Beautiful Hell

Burtynsky's Manufacture Landscapes was shown on Thursday. A documentary that focused on imagery rather than narration so we couldn't grasp onto words and find the loopholes in them to escape from our faulted fate.

So, I want to talk about the moment that got me. We watched young children clamour about the ruins of thousands of version 1.0s. We watched men and women painstakingly sift through forgotten artifacts on past fads for goods to salvage.

We can imagine the toils that the environment causes for them health wise. Their economic gains from their daily jobs will never quit them of this endless cycle.

So. They have their photo taken. They get handed this photo and we see the first real smile spread across all faces upon looking at the image of themselves or their friends. And to think about this irony - technology waste is what is making their lives miserable. Yet, they only have the broken down skeletons to pick through, so when a technological product in its prime state is demonstrated and utilized in front of them, it's like... what seeing Burtynsky's photos are for us.... seeing hell as beautiful.

What images from the film did you find the most striking?

Seminar I Response

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart: People accuse us of only paying attention to the economic leg, because they think that's what a business person's mindset is, it's just money. And it's not so, because we, as business people, know that we need to certainly address the environment, but also we need to be seen as constructive members of society.

-Film: The Corporation, 2003


With the sheer weight of evidence proving that most major corporations are masterful in displaying their conquering of nature, the utter optimist in me searches for highlights. After Tasha and Adam's seminar, I decided to Google to see if there were any corporations that were 'constructive members of society'.

My first hit brought me to an article concerning the United Nations. In sum, in the 1990s the UN tried to start a project where they merged with major corporations in order to face issues like humans rights, and of course, the environment. However, they merged with corporations who were publicly known to be anti-(environment, human rights, etc; when looking at their criminal track record for fines). After faced with this embarassment, the UN (specifically the United Nations Environment Program) released a report dogging most major corporations as they emphasized that little of them pay any heed to pro-environmental tactics.

With this, comes 'greenwashing' which is what I was predominantly worried about when I searched for companies that attempt to be 'green' in both product and business ethics. How are we to really truly know? After all, after Al Gore's film, "An Inconvenient Truth", a large majority of consumers began a 'green-craze' in which the search for environmentally products was multiplied. Corporations can easily mislead and dupe the public into believing they are buying products that are aiding in the world's supposed universal quest for a better, and greener earth.

So, how are we supposed to aid the quest for a green earth, as consumers? How are we truly supposed to know if the product we're buying is green - even when reading reviews (after all, isn't 50% of the media owned by the major corporations?) What can we trust?