Eco-Poetry Slam This Monday

Please help me welcome former national poetry slam champion

Regie Gibson to Boston University this Monday for his feature

set in our Eco-Slam, part of Ecofest. Regie is an award-winning poet, spoken word artist, songwriter, actor and workshop facilitator. His 1997 film, "Love Jones", loosely based on his life about a young poet growing up in Chicago, is credited with sparking worldwide interest in poetry performances and competitive poetry "slam" events. He has lectured and performed widely in the US, Cuba and Europe and we're

lucky he's able to join our event at BU this Monday.  Feel free to bring a friend.

Here is a clip from Regie at Hampshire College in 2008:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsp7YPfzxE

Regie's envirnomentally-themed set will be followed by members of BU's Speak for Yourself slam team and an open mic for a great night of eco-poetry. There will be door prizes as
well as prizes for the poets so come help cheer the poets on.
7pm at BU Central, this Monday.

This is an Ecofest event. All are welcome.

You can also sign up for Ecofest at www.bu.edu/ecofest (for which your attendance will on Monday will also gain you points towards cool eco-prizes). It would be great to see you on Monday night and at other Ecofest events (www.bu.edu/ecofest/calendar).

Artists and Extinction

Dusky Seaside Sparrow, former resident of Florida, declared  extinct  in 1990.  

Many artists have been tuning into the biodiversity crisis and raising awareness simply by painting endangered and extinct species. One such artist is Joanna Barnum of Baltimore, MD. She kindly agreed to answer some questions I sent her. 

1. First of all, given your scientific portraits, what's your connection to science? 

JB: My only “formal” connection to science is that I really enjoyed biology class in high school, and I enjoy gardening at home and walking in nature.  I'm just a big fan.  I come at the subject as an artist with a strong aesthetic attraction to the natural world, and a concerned citizen of the world who cares about preserving the environment and who also cares about critical thinking and reason in an age where a distressing number of people seem to be drifting away from science.

2. When did you tune into the present extinction crisis?

JB: I think endangered and extinct species are one of those things many of us study in grade school as an important topic, and then it kind of drifts from the front of our consciousness.  

Thylacine: "The Tasmanian Tiger", former resident of Australia, declared  extinct  1936

3. What inspired you to begin a series of prints on recently extinct species?

JB: I created the series in 2010 when I was invited to participate in a show at the former Positron Gallery in Baltimore, MD.  The show's title and theme was “Eschatology,” which is the theological study of the end of the world or the apocalypse.  We were allowed to take the theme in any direction we wanted, so instead of looking at mythological visions of the apocalypse, I focused on the destruction of the world that is going on already. 

The Norfolk Boobook lived on Norfolk  Island, in the  Tasman Sea and was last seen in 1996. 

4. We're all familiar with the extinction of the dodo, the passenger pigeon and the Carolina parakeet, how did you choose some of the lesser known extinct species, like the rather adorable Norfolk boobook (above), the Columbia basin pygmy rabbit and the Dusky seaside sparrow (shown at top)? 

JB: I started my research for the series as just a curious person on the internet.  I browsed all kinds of articles, lists, and databases of extinct species and read about a lot of animals I had never heard of before.  In the end, some of the species I chose to paint were a matter of practicality.  Some of these lists are HUGE, and yet I couldn't even find photos or scientific illustrations of the animals in question to get a sense of what they were like.  That seems especially sad to me.  That there are species that now seem to be no more than a line of text on a list somewhere. 

Falkland Islands Wolf, former resident of the Falkland Islands,  extinct in 1876. 

5. In your research, did you respond to some of the extinction stories more than others?

I was particularly disturbed by the stories of some animals which became extinct through a combination of overhunting and intentional eradication during the nineteenth century, such as the Falkland Islands wolf.  It's hard to imagine the attitude of entitlement that existed in a pre-conservation movement era, mankind's sense that nature was his to plunder at his whim and convenience. 

And yet, despite our greater awareness today, species are still dying as the result of our actions.  

6. What sort of response have you had to the series?

I've found that many people have been attracted to the series simply because they find the images to be pleasing colorful paintings of animals- but it's a bit of an emotional sucker punch to say “oh look at the cute bunny, pretty bird, etc.” then step closer and read the image captions, and realizing the species you're enjoying looking at no longer exists.  It wasn't completely intentional when I started painting the images for them to work that way, but it turned out to be pretty effective. 

Ultimately the people who have bought some of the paintings and prints of them have probably done so because they find the artwork attractive, but I hope in the process they are also being educated about an important issue. 

7. When one starts reading about the present crisis it becomes difficult to be optimistic that we will halt the crisis anytime soon. Did you find reasons for optimism in your research?

Looking at earlier extinction stories (such as the Falkland Island wolf I mentioned above) and comparing society's attitude in the past to the awareness that exists today, I try to be optimistic.  Most people used to think it was OK to consume as much as they wanted of the world around them and that resources were limitless.  Most people would not agree with that today, although our actions haven't caught up with our stated morals.  I hope they will.  But it's still hard not to look at the situation and be utterly terrified. 

8. Where can readers find out more about seeing or purchasing your work?

http://www.JoannaBarnum.com is my main website where you can browse most of my portfolio, and in the “shop” section there is information on how to order prints of any of my pieces. 

You can follow my blog at http://joannabarnum.wordpress.com if you want regular updates on new work, exhibits, etc.

Golden Toad, former resident of Monteverde Costa Rica, last seen in 1989. 

Some lucky Ecofest participants will be taking home prints of Joanna Barnum's work as prizes, so
sign up today! 

Comfortably Unaware

We've all heard about "sustainability" but what about "global depletion"? This is the term Dr. Richard Oppenlander uses in his book, Comfortably Unaware: Global Depletion and Food Choice Responsibility, which has been endorsed as a “must-read” by Ellen DeGeneres, Jane Goodall and Neal Barnard, M.D., among others.  Dr. Oppenlander is a sustainability and wellness advocate, writer, and speaker committed to improving the health of our planet. And he'll be appearing at BU next week in a talk sponsored by the BU Vegetarian Society. (Location and time: Sargent College on April 18^th at 7 pm at 635 Commonwealth Ave, Boston MA, in room 102. Students, faculty, and guests are all welcome to attend.)


I saw him speak at the Boston Vegetarian Festival in November and he's a dynamic speaker who comes out swinging. In one of his first slides, he mentioned that there are 7 billion people on the planet and 70 billion animals raised to feed them. Think of all the land that has to be cleared to raise these animals, all the crops required to feed them, all the waste generated and so on. No, he says, we don't want to think about it, we'd rather be comfortably unaware. Some numbers from his book: 70 percent of our rainforests have been slashed and burned to raise livestock; more than 70 percent of the grain in the US is fed to livestock; while it takes 10-20 gallons of water to produce one pound of vegetables, fruit, soybeans or grain, it takes over 5000 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat, which is not as healthy for you; an acre of land devoted to plant-based protein (vegetables, grains and/or legumes) produces 10-15 times more protein than if devoted to meat production.

Given that land conversion for agriculture is one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss, these are compelling numbers. Next week, in conjunction with Boston University’s Earth Week, Dr. Oppenlander will be presenting a three-pronged approach to the ways in which our food choices are affecting human health, the planet's health and the welfare of the animals, while discussing why sustainability initiatives would benefit from including food choice as a relevant topic in curbing global depletion. He is president and founder of an organic vegan food production and education business, an animal rescue operation, and has given hundreds of lectures, presentations, and open discussions on the topic of food choice.

Come and check him out!

We also remind you that eating less meat is one of our events at Ecofest  and you can signup for this and
other events, which run April 15-22, today. Get your green on! We've got prizes like DVDs of Planet Earth, gift certificates for restaurants that serve local food, an Ecosphere, and artistic prints of endangered and extinct species. Sign up today!

Terrific Wildlife Photo Album

Rhinos fighting during mating season in Assam, India. 

The Guardian has a great environmental column and this week they have a terrific wildlife photo album (though not all the wildlife is actually in the wild). Check it out!

Facing up to the Extinction Crisis

This is the time of year I start going a little crazy. It has nothing to do with doing my taxes, which I did remarkably early this year, or any crazy weather phenomena. It has everything to do with our upcoming Ecofest (signup starts on Monday) and whether we’re going to finally start taking the crisis in species loss seriously enough to do something about it.

As I research topics to blog about, including news items this week like Whole Foods finally agreeing to stop selling overfished species, pesticides being linked to honeybee decline (bees pollinate one third of the food we eat such as tomatoes, beans, apples and strawberries, so their decline has a huge effect on our food supply), and the Koch brothers, starring in the new documentary, Koch Brothers Exposed (stay tuned for a screening on campus), funding climate change denialism (I’m late to the party here, Greenpeace reported this in 2010), I keep coming back to endangered and extinct species.

It’s a bewildering crisis, with the dubious distinction that many of the species that populated our picture books when we were kids and ultimately fired our imaginations and dreams are suffering enormous declines due to habitat loss, pollution, introduction of invasive species, over-exploitation and climate change. These are all human-induced causes yet we live our lives as if this is someone else’s problem. Ultimately, we are impoverishing not only our wellbeing, because we rely on ecosystem services (with the ecosystem’s resident species) for clean water and filtering the air, we are impoverishing our imaginations and the imaginations of future generations by allowing so many species under our stewardship to go extinct. In addition, apart from whatever benefit we may enjoy from sharing the planet with so many diverse species, each species has its own inherent right to exist.

What drives me crazy is how little attention we’re paying to it. Clean/alternative/green energy has been soaking up more than its fair share of the environmental news pie but the reality is that if we were to develop an eco-friendly fuel to power our homes, cars, businesses and so on today we would still have the problem of over-consumption of natural resources, deforestation and the main drivers of species loss. We need to show more imagination in understanding and solving our environmental problems. 

(I think what also drives me a little crazy is that we don't yet have a proper way to grieve for the species that we know we've lost. Since I heard the story of the golden toad on a trip to Costa Rica, I've been haunted by it: brilliantly colored males seen mating with females in temporary pools in the mountains of Monteverde for a few weeks in the spring... discovered in the 1960's, not seen outside the mating period, hundreds seen in the late 1980's, then only a few, then one year, only one golden toad searching in vain for a mate.)

This week in the New York Times, Thomas Lovejoy reported on the Planet Under Pressure conference in London. The upshot is that we’re failing to act with the scale and urgency needed. We spend our days worrying about the financial system, when really, we should be devoting our energies to understanding the workings of earth’s biological systems and making sure that they remain fully functioning. As Aldo Leopold wrote, “the number one rule of intelligent tinkering is saving all the parts”.

As always, the first step is to educate ourselves. Here at BU, you can check out the screening of the documentary Call of Life, at Rich Hall this Sunday at 7pm or at the Core House on Monday night (also at 7pm). We’ll provide the eco-friendly pizza. 

Chimpanzees and Facebook

I heard two astonishing statistics this week, both from my students.

The first is that all the chimpanzees in the world couldn't fill Gillette Stadium.

Gillette Stadium can seat almost 70,000 people. Scouting about the Internet, including places like the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, where the evolutioary tree graphic to the left is from, you find that there are less than 100,000 chimpanzees left in the wild. So, you'd need to sit a bunch of them on the field, but it's astonishing to think that we humans fill football stadiums all over the world on a weekly basis, and our nearest evolutionary relatives, who numbered more than a million just twenty years ago, can barely fill one stadium. And their numbers are falling due to poaching and land conversion.

The second astonishing statistic I heard this week, also during discussion with my students, is that 1 in 8
people in the world is on Facebook. Facebook has 845 million monthly users and there are 7 billion people
in the world. Methinks we should start friending some chimpanzees before it's too late.

On Individual Action

We are gearing up for our next installment of Ecofest (after two successful years of the Ecolympics), which runs from April 15-22. In addition to the marquee events that we have planned -- we just added former National Poetry slam champion Regie Gibson to feature at our Eco-slam on April 16, we have a plethora of individual challenge events to help us raise awareness about our footprint on the environment. 

Certainly it's going to take more than committing to shorter showers, eating less meat and using reusable cups and bags to create a sustainable world, especially, according to this article by Chris Hedges, when we find out that individuals and municipalities consume only 10% of water resources while agriculture and industry gobble up 90%, but we must walk before we can run. 

All great movements start with individual action. Someone somewhere decided it was time to stand up and act. Check out these films from the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and see individual action in action. 

Here's Hilton Kelley fighting industrial pollution in Port Arthur Texas:

Here's Annie Leonard educating us that, hey, guess what, we're not broke:

I wasn't able to stay for the evening's feature, but it's a story about the founder of Bikes Not Bombs, located in Jamaica Plain and you can now see My Own Two Wheels. 

The main afternoon feature was Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan who won
the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She started a movement to plant a million trees
and on the way she helped bring down the dictatorship. The new goal for her foundation
(Maathai died of cancer in September 2011) is to plant 14 billion trees. Now
that's a goal! You can read about this very inspiration person and her work here. 







When it comes down to it, individual action is indeed about action. You can find

other great examples at the Wild and Scenic website.