.

Video interview here:
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/rand-paul-mountaintop-removal-i-don

Vegetation shift Map, 2100

A study conducted by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and the U.S. Forest Service projects major vegetation shifts worldwide if greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control and the Earth continues to rapidly warm. The study forecasts that by 2100 much of Arctic tundra will replaced by boreal forest and that deserts will spread in regions such as North America, Australia, and Central and South Asia. – from environment360