Lens On the Land Photo Project, Tucson

Lens On the Land Dot Com #2. Tucson, Arizona, 2014

This is an interesting public art and environmental project part of which you’ll see expressed on walls and buildings throughout the downtown area of Tucson…as in the giant frog (toad?) above.

The idea is to make folks aware of the effect of the proposed Rosemont Mine on the ecosystem of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. You can check out the details at the Lens On the Land website. (August 2018: link no longer active).

And for photographers who live in or visit Arizona: They are looking for quality photography of the area in question. For specifics of what they might find useful to achieve their goals, see THIS LINK on their website. (August 2018: link no longer active).

On this subject of ecosystems, I’ll add a thought about the environmental movement and how, IMHO, it has [mis]handled things such as fighting for the various endangered species…that is, development versus the Spotted Owl, development and livestock interests versus the wolf, development and habitat destruction versus the jaguar, roll of those stupid little bees in our food chain, and so on. I don’t think these issues have been explained properly and the fight has been too narrowly focused on the demise of the one particular creature in question. The debate should be about our long-term survival (or demise).

The people o’ this kuntry jess ain’t edurcated ’bout this stuff…

…and I know of too many folks who laugh off the notion of saving some useless owl, or chub, or “varmint” like the wolf, when, in their view, the cost of maintaining them can be directly measured in lost jobs and dollars spent.

Here’s the thing, though.

Our ecosystem (see Gaia) is very much like a house of cards. You can pull out a few critters here and there…maybe even a few more way over yonder…a chub, a spotted owl, a wolf, a penguin, a shark species, a whale species, some weird colored bird in Borneo, a 4-foot bird in Madagascar…But, at some point, the ecosystem collapses (as parts of our oceans are currently doing). We live in an integrated system on which we depend for food, air, and water. We depend on the health of this system and we chip away at it at our own risk (as miners might in a creaky mine shaft).

Experts say that our current species extinction rate is probably somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural extinction rate–not good news for us and our survival, even if the rate is a tenth that.

So, I personally believe we need to weigh the REAL, long-term, costs of our development projects and policy changes. For example, with Big Mutha Project A we might gain a few thousand jobs for a decade or so–but what then? Have the accountants also calculated the cost to the air, water, food production, health of the nearby humans, and to the overall health of the ecosystem?

Another example…I have always wondered what the real price of a gallon of gasoline might be if you were to account for long-term environmental costs, health costs, and the wars fought on its behalf. (Some say as much as $15 a gallon!)

Anyway, food for thought (for as long as we have honey bees!)…and send some photographs to Lens On the Land to help them out.