Green Washing

Posted on by metalpepper

Greenwashing takes many forms; it is defined an a superficial attempt to make oneself or one’s organization appear more environmentally conscious. Companies and businesses try to Greenwash their products and policies, as goes the common assessment. However, what are some examples of political Greenwashing?

Take a look at the Wikipedia page documenting Renewable Energy in the People’s Republic of China. While you’re there, try to find the words “Three Gorges Dam.” They’re present, right underneath a fish-eye shot of the churning outlet of the most massive hydroelectric project in the history of human industrial development. So why are they nowhere else in the article? It’s hard to say, but the editors did include this fascinating paragraph.

“On April 6, 2007 the Gansu Dang River Hydropower Project[8] was registered as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in accordance with the requirements of Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The project consists of the construction and operation of eight run-of-river hydropower plants providing total capacity of 35.4 GW, which will generate an average of 224 GWh/year. The power generated by the project, which is located in Dang Town, Subei Mongolian Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China, and which was certified by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to be in compliance with the “Measures for the Operation and Management of Clean Development Mechanism Projects in China”, will be sold to the Gansu power grid which is part of the China Northwest Regional Power Grid (NWPG), thereby displacing equivalent amounts of electricity generated by the current mix of power sold to the NWPG. The developer of the Gansu Dang River Hydropower Project, which started construction on November 1, 2004, is the Jiayuguan City Tongyuan Hydropower Co., Ltd. The Letter of Approval of the NDRC permits the Jiayuguan City Tongyuan Hydropower Co., Ltd. to transfer to Japan Carbon Finance, Ltd., an entity approved by the government of Japan no more than 1.2 megatons of carbon dioxide emissions in total Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) over the seven-year period beginning on May 1, 2007 and ending on April 30, 2014.[9] ”

Notice how many time this paragraph mentions foreign governments’ approvals of this particular Chinese industrial development. Undoubtedly the author wished to emphasize China’s technological developments and not its environmental developments, such as the recent environmental problems linked to the construction of Three Gorges Dam.

I wish greenwashing weren’t necessary. I wish that companies and governments could be honestly environmentally conscious without even having to talk about. It would make my job, and the jobs of a lot of environmentalists, a lot easier.

Most of all, I wish someone would update Wikipedia.

Bonne fete de Saint Jean-Baptiste!

Posted on by metalpepper

So here’s a comic! I’m also including the detail of a sketch for a future comic of greater dimension and narrative:

Two days ago I quit a job that I hated but tolerated, and I had a revelation later that night about work ethic and the tools we use to get the job done. More truthfully, it was revelation I had last summer while struggling to master a computer program used to map landscape features, for a job that I loved but tolerated. I realized while I was studying protocol and memorizing task shortcuts that if I truly wanted to be considered an expert, I would have to do more than just learn how it functioned. I needed it to become as much a part of myself as my own hands, much like a well-used tool in a carpenters’ belt can be plucked out at will and used without thinking. If this was possible, my thoughts could be freed up to more creative pathways, while still using the program to its full capacity and getting the job done and all that. I need to make the program and extension of myself, like a body part but better than a body part, because as experience will tell us, even as we improve our hand to eye coordination and other neurological pathways, our nerves may also gradually deteriorate and our muscles weaken with age. Theoretically, this computer program may become obsolete in a few years or so, but hopefully it will fall to something analogous. We can all adapt.

Anyway, this revelation was repeated to me in the form of a barman by the name of Greg. I had been riding home on the Rue Rachel bike path, along the northern side of the park, when the telltale strains of an Irish trad song wound through by ears from the doorway of a nearby cocktail lounge. This was a bit livelier than other traditional music that I heard in Ireland, and was actually, as it turned out, a Québécois tune, but I’m a sucker for anything with a violin. I would stop in traffic to hear a frog play the violin with his teeth.

I stayed on for the whole set, and while being enticed by the rhapsodies and melodies of the two musicians, I watched in awe at the bar as Greg performed his art. The minute a customer would drop a name of a drink, he would be setting up the glasses and selecting the mixers almost before they had even finished their order. He picked out the bitters from a set of identically labelled bottles on the counter, slid a lemon peel from the fruit and into the glass as easily as biting into an apple, and, lifting as he poured, filled the glass to the rim with flavored whiskey. This was clearly his domain, and he mastered it with a kind of finesse that I’ve maybe witnessed two or three times in my life. If I should continue to pursue the art of digital cartography, I can only hope that my practice can match the bartending skills of Greg.

I just found a bit of eggshell in my bed and I’m not sure how it got there. It looks like I’m still producing; too bad the family sold the farm.

Summer Tidings

Posted on by metalpepper

 

Breezy and warm in my kitchen this morning. I picture the heat of this summer like a massive sea urchin, squatting over the city and moving its radiative tube feet tentatively between the buildings, sticking in places and wafting past others. I’m heading over to the Parc Y soon; free swim everyday, bitches!

Introducing Metalpepper, JAWS

Posted on by metalpepper

Welcome to my site! As a student of environmental science, I am usually subjected to rigorous critique by a host of experts in both the sciences and humanities. I made this website to provide you, my unknown and distanced observer, with access to my most base and unadulterated creative outputs. I hope you enjoy them!

I’ll let you know from the get-go that this site is mainly about comics, which I draw with pen and ink and scan to the computer. When I can find an available scanner, the comics will be appear regularly. When I cannot, they will not, and the blog posts with be text-heavy. Maybe you like content-heavy sites, I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.

Here’s a throwback from last fall, originally published by a school newspaper:

JAWS: Just Another WordPress Site