BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Graphic Arts): Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment

DC -- Library of Congress -- Exhibit (Graphic Arts): Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment:

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Description of Pictures: Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment
September 22, 2012–March 23, 2013
Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the EnvironmentEnvironmental issues affect everyone on planet Earth—the quality of the water and food we consume, the air we breathe, and the parks we enjoy. The images selected for this exhibition are among the Library's most compelling compositions because their creators intended to provoke reaction and inspire change.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[1] LOCDTE_121012_001.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] LOCDTE_121012_009.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] LOCDTE_121012_016.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LOCDTE_121012_001.JPG: "I've Figured a Way to Get Rid of That Stuff -- Use It Up" 1988 Herblock believed that the Environmental Protection Agency and agribusiness were partners in the continued use of the most toxic pesticides. In June 1988, EPA administrator Lee M. Thomas made an exception to the ban on the chemical dinoseb. He permitted companies to exhaust existing stocks of the herbicide, which were known to cause birth defects as well as sterility in those exposed to it.
2. LOCDTE_121012_009.JPG: "Nah -- It Wouldn't Be Practical" 1989 Herblock commented on his belief in the long-term need to explore solar energy sources by showing people laboring to clean up damage from oil, coal, and nuclear energy while dismissing solar energy as impractical. Despite the increased discussion among scientists about the "greenhouse effect" caused by fossil fuels, oil remained the world's most valuable commodity in the 1980s. Power companies scarcely invested in solar energy because start-up costs exceeded the expense of purchasing oil from abroad, especially after the Reagan administration reduced federal funding for solar research by eighty percent.
3. LOCDTE_121012_016.JPG: "This Is an Emergency -- We've Got to Prevent Any Leaks of Information!" 1979 Herblock used sarcasm to present his view that the administration of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was more concerned with information leaks than with leaking radiation and public welfare. On March 28, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, near Middletown, Pennsylvania, overheated and the nuclear fuel cores experienced meltdown. Holding tanks with radioactive water overflowed and, with permission from the U.S. Regulatory Commission, the power plant discharged both radioactive water into the Susquehanna River and radioactive gas into the air. John Pfhal's photograph shows the plant's presence on land and reflection in the water.
4. LOCDTE_121012_022.JPG: Down to Earth: Herblock and Photographers Observe the Environment
5. LOCDTE_121012_026.JPG: Environmental issues affect everyone on planet Earth -- the quality of the water and food we consume, the air we breathe, and the parks we enjoy. The Library of Congress actively acquires works of art relating to major social, political, and scientific matters and is a particularly rich resource of editorial cartoons and photography recording issues concerning the environment. The images selected for Down to Earth are among the Library's most compelling compositions because their creators intended to provoke reaction and inspire change. Although the visual techniques used in photography and cartooning differ, both types of media are well suited to addressing such themes as the spread of toxins, water pollution, oil drilling, global warming, deforestation, exploitation of wetlands, and overconsumption. Sam Kittner's photographs vividly document the outrage of demonstrators in Louisiana over toxic waste dumping. Other images are more subtle -- Olaf Otto Becker's beautiful image of a blue river in Greenland actually shows the effects of global warming and acid rain. Herblock's cartoons rely on humor, irony, and sarcasm to comment on pending legislation and competing interests. The inspiration for Down to Earth comes from Herbert L. Block (1909–2001), commonly called Herblock, and his long-standing support for protecting the environment. A four-time Pulitzer Prize winner and chief editorial cartoonist at the Washington Post, Herblock produced cartoons about the environment throughout his seventy-two-year career. In 2002, the Herb Block Foundation donated more than 14,000 editorial cartoons -- his life's work -- to the Library of Congress. The Library's photography collections have long documented the interaction of people with the landscape. This exhibition emphasizes recent acquisitions and selections from the Kent and Marcia Minichiello Collection of more than 350 contemporary environmental photographs, donated in 2001. Down to Earth offers new perspectives with which to observe our planet. The juxtaposition of photography and cartooning, whether through the photographer's eye or Herblock's hand, reveals the artists' concern and passion for the environment.
6. LOCDTE_121012_030.JPG: "There Goes the Entire Neighborhood" 1973 When Herblock used the trash-laden globe as a metaphor for world pollution, he conveyed the overwhelming nature of the problem. In February 1973, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a report about water pollution covering an estimated 700,000 square miles of ocean just off the continental United States. NOAA reported finding "globs of oil" and plastic waste in the part of the Atlantic Ocean called the Sargasso Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
7. LOCDTE_121012_035.JPG: The Formerly Good Earth 1970 When Herblock portrayed his John Q. Public figure in a gas mask, standing on a filthy planet Earth overwhelmed by toxic spills, polluted waterways, and unprecedented levels of air pollution, he was showing his support for the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency on December 2, 1970. Reports by researchers who investigated the dumping sites that leached toxins into local food and water supplies had increased public awareness of life-threatening hazards and the need for better care of the earth.
8. LOCDTE_121012_043.JPG: Call of the Wild 1979 The visual metaphor of baying wolves and a chain link fence helped Herblock convey his objection to developers clamoring to eliminate the legislation that separated them from access to the untapped Alaskan wilderness. In March 1979, the House Interior Committee had proposed allowing oil drilling, mining, and timber harvesting on the Alaskan lands that President Carter had protected as national monuments.
9. LOCDTE_121012_050.JPG: "We Could Compromise and Paint Them Green" 2001 This is one of the last cartoons that Herblock produced in his seventy-two-year career as an editorial cartoonist. He reacted to a House vote to permit oil drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. In preparing for the vote, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas said, "We feel very, very confident we will be able to crack the backs of radical environmentalists." The Senate refused to pass the measure.
10. LOCDTE_121012_056.JPG: "I Hear the Cold Part of the Cold War Is Over" 1990 Herblock used irony to contrast the metaphorical heat from radioactive waste with the decrease of Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. The dissolution of the Soviet satellite state structure in 1989–1990 significantly reduced an external threat to the United States. But as the federal government sought solutions for the long-term storage of nuclear waste from weapons, local governments and citizen groups resisted. Site plans included Yucca Mountain in Nevada; Boyd County, Nebraska; and Hudspeth County, Texas.
11. LOCDTE_121012_063.JPG: Abandoned Missile Launching Pad, Kansas 1991 Photographer Terry Evans explored the impact of military sites on the prairie, including this decommissioned missile silo from the 1960s located next to farmland in Kansas.
12. LOCDTE_121012_070.JPG: "We Can Even Improve On Turning Things Over to the States -- We Can Let the Industries Regulate Themselves" 1995 In 1995, Herblock objected to legislation introduced by the House to alter the Clean Water Act and defer to industry and special interest groups. The 1974 act authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to limit pollutants in the water. The bi-partisan 1995 measure, had it gone forward, would have exempted certain industries from cleaning waste water prior to discharging it into public treatment facilities and permitted more development on wetlands. The Clinton administration successfully fought the proposed legislation.
13. LOCDTE_121012_076.JPG: "Are You Sure You Wouldn't Like a Red Carpet?" 1997 Herblock compared road building in United States forest reserves to providing a red carpet reception for the timber industry. His John Q. Public character is the loser, flattened in the middle of the road. In 1997, the Worldwatch Institute, located in Washington, D.C., issued a report Paying the Piper: Subsidies, Politics and the Environment, arguing that 500 billion taxpayer dollars paid for deforestation, over-fishing, and other environmentally destructive activities and brought more financial loss than gain in the long term.
14. LOCDTE_121012_083.JPG: "Maybe He Should Be Cited for Contempt of Public Intelligence" 1982 To indicate his support for land closures under the 1964 Wilderness Act, Herblock portrayed Secretary of the Interior James Watt using earth moving equipment while failing to convince an American family that he was protecting the environment. Under the Wilderness Act, government lands open to development were to be closed indefinitely in 1983. Environmentalists accused Watt of undermining portions of the act with his proposed legislation to reopen lands to development in 2000.
15. LOCDTE_121012_091.JPG: "All Right, All Right -- I Believe It" 1998 By showing a man withering under a hot sun while holding a newspaper featuring global warming headlines, Herblock connected the record-breaking heat in 1998 to an international debate about whether the climate is changing. As Washington, D.C., and other American cities sweltered, the Clinton administration pushed Congress to restore funding for its climate initiatives. Congress disagreed with the president over the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, an international program to decrease global warming.
16. LOCDTE_121012_097.JPG: "Boy, We Could Develop That into Some Fine Stumps" 1953 Herblock emphasized both the natural beauty of the United States as well as developers' greed in extracting its resources. He drew this cartoon at a time when Congress had six conservation bills pending to protect and preserve federal lands, including one that would prevent developers from making false claims to mineral rights in national forests in order to harvest timber. Congress ultimately approved of legislation increasing federal park lands and funding their protection.
17. LOCDTE_121012_104.JPG: ". . . An Atmosphere that Could Support Life . . ." 1976 To convey the hazards of air pollution, Herblock contrasted the hard-to-breathe air on Earth with the atmosphere of Mars, which, based on data from the Viking spacecraft, scientists posited could have once supported life. The Senate opened debate to revise the 1970 Clean Air Act during the summer of 1976 when Washington and other American cities repeatedly had air quality alerts. Cities looked to state and federal government agencies for funding and legislation to help them curb polluting smog.
18. LOCDTE_121012_111.JPG: Billboards Are Good for You 1986 Herblock considered billboards a form of pollution that prevented people from seeing American scenery. He wrote that advertisers "put their products before the beauties of nature." Here, he opposed a congressional proposal to alter a 1965 Highway Beautification Act that would have decreased restrictions on billboard owners and advertisers.
19. LOCDTE_121012_119.JPG: The Greenland Icecap 2007 The Greenland icecap is considered a barometer for measuring global warming. Drastic loss of sea ice will eventually lead to rising seas. German photographer Olaf Otto Becker followed Greenland's inland rivers formed by melting ice. The grey snow and ice have darkened from pollutants that have travelled north from the developed world. Becker included GPS data in the title of his photograph to help track future changes to the landscape.
20. LOCDTE_121012_128.JPG: Gravel Pit Turned Marina, Nevada 1990 For decades the Helms Gravel Pit in Nevada provided tons of rocks for local road building projects. In 1987 millions of gallons of oil leaked into the pit from a nearby tank farm. The pit acted as a natural holding pen for the contaminated water, preventing the water from escaping into the Truckee River. After a major clean-up, the site was converted to Sparks Marina Park, a seventy-seven-acre lake, popular for sport fishing and sailing.
21. LOCDTE_121012_136.JPG: Cars Parked At Yosemite National Park, California ca 1965 More than one million vehicles enter Yosemite National Park each year. The popularity of the national parks has led to traffic congestion, air pollution, and loss of natural habitat. Rondal Partridge used photography to show that cars have ruled the park since at least the 1960s, but they cannot overshadow the majestic Half Dome.
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2012 photos: Equipment this year: My mainstays were the Fuji S100fs, Nikon D7000, and the new Fuji X-S1. I also used an underwater Fuji XP50 and a Nikon D600. The first three cameras all broke this year and had to be repaired. Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Shepherdstown, WV, Richmond, VA, and Williamsburg, VA), a week-long family reunion cruise of the Caribbean, another week-long family reunion in the Wisconsin Dells (with lots of in-transit time in Ohio and Indiana), and my 7th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including side trips to Zion, Bryce, the Grand Canyon, etc). Ego strokes: I had a picture of Miss DC, Ashley Boalch, published in the Washington Post. I had a photograph of the George Segal San Francisco Holocaust memorial used as the cover of Quebec Francais (issue 165). Not being able to read French, I'm not entirely sure what the article is about but, hey! And I guess what could be considered to be a positive thing, my site is now established enough that spammers have noticed it and I had to block 17,000 file description postings for Viagra and whatever else.. Number of photos taken this year: just below 410,000.
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