Daniel Beltrá on the Deepwater Horizon spill

See Daniel Beltrá's Photography on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill here

'If Exxon Valdez was a heart attack, Deepwater is a cancer'. See more of Daniel Beltrá's Photography on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill here

As many of you know, I helped to found the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Among our more than 70 Fellows, Daniel Beltra is a good friend who has been doing AWESOME work in the Amazon and for which he was given the 2009 Prince's Rainforest Award.

He has been in the Gulf since the blowout and these two links will introduce you to his work if you do not know it already. What he is witnessing and saying is probably closer to the truth than much of what we are getting from the media, and all of what we are getting from BP.

Amazing, disgusting work. I wish these pictures would never have had to been made, but since BP has visited this upon us, THANK YOU Daniel and my other iLCP Fellows who are down there working and trying to provide the American public with visuals to drive their response.

Given my age, I have come from a generation that was not apathetic, and indeed was VERY proactive with regards to social and environmental justice. There does not seem to be too much of that these days. Most just want to do X and party while this unfolds. I hope the current generations of our children wake up soon, and react with FORCE about these corporate criminals or they will find themselves in a world that looks like the Gulf Coast... EVERYWHERE, and not just because of an oilspill.

Eldrige Cleaver said many years ago, "If you are not doing something about the problem, then you are part of it." Come on you guys, WAKE UP AND PARTICIPATE!!! Fight back before you end up like one of those oil-drenched seabirds.

See Daniel Beltrá's Photography on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill here

'If Exxon Valdez was a heart attack, Deepwater is a cancer'. See more of Daniel Beltrá's Photography on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill here

#rgk

Recent Earthquake & Volcanic Activity

Photograph © 2010 Patrick Taschen

Here's this week's earthquake activity (5.5 magnitude+), as well as volcanic activity:

EARTHQUAKES above 5.5 magnitude:

• 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck off Vanuatu (the South Pacific including the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia) (5/28/2010)
  
• 6.7 magnitude hit the Andaman islands 139km southeast of Port Blair, India (6/01/2010)
• 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocks Southern Philippines, epicenter the island of Mindanao (5/31/2010)
• 5.7 magnitude earthquake jolted Yushu Tibet Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Qinghai Province (5/29/2010)

VOLCANIC ACTIVITY :

• Volcano erupts in Guatamala, shutting down capital city & international airport (5/28/2010)
• The 'Throat of Fire' volcano in Ecuador erupts (5/29/2010)
  

Read below, to see why these facts are relevant:

#rgk

* * * * * * *
Personally I view the National Academy of Science (NAS) as very cautious and relatively conservative about their public statements, so I was especially alarmed to read the article I posted May 20th from the LATimes regarding the NAS’s most recent warnings regarding the acceleration of effects from climate change.

Here is some other recent science of note: NASA announced that satellite monitoring indicates Antarctica is rising very slowly now that the weight of glacial ice is melting off of it. This is a geological phenomenon known as 'isostatic rebound' and it is common to small islands in the Arctic, it is just no human has ever experienced it at the scale of the entire south pole... the largest continent on the planet.

So, first question being asked: 1) How much ocean will be displaced, as that will affect inundation levels elsewhere in the world. Scientists have begun to research this. 2) The question not yet asked is, if the largest continent on the planet is moving around, and it is connected to all of the plates, don’t you think the plates would move as well. Correspondingly, if that were true, it would seem there would be a lot more big earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring because of Antarctica’s “movement”.

If you were to 'Google' all earthquakes above 6.0, and all volcano eruptions in the last two decades, you will see a considerable upswing in both that begins to occur during the last 20-years, about the same time the ice began to unweight the continent.

I am no scientist, I am just sayin’… this is interesting, and I think it is much bigger than we know….

Read the LATimes article, 'National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses'

Most tragic thing ever: Oil is farther ashore than predicted & hurricane season has started. http://ht.ly/1SOiT rgk oilspill

Center for a Better Life - Jin Jiang Joy

From Center for a Better Life:



Jin Jiang Joy, a textile company founded by American conservation photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum, is exploring photographic imagery derived from nature and applied to fine fabric, personal items and home accessories. Ketchum’s organic, intricately patterned creations are abstracted from his huge library of photographs. This artist believes working from pictures of nature infuses his designs with energies and rhythms no drawing could replicate or convey. He also thinks that such images bring nature’s energy into the urban environment, thus promoting more positive personal surroundings.

California-born Ketchum views his designs as permeated with the vibrant colors of Pacific Rim cultures. But he also employs colors and color relationships that promote positive energy in order to resonate with certain body chakras to stimulate joy, clarity and overall health. “Launch,” the high-quality 22" x 72" lustrous silk scarf shown here has been produced in a signed, limited edition of 200. The identical pattern is printed on 50 flat-black silk crepe shawls with fringe ends. Each retails for $250 USD. The astounding luminosity of the colors and the subtlety of hues have been faithfully reproduced by a 16-color printing process – close to the limit of what current technology allows.

Named by Audubon magazine as one of the 100 people who have helped to “shape the environmental movement of the 20th Century,” Ketchum is probably most recognized for using his landscape photography as a kind of “visual journalism” to advocate conservation. His images and strategies have helped lead national media campaigns to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon, Alaska’s Tongass rainforest, New York’s Hudson River and California’s San Simeon ranch properties, among many others.

For more information about Robert Glenn Ketchum and his conservation projects, please go to www.robertglennketchum.com. To purchase the scarf shown above, or the shawl, please call +1.310.406.0401. All major credit cards are accepted.

To Read the Entire Post, click here

Big volcanic eruptions in Guatemala, Ecuador http://ht.ly/1RCeC rgk volcano

volcanoes & climate change

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Following up on my previous posting repeated below, two volcanoes erupted this week in South America. One was in Ecuador. The other in Guatemala shut down the capital city, covering the roadways with ash, and closing the international airport.

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Personally I view the National Academy of Science (NAS) as very cautious and relatively conservative about their public statements, so I was especially alarmed to read the article I posted last week from the LATimes regarding the NAS’s most recent warnings regarding the acceleration of effects from climate change.

Here is some other recent science of note: NASA announced that satellite monitoring indicates Antarctica is rising very slowly now that the weight of glacial ice is melting off of it. This is a geological phenomenon known as isostatic rebound and it is common to small islands in the Arctic, it is just no human has ever experienced it at the scale of the entire south pole... the largest continent on the planet.

So, first question being asked: 1) How much ocean will be displaced, as that will affect inundation levels elsewhere in the world. Scientists have begun to research this. 2) The question not yet asked is, if the largest continent on the planet is moving around, and it is connected to all of the plates, don’t you think the plates would move as well. Correspondingly, if that were true, it would seem there would be a lot more big earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring because of Antarctica’s “movement”.

If you were to 'Google' all earthquakes above 6.0, and all volcano eruptions in the last two decades, you will see a considerable upswing in both that begins to occur during the last 20-years, about the same time the ice began to unweight the continent.

I am no scientist, I am just sayin’… this is interesting, and I think it is much bigger than we know….

Read the LATimes article, 'National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses' here

...partisan politics...

I come from a Republican family, and although I do sometimes vote Democratic, I have always tried to vote for the candidate I thought had the most environmental good sense REGARDLESS of party. Of late, my disgust for the partisan politics of the current Republican elite infuriates me so much, I would like to see most of them removed from office, even if to be replaced by other Republicans that actually want to get something accomplished.

In particular, at a moment of crisis in America, with the economy teetering on recovery/no recovery, and the Gulf fishery being killed by an environmental disaster, the mostly Republican judicial committee wants a special investigator to look in to the job offer the Obama administration made to a PA candidate. Are these guys kidding? These guys must all smoke pot because their short-term memory has apparently been lost. Presidents throughout history have done this dozens of times and no one wasted political energy or funds on any previous “investigations”. The precedent has been set for YEARS!!!!

This committee would do better to get off their spiteful asses and get engaged in solving real problems rather than spending federal money and time to pursue a ridiculous agenda that has no illegal implications whatsoever. Scary to think they are a “judicial” committee when they seem to have so little grasp of law and precedent.

#rgk

Oil Related Health Problems in the Gulf

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Yesterday, I ran a post from the news about how workers cleaning up the Gulf oil spill are beginning to experience health problems especially lung related ones. The history of this is very clear. In California during the Santa Barbara spill and in Prince William Sound (AK) where volunteers cleaned up after the Exxon Valdez ran aground, many, many workers reported ill effects. Many of them have had permanent damage and are still sick.

My good friend, marine biologist Riki Ott, Ph.D., has written a couple of books about the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath. They should be required reading, so pick them up: ‘Not One Drop – Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill’, ‘Sound Truth & Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill’

Before I have blogged about the food chain being poisoned by the oil spill, and it will be, but just as importantly, everyone that has contact with this mess will suffer in some way.

ONCE HURRICANE SEASON STARTS THESE POLLUTANTS AND THE AIRBORNE PARTICULATES THAT COME WITH THEM WILL BLOW ASHORE AND RAIN DOWN ON STATE AFTER STATE, CROP AFTER CROP, WATER SOURCE AFTER WATER SOURCE CONTAMINATING EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH.

All of the Southeast will be affected. More frighteningly, so will their water and food sources. In the future, I WANT the government to mandate food labeling that will tell us from what body of water the seafood catch comes, because anything from the gulf will be dangerous to eat for decades. Perhaps this will also be true for the land-based foods crops once these toxins start to blow onshore. This oil spill disaster is going to be much larger and more dangerous than anyone realizes once the damage and the legacy of it play out over time.

#rgk

In Memory of Steve Baron

Yesterday, I was contacted by associates who told me that Steve Baron died quietly in his home in New York.

Steve Baron was a mentor and friend, and I will greatly miss his dry humor and his remarkable skills. Steve and I knew each other for more than 25-years and it is Steve’s press management that helped to produce 8 of my 9 Aperture books. For those of you that may not realize this, when Aperture was a great powerhouse of photographic publishing, Steve oversaw the printing of all their publications. He was, indeed, a press master! Personally, I believe it was his attention to quality printing that made Aperture the publishing house it is noted as being.

At the time, Aperture prided itself on working with their artists, so if we chose to participate in the printing proof, we were invited. That means that the artist travels with the Production Manager to the location of the printing (in our case either Italy or Hong Kong) and then begins several days, perhaps even weeks, of constant press proofs as the signatures of the pages roll off. These signatures generally get printed every 4-6 hours around-the-clock, which means that the artists and the PM are “on-call” at ALL times. Needless to say, after several days of this pace, sleep is marginal, coffee is king and everything said is just a little funny.

Steve and I weathered macho Italian pressmen and unusual Chinese food together for many, many days, and did it all while having a wonderful time. Steve was also teaching me what I know about the press and quality control, and oh yes, we produced some beautiful books along the way.

Steve always seemed to me to be the calm at the eye of the storm. Regardless of the Aperture politics, the press failures, the language/communication issues, and the breakdowns in production that normally occur along the way, Steve was always calm and on top of it, resolving it in timely fashion and then laughing about it after the resolution.

I have many Steve Baron stories, but the one that says the most occurred in Italy when we were on press with Northwest Passage. The printing was difficult because of all of the whites and subtle colors and one of the signatures was truly awful. When we complained about having it all reprinted the Italian pressmen went crazy, basically telling us that we did not know what we were talking about, and as the artist, surely I did not know enough to be critical of their work. Steve pushed back and offered to take the book off the press and go somewhere else. Then the Italians calmed down and agreed to re-work the signature. Once they did, it was significantly better and the rest of the printing went on without incidence. When it was all over, the union pressmen had a small party for us in which they presented us with their union t-shirts, a great compliment to both of us.

Thank you Steve for the amazing books and for helping me to make a difference with how the public receives my words and ideas. Thank you for being a great friend and mentor. Thank you for tempering my dealings with Aperture, and most of all, thank you for making me a photographer that better understands the connection between his imagery and the way that it is applied in other mediums. You were the best, and your amazing legacy is all the books and artists you befriended and advanced with your amazing skills and patience. You will be missed!

#rgk

RGK Photo of the Week: 'Arctic'

RGK Photo of the Week: 'Arctic' http://ht.ly/1PLdN rgk photo earth

Acceleration of Effects From Climate Change

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Personally I view the National Academy of Science (NAS) as very cautious and relatively conservative about their public statements, so I was especially alarmed to read the article I posted Wedneseday from the LATimes regarding the NAS’s most recent warnings regarding the acceleration of effects from climate change.

Here is some other recent science of note: NASA announced that satellite monitoring indicates Antarctica is rising very slowly now that the weight of glacial ice is melting off of it. This is a geological phenomenon known as isostatic rebound and it is common to small islands in the Arctic, it is just no human has ever experienced it at the scale of the entire south pole... the largest continent on the planet.

So, first question being asked: 1) How much ocean will be displaced, as that will affect inundation levels elsewhere in the world. Scientists have begun to research this. 2) The question not yet asked is, if the largest continent on the planet is moving around, and it is connected to all of the plates, don’t you think the plates would move as well. Correspondingly, if that were true, it would seem there would be a lot more big earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring because of Antarctica’s “movement”.

If you were to 'Google' all earthquakes above 6.0, and all volcano eruptions in the last two decades, you will see a considerable upswing in both that begins to occur during the last 20-years, about the same time the ice began to unweight the continent.

I am no scientist, I am just sayin’… this is interesting, and I think it is much bigger than we know….

Read the LATimes article, 'National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses' here

THIS WEEKEND: Venice Art Walk & Auctions, May 22-23, 2010

"Confused by Butterflies," Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Plan to attend the Venice Art Walk & Auctions, May 22-23, 2010. It's the greatest art festival in Los Angeles, hands-down. All major artists in L.A. are there, many of whom exhibit new work. It's better than going to a museum in that you can see & bid on all the magnificent art in a relaxed, casual environment!

Be sure to check out my new digital piece, "Confused by Butterflies" which will be available for auction. All proceeds benefit the Venice Family Clinic, a very worthy establishment that I've proudly supported for over 25-years!

Let's hope for sunny weather so we can all enjoy the days & the art even more!

Hope to see you there.

~RGK

May 22-23, 2010
Charity Auction: "Confused by Butterflies"
Venice Art Walk & Auctions
Art & Architecture Tours, May 22-23
Venice Art Walk & Auctions, May 23
Westminster School
1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
+1.310.392.9255 general inquiries

#rgk

National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

I view the National Academy of Science (NAS) as very cautious and relatively conservative about their public statements, so I was especially alarmed to read the article I posted yesterday from the LATimes regarding the NAS’s most recent warnings regarding the acceleration of effects from climate change.

Here is some other recent science of note: NASA announced that satellite monitoring indicates Antarctica is rising very slowly now that the weight of glacial ice is melting off of it. This is a geological phenomenon known as isostatic rebound and it is common to small islands in the Arctic, it is just no human has ever experienced it at the scale of the entire south pole... the largest continent on the planet.

So, first question being asked: How much ocean will be displaced, as that will affect inundation levels elsewhere in the world. Scientists have begun to research this. The question not yet asked is, if the largest continent on the planet is moving around, and it is connected to all of the plates, don’t you think the plates would move as well. Correspondingly, if that were true, it would seem there would be a lot more big earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occurring because of Antarctica’s “movement”.

Google all earthquakes above 6.0, and all volcano eruptions in the last two decades, and you will see a considerable upswing in both that begins to occur during the last 20-years, about the same time the ice began to unweight the continent.

I am no scientist, I am just sayin’… this is interesting, and I think it is much bigger than we know….

Read the LATimes article, 'National Academy of Sciences Urges Strong Action to Cut Greenhouse Gasses' here

An Evening to Say 'NO' to the Pebble Mine

Photograph © 2010 Robert Glenn Ketchum

Last night, Robert Kennedy, Jr., native spokesperson Bobby Andrew, and myself presented images of southwest Alaska and Bristol Bay and spoke about the impact of the Pebble mine to 400+ members of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Beginning with a meet and greet at NRDC's 'green architecture' offices in Santa Monica, the party then walked three doors down the street and into the Laemelle theater for the presentation. My images are part of my new hi-rez keynote portfolio and this was the first time I had put them up on such a big screen. It was hard for me to tell just how they looked from the podium, but anytime the audience gasps, it is probably a good thing.

Bobby Andrew made it clear that the Native villages oppose the mine and Robert Kennedy said that to build this mine which would knowingly and eventually poison the fishery was a criminal act and the mine would not be built if he had anything to say about. It is great to have so many people coming on board with these positions and emotions. I have been trying to generate public interest and political traction around the issues in Bristol Bay for 12-years and it is wonderful to have so many new allies that think this mine plan is a travesty.

NRDC and their membership bring a whole new realm of national interest to this battle Welcome aboard all, it is great to have you. Hope you enjoyed the evening. I certainly did.


#rgk