Industry’s impact is not black and white, it’s a middling jaundiced yellow. Advances in welfare metrics temper scenes of ecological ruin. But the score is not equal. Dozens of species go extinct for every life-saving medicine conjured. Every surge in renewable power is overshadowed by the looming specter of AI data centers and ceaseless growth.
Industry is Kraken-like, unfurling tentacles from the deep to stretch across the surface of the Earth, sucking out resources and pumping in toxins. What it produces is put proudly on display: the latest phone, a trendy mug, an electric vehicle—shiny items, in other words. But what it takes away is conveniently obscured. Like a casino’s immersive design to lock the gambler in a labyrinth of prizes, lesions from cumulative losses are rarely noticeable. Industry is a Kraken that doesn’t lurk in the deep but just over a barbed wire fence. Its suction-sores are tucked away in edge environments, sunk into the soil or emitted into the air, or placed next to vulnerable populations.
For those like me with a drone, satellite data experience, and a disregard for corporate trespassing regulations, finding and documenting these ulcers is rather easy. Deforestation is often located just behind a small line of roadside trees and a thirsty lithium mine shimmers blue in the dusty desert like a mirage. But not all are so visible. Forces like radiation and microplastics still escape the lens.
These are thin landscapes. Places where the skin of the Earth is gouged and scraped away. They’re trans-corporeal, blurring the line between beauty and monstrous, progress and devastation. And even for the initiated they come across as uncanny and otherworldly. It’s hard to make sense of what you’re seeing, not least because they’re often visually beautiful too. Bloody and festering wounds have an appeal hard to look away from.
To arrive and witness these toxic geographies entails a particularly unique form of navel-gazing. Taking a single image of a mine requires oil to power the car, satellites to power the GPS, and critical minerals to fly the drone. It’s like gouging out one eyeball to study it with the other. I’d argue it’s grotesque but necessary. A mirror alone will not suffice for the severity of damage we inflict upon the Earth.
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