Polluted America

Kieran · Post by **Kieran** » 27 Oct 2011, 00:04

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ution.html

"At first glance they're beautiful, but these incredible snaps reveal something far more ugly.
J Henry Fair's spectacular aerial images show the devastation man has wreaked on America.
Pollution is exposed on a massive scale, creating striking vivid colours that highlight the scars of spillages, open cast mining, chemical and oil leaks, industrial decay and deforestation."

Article continues...

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 27 Oct 2011, 08:17

It would never be allowed in Surrey.

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 27 Oct 2011, 08:59

He's obviously an expert with Photoshop.

featherstick · Post by **featherstick** » 27 Oct 2011, 11:23

Where are The Monkeywrench Gang when you need them?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 27 Oct 2011, 11:25

J Henry Fair wrote:Other than standard photographic adjustments of contrast, they are unmodified.

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 27 Oct 2011, 11:37

Thanks, I rest my case.

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 28 Oct 2011, 11:20

biffvernon wrote:It would never be allowed in Surrey.

Of course not -- that's what South Wales and Yorkshire are for!

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 28 Oct 2011, 12:10

Well to judge how much of an effect his photoshopping had, lets use google earth to find the locations pictured.....

The first, the picture doesnt look overly fake, although I cant find the white river, and the area is tiny.

The tar sands appears to be a seasonal event, it changes massivly with each zoom in, so its probably a temporary storage ground until a clean up crew gets round to it, the first is probably similar.
Far from a "river", its an occaisional dumping ground.

Cant find anything that looks like the third picture.

Fourth picture, can only find one lake, looks nothing like the picture, again, I assume he sat and waited for a periodic dump by the plant.

Can anyone, using google maps, identify the pictures the clown as photoshopped?

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 28 Oct 2011, 15:05

Mr Fair's secretary wrote:Thank you for your note. Mr. Fair does not alter his images in any way. Aside from minor color variance that occurs from computer screen to computer screen (depending on how sharp your settings are), what you see is what Mr. Fair saw through his lens. It perfectly illustrates the point that these are not natural scenes; these are man-made scenes, horrible and toxic with color palettes that do not exist in nature. I hope that answers your questions.

Beware of pollution excusers, climate change supporters and trolls, paid or otherwise.

DominicJ · Post by **DominicJ** » 28 Oct 2011, 15:17

So give us the map references and lets go find them on google earth.

As always, I ask for the raw data.....

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 28 Oct 2011, 16:42

DominicJ wrote:So give us the map references and lets go find them on google earth.

Here's a few; I sometimes use images like this in my talks to illustrate what I'm talking about -- zoom in for a closer look:
Mildred Lake, Fort McMurray, Canada (tar sands)
St. Gabriel/Darrow, Louisiana (Cancer Alley)
Minerala Escondida, Chile (worlds biggest copper mine -- 10th of total global copper production)
Jamnagar, Gujarat, India (world's largest refinery complex, 1.3Mbl/day)
Leek Creek, N. Carolina (world's largest phosphate refinery)
Anglesea Mine, Australia (largest coal mine in Oz)
Kalgoorlie, Australia (major mining centre in Oz)
Korkinsk Mine, Russia (largest man-made hole in Europe)
Orapa Mine, Botswana (world's largest diamond mine)
Navajo Coal Mine, New Mexico
Three Gorges Dam, Sandouping, China (world's largest power plant)
Garzweiler (one of largest lignite mines in the Rhineland)

And for some home-grown areas shaped by energy and chemicals --
Coryton and Canvey refineries, Thames estuary
Ellesmere Port/Ince, Cheshire
Teesport, Grangetown, Middlesborough

And to see what damage a pick, shovel and black powder can do see Blaenau Ffestiniog

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 28 Oct 2011, 18:00

Well pick somewhere in central Iceland and zoom in to see how beautiful that looks from a satellite. Just to see what damage a volcano or two can do.

An Inspector Calls · Post by **An Inspector Calls** » 28 Oct 2011, 18:01

mobbsey wrote:
biffvernon wrote:It would never be allowed in Surrey.
Of course not -- that's what South Wales and Yorkshire are for!

Has Surrey got a National Park like Yorkshire and South Wales? I didn't know that.

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 28 Oct 2011, 20:31

An Inspector Calls wrote:Has Surrey got a National Park like Yorkshire and South Wales? I didn't know that.

You really should check your facts before you let your fingers fly -- national park status makes little difference to the impacts of development on the landscape:

The Peak District Park has a number of quarries, some in sensitive locations.

The Dales Park also has a number of large active quarries, most notably near Ingleborough, which has grown to dominate the landscape of Upper Ribblesdale viewed from Pen-y-Ghent and Great Knoutberry.

The North Yorks Moors Park also has a long history of quarrying, most notably along its northern edge where limestone and iron ore were quarried, and is still the site of one of Britain's major potash mines that dominates the landscape along the north-east edge of the park.

The Brecon Beacons National Park also has a long history of limestone quarrying, but it most invasive impact of late has been the opencast mining of coal along the southern border.

Finally, the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park has a number of issues with sand quarrying, which is being extended to cover a much wider area. And let's not forget that the boundary of the park is strategically drawn around Milford Haven to allow the continuation of oil refining, the new LNG terminal and subsequent power station.

But let's not forget that the greatest impact in national parks is tourism. Not the old-fashioned walking and cycling of old, but more and more it's motorised/technology based recreation that has a far greater impact -- for example the Bluestone development in near Narberth.

Most of these quarrying permissions are 'interim development orders' (IDOs), handed out like confetti by the Government in the 1950s, but regularised after revision of the law by the Planning and Compensation Act in the 1990s. I spent a lot of the mid-90s travelling the UK working on IDO registrations, which is why I got to know a lot about the history of quarrying in national parks -- and the fact that landscape designations such as national parks, ANOBs and green belt make little difference to the impacts/occurrence of minerals extraction and agriculture.

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 28 Oct 2011, 20:47

Actually, this is the picture you should be looking at: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Dolgell ... m&t=h&z=13

Cute innit! The mountains north of Dolgellau, within the Snowdonia National Park. A pretty, unspoilt (apart from aggro-forestry) area where you can escape into the hills and camp in peace...

...but it's also the site of Europe's largest copper porphyry deposit -- 200 million tonnes of copper, along with sizeable amounts of gold, silver, gallium, molybdenum and rhenium -- perhaps even platinum group metals.

I've had very earnest "friends" of Snowdonia along to some of my talks who naively point out that they wouldn't possibly dig up the deposit because it's in a national park. Even so, I bet within a decade or two that it's back on the agenda -- just as it was in the late 60s/70s when RTZ's exploration in the area was a catalyst for the formation of campaign groups like Friends of the Earth.