Stylized Substance
jjacquet | August 5, 2009We like tension. It makes for good stories. But it has been recognized that the fair and balanced approach to science news (and otherwise) can be detrimental. As Al Gore pointed out in An Inconvenient Truth, climate scientists, as represented by their peer-reviewed literature, hold a consensus view on the carbon crisis while the media continues to report skepticism.
Last week, an article was published in Science on Rebuilding Global Fisheries. The paper worked to reconcile views of marine ecologist Boris Worm and fisheries scientist Ray Hilborn (which Cornelia Dean at the New York Times…
jjacquet | July 22, 2009The American press is on suicide watch as Frank Rich declared earlier this year. With the fold of major print media outlets, like Rocky Mountain News, and the Seattle P-I and the bankruptcy of the chain that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, it seems that the predictions of the EPIC 2014 slideshow are right and that Frank Rich is, too.
So why would a photojournalist say: "As long I as I am alive, newspapers will be, too"?
Yet this was the battlecry of photographer Michel du Cille, who I had the pleasure to hear speak last Saturday at the Bellingham Visual Journalism…
jjacquet | July 8, 2009With the shortages and environmental impacts of global meat (including ocean meat, aka seafood), perhaps we should be turning to introduced rodents and insects for future meals. We might be forced to turn to jellyfish, too. Check out the jellyfish burger that artist Dave Beck and I created -- now on display in a Discover gallery piece on whether Vermin is the Meat of the Future.
jjacquet | June 25, 2009McDonald's launched this ad for for their Filet-O-Fish sandwich this year (just in time for Lent). Their marketing strategy is an interesting one: a rare reminder that the fish you're eating comes from an animal that was once alive.
What if it were you hanging up on this wall?
If it were you in that sandwich, you wouldn't be laughing at all.
jjacquet | June 23, 2009As part of the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign, "The Crying Indian" spot first aired in 1971 and was shown throughout the 1970s and 80s. It won two Clio Awards and was named one of the top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th Century by Ad Age Magazine:
But research in psychology shows that this public service announcement (PSA) may not have been as effective as is widely believed.
Research by Bob Cialdini at Arizona State University reveals that the PSA's main message -- that we should not litter -- may have been undermined by showing how many people do in fact litter.
In his…
jjacquet | June 3, 2009A blogpost over at GOOD magazine* reviews a new book on veganism, applauds the book for its flexible approach, and says we should "give up trying to guilt people into not eating any meat." The post mentions the environmental impacts of meat, which are indeed significant (according the the UN, rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars), but does not venture much further in the realm of why there is a guilt campaign around meat eating (which, I would argue, has been a fairly weak campaign -- the potential for gruesomeness hardly fulfilled at all).
If it is not yet clear…
jjacquet | June 2, 2009We know jellyfish are on the rise in the world's oceans but who knew jellies would make it into a field in Oxfordshire? At 600ft., this jellyfish is the world's biggest...
jjacquet | May 31, 2009I wanted to share renowned fisheries biologist (and my supervisor*) Daniel Pauly's lecture at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum last week, which kicked off the International Marine Conservation Congress. I particularly enjoyed his ending, which discussed the potential operating systems for the interface between humanity and Planet Earth...
*But not for too much longer... I submitted my dissertation on Friday and look forward now to blogging with greater frequency.
jjacquet | May 25, 2009I remember back in my teenage years unpacking the car during a vacation and singing a little tune I made up and envisioned turning into an entire Broadway musical (unfortunately, you cannot hear the catchy tune that went along with it):
Stuff.
We have too much of it: stuff.
We still want more of it: stuff.
It's tough to have so much stuff.
And, as the ever-resourceful Mike Hirshfield of Oceana pointed out to me at the recent IMCC meeting when we were talking about the post on The Story of Stuff, George Carlin did the original Stuff Story in this stand-up comedy routine from 1986:
jjacquet | May 14, 2009President Obama gives an inspiring commencement speech at Arizona State University fitting for anyone feeling guilty about privilege, the poverty of ambition, and the insufficiency of material culture...
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
jjacquet | May 12, 2009The New York Times ran a great little profile on a great little video released in 2007 called The Story of Stuff. This 20-minute film created by former Greenpeace employee Annie Leonard has made its way around the globe and into many classrooms, where its animation and succinctness encourages discussion. And guilt.
According to the New York Times article, Rafael de la Torre Batker, age 9, was riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., and wondered whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos.
Some parents are not pleased with the film, though. One…
jjacquet | May 11, 2009This is a headline I can easily imagine will appear in the next decade or so.
As skyscrapers replace skylines and concrete replaces trees, I believe art is going to play an ever-greater role in society.
We know that nature has psychological benefits. Studies show that spending time in natural environments can 1) reduce stress and 2) focus attention (hence all the hoods in the woods programs). There is no doubt that art also has similar benefits*.
It is not just that film, theatre, and paintings are an urban phenomenon. They are an urban phenomenon in part because the urban environment…
jjacquet | May 8, 2009I think animal sounds are sorely underutilized in music.
I have thought that ever since first hearing the lovely introductory sounds in Lemon Jelly's A Tune for Jack (2001):
I wondered: why don't more bands do this? The sounds of animals are good for the soul and, as animals become less and less a part of our daily lives due to urbanization and population declines, it is deeply pleasing to get a supplement of their sounds...
In their song Furr (2008), Blitzen Trapper emulates the call of a loon with a small toy water pipe:
Luckily, there is an even better source than a water pipe. The…
jjacquet | May 6, 2009Check out this work by Chris Jordan that helps us visualize quantitative information using photography. His series, called Running the Numbers II, is a commentary on global mass culture, is now showing at the Winsor Gallery in Vancouver.
This new series looks at mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. Similarly to the first Running the Numbers series, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: the number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes, for example. But this time the statistics are global in scale, rather than specifically American.
One work is…
jjacquet | May 1, 2009I cannot embed the official video but here's another version:
Here are Beck's lyrics:
I feel uptight when I walk in the city
I feel so cold when I'm at home
Feels like everything's starting to hit me
I lost bed ten minutes ago
Modern guilt I'm staring at nothing
Modern guilt I'm under lock and key
It's not what I have changed,
Turning into convention
Don't know what I've done but I feel ashamed
Standing outside the glass room sidewalk
These people talk about impossible things
And I'm falling down the conversations
Another palm beats into you
Modern guilt is all in our hands
Modern guilt…