Author: Kendall Jefferys (Page 1 of 2)

I have been working on and off over the past few years on a series of endangered animal drawings that I hope to make an alphabet book for children. I don’t know exactly where the idea came from, but as a kid I was really interested in the world wildlife fund and other conservation groups. I would spend hours paging through lists and reading about endangered animals. It was hard to fathom then that such beautiful creatures could be fading from our planet. It still is hard to fathom a 6^th mass extinction, though not hard to believe given the extent of anthropogenic influences threatening the other life forms that we share this planet with.  I have completed 10 drawings so far: Amur Leopard, Bison, Coral Reef, Dolphin, Elephant, Frog, Giant Panda, Hummingbird, Iberian Lynx, and Jaguar.

For my final project, I wanted to put my drawings in a digital format to preserve them as well as make them easy to share. I also wanted to compile them into a book format and begin writing and assembling my children’s book, which I plan on titling “A is for Animals.” My hope is that by using art and the creative format of a book, I may be able to inspire a respect and reverence for nature in others. I wanted to make it a children’s book because, as Catherine Flowers reminded us, there is a lot of hope in future generations. There is still a lot we can do, a lot that

My first colored pencil drawing.

young people can do, when inspired and passionate about a cause. I hope that my art and subtle calls to action in this book may plant seeds of hope that grow in younger generations.

Art is a medium of change. Art communicates what words do not, and the absence of verbal language actually has profound implications on our decision making. The part of the brain that makes decisions is not associated with language. This why we often say, “it just feels right.” In his Ted Talk, “Start with why – how great leaders inspire action,” Simon Sinek says to start with your “Why” because that’s what people care about. “It’s not what you do, it’s why you do it” (Sinek).

Considering monuments, monuments are heavily based on the “why” – what they are and what they are made of is of undoubted importance, but why they were made and why they are placed in specific areas, who they represent and who they do not, is what makes them meaningful (and at times, controversial). Take the current removal of Robert E. Lee from Duke. It was not the statue itself, but what it represented. It was the “why” that we are against. The statue does not align with our values, and it was taken down.

Commenting on the current battle over “whom we admire and consider as heroes… [and] who has the power to shape how we view our history” (Dreier), Peter Dreier points out a number of progressive Americans who go un-monumentalized. Among those included in the lists of activists not commemorated are Upton Sinclair, Betty Friedan, and Saul Alinsky, whose Rules for Radicals I consider monumental in itself. I think it’s important to not just look at who is remembered in monuments, but who is not. How cool would a Rachel Carson monument be?

The image of the tree in Rebecca Solnit’s “Grounds for Hope” fit seamlessly with her words, something about this image flows and takes shape within the piece. I stopped and reflected for a time on the artwork. A wealth of potential analogies come with the symbol of a tree. Whether this expresses our tendency to anthropomorphize, or the common elements of nature running through life that make such analogies abundant and compelling, I don’t know. Regardless, I think the tree as an analogy remains a powerful statement. A tree begins in the ground, grassroots. When Solnit writes about “grounds of hope”, she doesn’t just talk about the present, the surface, the place where our world is right now. She also speaks of within the ground, history, memory, past.  “Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork— or underground work — often laid the foundation” (Solnit). The ground is where life begins. The past is where our present begins.

Take a seed. If the seed could not imagine itself a tree, it would not grow to become one. A seed must first find open grounds, and if they’re not open, fit itself into a place of its own. A seed must somehow know that the ingredients for life are packed within – it just needs the right ground, the right environment, to grow. If a seed never imagined the possibility of a tree, would it grow? In the same way, “if an alternative to this world is unconceivable [can] we change it?” (Miéville). I agree with Miéville in that we need a utopia to give us a vision, an alternative imaginable. And I also agree with Solnit that we need the memory of our past to remind us that change is possible. We need to dream like a seed: dig deep into the grounds of our history, the landscapes and ancestors that have been weathered and worn into our foundations, see the potential within ourselves to dream of light and life, and then grow and root and branch and breathe, and never forget our dreams of a tree.

Miéville, China. The Limits of Utopia | Salvage. http://salvage.zone/in-print/the-limits-of-utopia/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2018.

Solnit, Rebecca. (2017). Grounds for Hope. Tikkun 32(1), 30-39. doi: 10.1215/08879982-3769066

Catherine Flower’s hope in young people was contagious. Listening to Catherine speak about her life as an activist, about the positive potential she sees in our generation, was like someone smiling at you on a dull day and suddenly realizing that you are now smiling yourself because there is still so much to smile about, still so much hope. “Step into yourself” Catherine Flowers implored us. I then realized the importance of stepping into the potential of my actions, stepping into the discomfort and out of the comfort of silence. Silence will not generate change, but action, regardless of age, will.

Young people have seldom tapped pools of inspiration and energy. 7 high school students started Bill McKibben’s 350 campaign. 12 high school students started Jane Goodall’s organization, Roots and Shoots. It doesn’t always take one charismatic leader to shift ideology and values. Sometimes we need a network of leaders to spread and sustain a movement. What Bill McKibben considers a “leaderful” movement is a diverse and self-sustaining movement.  When you have a network of environmental leaders, the movement never dies out – it keeps regenerating momentum. Jane Goodall envisions “a critical mass of young people who understand that while we need money to live, we should not live for money” (pg. 188). Goodall calls us to realign our values and consider the value of world that supports life, the cost of not considering such value. McKibben calls for a “protean” movement. I admit I had to look up this word. Protean is defined as “readily assuming different forms; changeable in form or shape.” In this light, it makes sense that hope in youth underlies Goodall’s and McKibben’s messages; young people are adaptable and changing. It is my hope that we are ready to grow with and confront this changing world

I heard Jane Goodall speak a year ago at UT Arlington. I heard Bill McKibben speak last semester here at Duke. We have had the privilege to hear from activists Dr. Kirk, Crystal Dreisbach, and Catherine Flowers. These leaders spark a fresh motivation in me. Reflecting on the power of their words and actions, I realize our generation will have big shoes to step into. And I believe we also have shoes to make. Making activism accessible remains a challenge in the environmental movement, but I believe we will keep walking forward, gaining support with each step. Who’s ready to march?

The Radical Mapping in Social Movements presentation illustrated the possibility and effectiveness of mapping social movements, a deviation from the historically flat and categorized practice of map making. If we can map social movements, I think we can map any sort of movement: social, physical, ideological, etc. One movement conservationists have begun to map are those of sea turtles. Researchers are able to map the migration patterns and nesting sites of sea turtles around the globe, which creates visual evidence of the need for specific conservation sites and makes scientific research more accessible to the public.

Andrew DiMatteo, cartographer and database manager of the State of the World’s Sea Turtles (SWOT) Project and Associate in Research at Duke University won a conservation award from Conservation International for using GIS software to map green sea turtle nesting sites. Discussing critical cartographies, we identified maps as avenues for collaboration. The sea turtle nesting map produced by SWOT has promoted collaboration among scientists from all over the globe with a long list of countries contributing data on sea turtles as well as collaboration between the public and researchers on conservation efforts. Maps have the potential to be seen as “productive, producing something, not just representing something” (Radical Mapping in Social Movements). From conservation efforts to social movements, maps provide visuals that engage and apply information into something physical that demands space and attention, and attention to efforts like conservation and social movements is exactly what we need to garner support for change.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to walk through the Smithsonian’s whale warehouse on a field trip with my marine megafauna class. The warehouse was dark and gray and smelled of krill (a sort of pungent, fishy aroma). Fascinating as it was, the place was strangely eerie for me. I leaned over to my friend and told her I felt like I was walking through a whale graveyard. Bones, baleens, and other whale pieces splayed out on white table tops and sat labeled in cabinets. I may be superstitious, but I felt like the spirits of whales lost to the whaling industry were still here. I had to crane my neck to see the top of the blue whale skull.  A certain gravity is commanded of a room holding the skeleton of the largest animal known to have existed. Many of the whale pieces were taken from the remains of the whaling. It was hard to believe that whaling was a multi-million dollar industry a century ago, that whaling was only banned about 50 years ago.

I didn’t think about the connection between whaling and the fossil fuel industry until reading Divest Duke’s report, which explained how our sources of energy have been transitioning to easier and more efficient sources since “Colonial Americans relied on whale blubber and bones in a similar manner as Americans now rely on petroleum products… After whale blubber, wood incineration and processing was the basis for power and raw materials in

America. After wood, coal. After coal, refined petroleum… In each

of these periods, people living daily with the resources they had available may

have been unable to envision what would be next. Yet it is not hypocritical….

encourage and bring about the transition to a more appropriate

fuel source while still using fossil fuels, which divesting does”       (Divest Duke P.24).

Divest Duke’s use of history as evidence demonstrates how we can learn and grow from analyzing the past. Dr. Kirk taught us the importance of looking to history for direction in activism, as did Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals. Historically, considerable resistance stands against any change in our energy sources; whalers didn’t want to lose their jobs, and many were afraid of the economic impacts of ending a multi-million dollar industry. Energy is power and power is money. Whaling did not end on the basis of moral arguments about the treatment of whales (compelling as we find them). Whaling pressure was reduced only once fossil fuels proved more lucrative. As students who care deeply about the environment, we easily see the moral wrongs of investment of fossil fuels. But to push Duke’s Divestment, I think we need a compelling financial argument against fossil fuels and for alternative investments. As Saul Alinsky reminds us, we must start where the world is right now, which is on the edge of a transition, waiting for a push. Renewables are a rising, more ethical, sustainable, and “appropriate” fuel source to power our world. Hopefully someday oil rigs and pipelines will become museum artifacts, not the species they put at risk.

Society, N. “Big Fish: A Brief History of Whaling.” National Geographic Society, 15 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/news/big-fish-history-whaling/.

Divest Duke. Report Proposing Fossil Fuel Divestment for the President’s Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility. 2015.

Alinsky, Saul D. Rules for Radicals: a Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. Vintage Books, 1989.

The fight for the environment is also a fight for survival. The environment gives and takes life. Oil only takes. We take it from the ground, from communities. We take clean air, water, and future with it. Yet still we fight for and over oil. We fight for oil because oil is money, and in a capitalistic society, money represents a “better” lifestyle. Oil makes the products we are sold and told we need. Growing up in a western society, it’s easy to forget that a quality of life requires a planet that supports life. Production and demand and GDP leave little space for the value of human health and a clean environment.

Oil on Water by Helon Habila illuminates the differences between wealth and richness of life. Chief Malabo refuses to sell his village to oilmen because he realizes the intrinsic value of the land exceeds the monetary value of the oil beneath it; “though they may not be rich, the land had been good to them, they never lacked for anything” (Hebila 43). Unlike the Nigerian government or the oil companies, The Chief thinks long term about the welfare of his community. Looking at other villages that sold their land for “cars (that) had broken down and cheap televisions… now worse off than before” (43), not only does the Chief reject short term gains for long term wellbeing, but he learns from other communities and avoids falling into the same trap.

Rejecting temporary wealth for the richness of life provided by the land fails to prevent orange flares from the lighting up the sky and the pervasive smell of petrol from seeping into the land and coating the water. Even if all the villages do not sell their land, the pollution permeates their lives – pollution does not discriminate, and oil companies fail to siphon any percent of their profits to clean it up. Shell gets 10% of its oil from the Niger Delta, and 10,000 barrels were spilt in the delta just last year.

Why aren’t we doing anything? Well the first step to acting is admitting we are driving the problem. Not driving in the sense that we are steering the wheel that rolls over villages in the Niger Delta, but driving in the sense that we are burning the oil that goes into this thirsty vehicle. It’s easy to blame the oil companies and the government, but it’s much harder to turn around realize we are part of the demand that drives the pipes into the ground. Even if we can admit we hold part of the guilt, our modern lives are inseparable from oil. Oil has become like water: it’s part of us, we run off it, always thirsty.

To do something, we must start building a future that can run off solar, and wind, and human power. Water and oil don’t mix. Oil sits on top, covering what is truly vital.  Are we really inseparable from something that never wanted to mix in the first place?

Sources

Habila, Helon. Oil on Water. W.W. Norton and Company , 2011.

“In Pictures: Forest Destroyed.” BBC News, BBC, news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/04/africa_polluting_nigeria/html/8.stm.

Social Darwinism proclaims “survival of the fittest”. In biology, fittest is defined as reproductive success, leaving as many of your genes, as much of your footprint, as you can. I see no avenues for just living in a diverse world by taking up views such as “survival of the fittest”. Looking towards a sustainable future, leaving a world that future generations may walk on would be more beneficial, more “just”, than leaving our own genetic footprints. In a world growing precariously overpopulated, reproductive success seems an antiquated way of measuring human fitness – there are many ways to be fruitful.

We were asked how to live well and just in a world with so much diversity. I would pose an alternative question: How can we possibly live without so much diversity?

To live well and just is no call for Social Darwinism – it is a call for social ecosystems. Ecosystems, they are what create selective pressures in the first place. Animals better suited to their environments are selected and assume a role that contributes to their environment. An organism’s niche allows it to with live within its environment much like the way humans in Country and the gift live; one who cares for the land will in turn be cared for by the land. A social ecosystem adopts the same sense of humility and interconnectedness with the earth that indigenous cultures share. In a social ecosystem, people are given the opportunity to live well and contribute to society in their own way. Nature fosters individual specialization and community interconnectedness. If we can prosper in individual roles that we see as part of a greater whole, if we adopt a governing web structure instead of a pyramid, then perhaps diversity could make humanity stronger, rather than tear it apart.

Maybe my abstract ideas make more sense in poetry?

The Ecosystem

I am but a thread

Spun and hitched

By the spider’s leg

Intersecting lines

of land and life

of beliefs and rights

We wonder what is right.

can water, food, shelter,

finding happiness be basic?

They are complex rights

Like the ecosystem of life.

They are worth the fight.

The spider will spin

And the panther hunt

For nature’s music within

Each of us

Is part of me, part of you

part of the soil and the roots

that hold the foundations

to all things in nature –

be a reflection.

A central conflict woven throughout Linda Hogan’s novel, Power, is the two opposing world views represented by the Taiga people and the people of the town. For the Taiga people, no distinctions lie between nature and society. Nature holds the answers; life makes sense only in the light of natural processes. Hogan imbues the landscape with human qualities. The land is living, it runs through the veins of the Taiga people. Searching for a way to explain Ama’s killing of the panther, Omishto feels unable to recount the story during the trial. “(Omishto) can’t say that what (Ama) did on that one day seemed like a natural thing… like how the world does things on its own… it creates destruction so that it can go on” (126). Ama kills the panther shorten its suffering, and she conceals the panther’s sickness and suffering from the tribe so that the tribe may live on. Ama is like the earth, her destruction inextricably linked to creation. Nature does not leave dry and crumbling leaves on trees in Autumn. Dying leaves fall to the ground and fertilize the soil, providing the bed for new life, new leaves. Fall is the world creating destruction. Killing the sick and starving panther is no different for Ama – she is like the wind that blows through and brings the dying to the ground so that new life may form.

Hogan, Linda. Power, W.W. Norton and Company, 1999.