Author: Matthew Sima (Page 1 of 2)

My biggest takeaway from Living Environmentally is the idea that individuals can make a difference and change the world in a positive way. As a result, I decided to do a paper on music and the environment, because to me, art has always been very important and as time has progressed, I have definitely begun to see different ways in which art has/can be used as forms of activism.

In my paper, I will discuss specific songs and artists and how they have been influenced by specific environmental movements. I will be looking into lower artist such as Michael Jackson and Joni Mitchell and their views on the Environment and how that has played a role in their music. Likewise I will look at specific songs such as “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson and “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell and see how these songs were shaped by the time.

In comparison, I will compare this to more modern artists such as John Luther, Coldplay, and John Legend and how their music has been shaped by both their environmental beliefs and actions. I will discuss their involvement in different environmental groups and their efforts through the lens of what they those to focus on in their songs.

Finally, I will tie all of these songs and artists together by writing my own environmental activist song using themes and ideas that I have seen from these other musicians. I am not sure if I will perform it though because I am not good at singing.

Ever since I was little, I have always loved art be it visual art or physical art, however it has never truly occurred to me that art could be anything more than simply a creation or a moment in time. However thinking back on it now, I can clearly see how art has shaped my life and love for the environment. Every individual is made up of individual moments and individual memories that define who the person is and what they stand for; as for me, living in Colorado has helped shape my identity and has given me an everlasting love for the environment. I remember vividly that from a young age, my mom would take me hiking with her sketchbook and teach me how to draw landscapes and forests. Sometimes we would spend hours hiking just to find the perfect spot, but other times we would stop after just a few minutes, but every time the view and the landscapes would be different. Sometimes the landscape would emanate a feeling of sadness while other times the landscape would emit a sense of triumph. It was these moments, sitting by my mom immersed in my surroundings, that truly shaped who I am as a person and an individual.

However merely savoring these moments and reminiscing about the past does little to help the future and after hearing Dr. Paul Farber and Pedro Lasch about their work with memorials and art as modes of activism, I became interested in the idea of spreading my love for the environment and sharing the ways in which it changed my world. I want to use my story and portray it in such a way as to impact others to feel similar feelings as myself.

While there are many ways to portray my feelings through art (I still have my drawings somewhere), each form of art has its limitations. Drawings and paintings only affect those who look at them while poems only affect those who read or hear them. Even monuments are limited to the people who live in a certain geographic area and who happen to notice it. So how can a form of artwork affect the greatest audience and make the greatest impact?

To me, the answer does not lie in physical art but rather music. In our current society, music is one of the best ways to promote social change. People listen and follow famous musicians. Musicians have become idols in both thought and action with people seeking and wishing to emulate their every action and choice from hair style to shoe color. While this is not the art form for which I have experience, our modern society has chosen this medium and if true activism is to happen through art, I believe that music is the best way to reach the most people. Ill leave with the following quote from Plato:

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” —Plato

Rarely do people ever think about where their food comes from or how much energy it takes to produce, however every chicken nugget or lettuce leaf you eat adds to your ecological footprint and plays a role in the devastation of our environment. However far from doing nothing and accepting this fate, it is our job to not only maintain but rejuvenate our environment. This idea of rejuvenation is the basis for permaculture and the idea of “do-nothing” agriculture.

As shown over and over again throughout our modern society, human intervention has caused a lot of our modern problems. As stated in The One Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka, “Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything and every action is a futile, meaningless effort”. This idea is clearly contrary to everything that modern civilization holds true and dear. As a modern civilization, we seek to develop better techniques and more advanced technology in hopes of bettering human life on this earth. However, in reality, they are merely trying to return the earth to its once natural state, a state which they had initially destroyed with their tampering. Fukuoka gives the example of a scientist who “pores over books night and day, straining his eyes and becoming nearsighted, and if you wonder what on earth he has been working on all that time -it is to become the inventor of eyeglasses to correct nearsightedness”.

However why do we as humans not see this destruction before it becomes a problem? Why do we not create a solution as soon as we see a problem? This is because we are too set in our own ways and our own path that unless there is something to force us to change, we will resist it with everything we have. This can be seen when Fukuoka spoke out against chemical pollutants in a conference organized by the Agricultural Management Research Center. This conference met with the purpose of discussing pollution, however, when Mr. Fukuoka stood up to discuss his method of permaculture without the use chemicals, fertilizer, or machinery, he was shut down and told he was “upsetting the conference with his remarks”.

Therefore, while permaculture is a good idea, the first step to making the world a better place is from the government down and to first create an infrastructure in which ideas like permaculture can grow before calling for farmers to resort to permaculture.

As stated by China Mieville in The Limits of Utopia, throughout a lot of our modern history, Environmentalism and Social Justice has been seen as mutually exclusive with many Environmental Movements working to protect the environment at the expense of the poor. However China argues that environmentalism and social justice are not and should not be mutually exclusive but should work together to make the world a better place. Environmental Justice is “acknowledging that there a no whole earth, no ‘we’, without a ‘them’. That we are not in this together”. Instead it is giving everybody an equal chance and opportunity at fighting unfair environmental policies as opposed to letting the poor be taken advantage of because they lack the resources to defend themselves.

While this way of thinking may be true in that the environmentalist movement has largely been a product of wealthy white individuals preserving nature for its “inherent value (to them)”, it creates two distinct factions between them and those in poverty who may need the land and who may not have the resources or freedom to take part in such movements.

In fact, this directly relates to the Catherine Flowers’ talk in which she states that the sewage system in his hometown of Alabama was a huge environmental concern, however due to the lack of infrastructure in the poor areas due to lack of funds and money to maintain these systems, the poor were unfairly punished.

That is why we should not put our own standards on others without understanding their circumstances. Although it may be true that some actions and environmental policies may be better for the environment, it may not be right for environmental justice and create an overall detrimental result. Therefore there is still hope for the future of not only the environment but also humanity as long as they work together because the two are not mutually exclusive.

Both the talk by Catherine Flowers as well as Annie Leonard’s piece in Tools for Grassroots Activists: Best Practices for Success in the Environmental Movement, share a common theme in that activism is hard work and requires a lot of dedication and putting one’s mind and soul into the effort.

Activism does not necessarily need to stem from a large group but rather from a small group of dedicated individuals, who are willing to go 100% for the cause. This is shown through the 350 movement in which Bill Mckibbin and a group of high schoolers decided to take on the problem of climate change by calling for a decrease of CO₂ in the atmosphere from 400ppm to 350 ppm. Despite the impracticality of this task, they were able to make a difference and make a statement that drove world leaders to action.

Likewise, Catherine Flowers was able to take a stance on the issue of rural policy and environmental justice and health in her hometown and make a change by gathering samples, collecting resources, and doing her own research. She fought for not only the impoverished community in her home town of Alabama but also all of the impoverished communities across the United States.

Both of these acts of activism despite being so different in nature and implementation greatly speak to my heart. Activism is not easy, yet it is necessary for change. It is always easier to continue with what has already been implemented as opposed to starting something new and taking a stand against the wrong in the world. However if we want to be able to stand tall when we die and be able to look our children in the eye with confidence, the motto by which we should live is: How can this action impact 7 generations to come. If the answer is positive, then by all means go for it!

Never before have I thought about maps as being alive. Constantly changing, constantly evolving, no two maps are the same and no two maps are made with the same intentions. Each map has its own biases and each map seeks to convince the viewer to accept a certain perspective.

But despite the diversity inherent in maps, they are still taken to be the truth and the authority. Therefore, when we went to the social movements lab talk, we learned that they are also currently being used as a form of social activism.

Upon heading about the use of mapping as a form of social activism, I decided to look into the possibility of mapping the Earth First movement. However the Earth First movement is not an organization but a movement and as stated on earthfirst.org, they believe in using all the tools in the tool box, ranging from grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process to civil disobedience.” This unconventional movement has no goal except to put the earth and the earth’s needs first before those that threaten it. They seek to stop the most serious threats to their respective areas by doing anything necessary from litigation to creative civil disobedience. As a result, it will be hard to map out the work and actions of the unconventional Earth First movement due to their lack of “rules” and regulations.

However, thinking back on it, that may be the point, to map out an unconventional movement, one must use an unconventional map. Maybe to map out the Earth First movement, one must first identify the major ecological threats and then expand from there to see what has been done and what still needs to be done. Maybe rather than looking at what has been done, we must look at what still needs to be done? Now that would be an unconventional map!

As humans we are not perfect and as a country of humans we are even less so, but despite these imperfections, we still constantly criticize and complain about other countries and seek to change them while being blind to our own problems. This was shown in Doctor Robin Kirk’s talk regarding the United States’ foreign policy and involvement in foreign affairs. The United States government is a big advocate for human rights and has advocated against the use of torture as a means of gaining information, yet despite this open stance, the US has been accused of participating in and administering such forms of torture especially in the years following the 9/11 attacks.

This similar hypocrisy can be seen in the way we have been dealing with environmental issues. Despite being one of the biggest polluters of the environment in the world, the United States has shifted the burden of environmental stewardship to other countries and has taken a back seat in the issue of global warming. The US is still one of the largest consumers of oil in the world and this consumption has drastically affected indigenous populations in both the US and abroad in Nigeria as shown through the Keystone pipeline debacle and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water.

Therefore, in order to better promote global change, the United States must first look inward and reflect on its own actions in order to fix its own problems before promoting global change for climate change and environmental stewardship is not a YOU issue but a WE issue and affects everybody equally regardless of race, ethnicity, or even country.

In order to better understand the impact of colonialist nations on indigenous populations, it is important to evaluate the perspectives of all individuals involved. Currently we have evaluated colonialism purely the perspectives of only the indigenous populations from Nigeria to America. Their side of the story is one of pain and loss of culture. In Oil on Water, we saw the impact that the oil industry had on the local villages and how badly it affected their livelihood and their ecosystem. Just the images of dead birds and animals as Zaq and Rufus made their way down the river created a sense of dread and foreboding. However who in this case is the villain? Surely not the innocent villagers affected by the actions of the oil companies? Is it the government of the economically colonized countries? Is it the oil companies?

Through the story, we clearly see that the oil companies are the villains coldheartedly stealing the livelihood of the villagers, yet realistically, they are not purely to blame for the villagers’ suffering. In fact, the blame falls on both the actions of the government as well as the oil companies who are taking advantage of the government’s inaptitude in order to meet the high demands of oil in the western countries. The lack of a strong centralized colonial government due to war or tyranny is also reason for the environmental pollution and the exploitation and economic colonization of these countries. Yet sometimes, in order to grow the country and reach future independence, it is necessary to first go through this phase of economic colonialism. Therefore, unless one first understands the perspectives of the different factions involved in the issue it is hard to fully label one group the villain.

The story Spider the Artist by Nnedia Okafor really incited in me a sense of dread of the future and dread for humanity. In her story, the oil companies Shell and Exon were only mentioned as a concept, an idea that none of the villagers understood. They strip the African lands and destroy their villages all in the name of advancement, but advancement for who? Not the villagers, in fact the villagers are hardly seen as humans by these companies. Death and the risk of death has become a common occurrence for the villagers as the zombies become integrated into their lives and they seem to live day by day just like animals with no hope for the future and no passion. But even so, who are the humans and what does it mean to be human and who in the story is truly human?

Is Andrew the husband human? Ever since the beginning of the story, he is seen as the villain. He beats his wife for no apparent reason and always seems to be driven by either anger or exhaustion. Despite being the man of the house, the story portrays him as more animalistic than human.

But on the other hand, the zombies are not human either, they are merely intelligent machines with no emotion except destruction. They portray the conquerors who seek to enter into the village society merely for the sake of wealth.

Andrew and the zombies occupy two different sides of the spectrum with one hot and one cold and neither one of them fully human. But then who is human in this story and how is it defined? In the story the only two characters portrayed as human are the Udide Okwanka and the main character. Despite one being a villager and the other being a spider, both of them show passion, love, and interest, characteristics that are distinctly human but not displayed by either Andrew nor the zombies. Two completely different beings and yet both so alike and so human. This idea that humanity and the lack of humanity is not merely one sided extends beyond this story and is also an integral part of Linda Hogan’s Power as well. In Power, we see through Omishto that the blame for her tribe’s decline and loss of direction lies not only with the white people but also within the members of her own tribe.

As stated in my previous blog post, the definition of activist that I have derived over the course of this class is one of empowerment. An activist is someone who sees something wrong with their society and seeks to change it not through one individual act but rather through inspiring others to continue to further this change. This is exactly what Ama did. Throughout Linda Hogan’s novel Power, we constantly see this fight to understand why Ama, a devoted Taiga leader and one so knowledgeable in their ways, has decided to stalk and kill a sacred panther. Through the perspective of Omishto, who clearly witnessed this act and understood the consequences, this act seemed irrational and even crazy, but not horrendous, as a result through the whole endeavor, Omishto continued to stand by Ama both during her trial and even after her banishment.

In fact, because of Ama’s actions, Omishto in a way grew to replace Ama as the gatekeeper between the tribal world and the white world. She bridged the gap between the two different cultures in order to rejuvenate the dwindling Taiga tribe.

The banishment of Ama mirrors the journey of both Hayduke and Tim (Bidder 7) in that the progress tha their actions inspired came at a personal cost. Ama was banished from the very community that she was trying to save while both Hayduke and Tim met with similar fates with Hayduke nearly killed and Tim imprisoned. Each of them have in a way become a sacrifice for the cause, a sort of martyr and as a result, they have earned the title of activist.