Line 3 Debate and the Anthropocene

Bianca Acevedo Gonzalez uncovers conflicting viewpoints on natural resources by calling attention to the controversy around a pipeline replacement project by the multinational energy company Enbridge.

Large corporations and many Native activists have different ways of utilizing nature’s resources and different ways of inhabiting the land. Today, corporations don’t just build around earth’s resources, they build on top of them or remove land altogether (as seen with deforestation projects). Enbridge promotes itself as providing “reliable energy” which sounds positive, however, reliable does not mean sustainable or environmentally-friendly. It’s claims that it provides “reliable energy” should not be confused for responsible energy and much less sustainable or environmentally-friendly. They are responsible for the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. Reliable for them means easy and cost-efficient. These opposing views to the construction of Line 3 demonstrate how different communities, with different interests and needs, engage with the natural world around them. Enbridge promotes the creation of jobs and their contribution to the local economy. The company claims to be an environmentally-friendly company, however, the very fact that they’re abandoning a corroding pipeline to avoid financial costs proves that they don’t care about the environment. The company’s relationship to nature is one concerned with exploiting the land for monetary gain. Read more

The Urgency of Memory: Assessing the Anthropocene in Urban Deindustrial Redevelopment

Olivia Avrick examines an urban redevelopment project in Minneapolis to point towards human complacency in environmental degradation.

I am interested in exploring a more critical engagement of the Anthropocene in which the concept equips us to recognize and acknowledge human-caused environmental degradation, and in doing so, relieves us of any responsibility to try to fix it. This analysis of the Anthropocene is discussed in the context of a major private urban deindustrial redevelopment project currently underway in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Supported by the City of Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and private developers, this project seeks to transform the Upper Harbor Terminal (UHT) from an assortment of abandoned industrial structures existing along the Mississippi River in North Minneapolis to a 48-plus-acre recreational site. This project excludes the environmental history of industrialization along the Mississippi and dismisses the environmental injustices occurring in North Minneapolis. […] If we accept Crutzen’s claim that we are living in the age of the Anthropocene, which implies that humans have caused extreme environmental degradation, then, […] anything not actively being done to address and reverse the environmental crisis is thus considered a complicit acceptance of human-caused destruction. As the UHT project is not focused on the environmental impact of the redevelopment, it supports the interpretation of the Anthropocene as an opportunity to recognize the negative impact that humans have had on the environment — and not take any substantial action to address the environmental crisis. Read more

Mississippi Dead zones: Ghosts of the Anthropocene

Alexandria Harrington urges us to listen to the paranormal stories that have haunted the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico in a jagged chalk outline of the annual dead zone. This line, colloquially referred to as the ‘Rip in the Flesh,’ is, like a knife wound, sharp, staggered, and imperceptibly deep. […] A miracle of God allowing the Gulf to retain its clear blue, Allah’s forbidding partition to maintain two kinds of water. The Gulf’s dead zone was first observed in 1950 and first measured in 1985. At roughly the size of New Jersey, the dead zone was its largest ever in 2017. Religion or research, fisherman will tell you that the fish are disappearing. […] The idea of the Anthropocene asks us to look at the planet and see what it is as something we have done. It’s an inherently haunted task. To look around and understand our surroundings as changed is to allow the ghosts of what was to whisper in our ears. Read more

Sounds of the Mississippi in the Anthropocene

In her sound piece, Isaysha McCaleb presents river histories by creating a “radio” montage: Clicking between stations the listeners are being introduced to sonic textures of the river, historical facts as well as unsettling information regarding human interference with the river.

Why is the Aerocene Important for the Anthropocene?

Drawing on the work of artist Tomás Saraceno, Sebastian Ramirez explores alternative ways of interacting with the Anthropocene.

Ways of Crossing: The (In)Visibility of Human Intervention on the Mississippi River

Valentia Sundell reflects on the possibilities of art, geography, and activism to help us see the infrastructures we created.

Some of the most visible signs of human interaction with the river, bridges like the Stone Arch Bridge, a former railroad bridge that crosses the Mississippi at Saint Anthony Falls, have become symbols of manmade prosperity, commerce, and success. […] In some ways, human intervention on the environment is incredibly visible; the Stone Arch Bridge tangibly and concretely demonstrates the act of human conquering wild. Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline, on the other hand, is much less visible. How can we visualize unseen human interventions on the environment? What prevents visibility? One answer lies in cartography. Maps reveal our surroundings, yet are subjective as human creations themselves. […] The potential of maps to reveal our humanity also limits the objectivity of the map. For every feature or system the map exposes, there are others that remain unseen and obscured. […] Paradoxically, it is through human intervention that our environment and water systems are concealed, yet it is through the human intervention of mapping, art, and activism that again reveals them. Continue reading

Global Exhaust, A Body

Matthew Howland traces the material flows which are fueled by the Cahokia Power Plant.

The coal burnt by Cahokia Power Plant was soft, rich in sulfur, low-grade, and taken from strip mines in Freeburg, Illinois also owned by the Union Electric and Power Company. This material was subsequently transported 20 miles to Sauget, then provided power to the city across the river. Upon its initial construction, the Cahokia Power Plant was the largest such structure between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. The building supports a narrative of St. Louis development and burgeoning industry: the smokestacks, 265 feet tall, provide the city a reflection of its economic aspirations and simultaneous environmental ruin. Coal is taken from the Earth, burned, and then spat back down from six ambivalent, unceasing mouths. […] Just north of the Cahokia Power Plant is a vast mound of spoil tip. Over eight times the size of the power plant itself, the mound consists of waste rock, excess shale created during the process of coal extraction. The mound gained mass through the beginning of the 1950s, and was maintained by Union Electric and Power Company as a coal washer. It is largely intact today, although flooded yearly by the Mississippi River, gradually eroding back into the surrounding Earth. Continue reading

Effective Climate Change Communication in the Age of the Anthropocene: Water Bar and Public Studio

William Milch looks at the practices of Water Bar and Open Studio in Minneapolis, an initiative aimed at educating the public about their connection to water, and particularly to the Mississippi River. Milch focuses on the Water Bar’s strategies of using water to effectively communicate the Anthropocene.

There is a large disconnect between the global climate change effort and efforts made by local communities. As a result, there is a ‘difficulty of seeing and representing the causes of climate change, as well as the climate itself and changes in it’11Moser, Susanne C. (2016). What more is there to say? Reflections on climate change communication research and practice in the second decade of the 21st century. WIREs — Climate Change, in press, doi: 10.1002/wcc.403. p.6.. A successful message must make the case for dealing with the Anthropocene relevant to the local community of the audience, insofar as any message meant to inspire meaningful action must make apparent the opportunities and effects of local work. […] There is more than enough evidence about how humankind has affected the environment, the more essential problem is narrowing down the evidence to what matters to the audience being communicated to.

This also applies to creating a sense of local community. Every Friday, The Water Bar storefront hosts Public Studio hours. During these sessions, anyone can enter the storefront, grab some tap water and work on any project they want. The community that is established by this function works to bring heterogeneous people together in an attempt to show water’s impact on how people interact. ‘We help people understand that all water comes from somewhere like that and then it also always goes through some sort of system and sometimes that system is a natural stomach spring, or sometimes it’s a really simple human-made system like a well.’ (Shanai Matteson, co-founder Water Bar) Continue reading