Both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Bernie Sanders have labeled W “the
worst environmental president in our nation’s history” because of his
more than four hundred rollbacks of pollution regulations.
Unfortunately, Decider & Co. has been extending that already
lamentable legacy with some ninety eleventh-hour revisions that, unless
revoked, will have us, according to a National Resources Defense
Council lawyer, “choke on dirtier air for years to come.” Millions of
tons of new CO2 emissions (some from coal-powered plants located near
national parks!) will foul our air and lungs; we’ll also have more
mercury in our fish and drinking water. It may have been amusing
watching last week’s shoe fiasco, but in fact the lame ducks are
hurling smelly farewell gifts at us, and we’re too preoccupied with the
economy to dodge.
“The Line of Questioning,” an installation by photographer
Janet Delaney and sculptor Laurie Polster at Berkeley’s
Addison Windows, aims at redressing this “misunderestimation” of the
environment. A tree, says the press release, symbolizes “ecological and
social sustainability … [and] record[s] the passage of time, frame[s]
the present, and provide[s] a window into the future.” The show argues
for nature’s relevance with three elements: Delaney’s dramatic,
large-format, wall-mounted color photos of forests and grasslands;
Polster’s simulated groves of aspen tree branches, with the bark peeled
off like pelts, and the exposed branches gleaming, smooth, and radiant;
and textual elements mounted both behind the trees on the walls and in
front of them on the glass window: prose and poetry, respectively.
The prose describes two ecological declines or collapses. The first
took place on Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, a South Pacific island once
covered by a dense toromiro forest, but mysteriously devastated
by the Polynesians who settled there, building huge stone heads; today,
only grasslands survive. The second took place in the American
southwest in Gila National Forest, as the natural fire patterns of
millennia were replaced, as cattle ranchers settled the area, with a
manmade war against fire; the advent of airplanes, helicopters, and
chemical drops actually made fires more deadly and destructive.
The poetry, from Whitman and Neruda and others, consists of
provocative questions about what civilizations should value: “When does
supple skin become a wall of indifference? Why worship ideology that is
inherently self-destructive? What were they thinking when they cut down
the last tree?” Temples, remember, originally simulated darkly
mysterious forests; shiny, happy malls make poor substitutes. “The Line
of Questioning” runs through January 17 at Addison Windows (2018
Addison St., Berkeley). www.ci.berkeley.ca.us
