I don’t want the world to give me anything for my books, except money to save me from the temptation of writing only for money.

-George Eliot

Two nights ago, President Obama made a concession in his State of the Union address. While simultaneously calling for the development and subsidizing of clean energy, the President also announced:

Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.

Dead Seagull in BP Oilspill

This is despite the fact that only a few weeks ago on December 11, the Coast Guard found 13,000 gallons of oil and drilling fluids leaking from Shell’s Deepwater Nautilus – only 20 miles from the site of the BP disaster.

The President acknowledged our need for energy independence, stating:

But with only 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, oil isn’t enough.  This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.  A strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

Meaning – natural gas. Because natural gas burns cleaner than oil and coal, it is often referred to as the cleanest fossil fuel, but according to the IPCC Assessment Report, natural gas contributed 5.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere in 2004. (Oil is charged with approximately 10.2 billion tons in 2004.) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects natural gas will be responsible for 11 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2030.

But we all know that natural gas and oil aren’t just hazardous as producers of greenhouse gases. The production of both of these resources is proven to be dangerous to both the environment and human health. (Actually, wouldn’t it be nice if we all knew that?)

In his speech, President Obama called for increased production of natural gas through both traditional extraction and fracking on public land and said, “we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.” But when the President touts the 600,000 jobs increased natural gas production will create and not the gas leaks into drinking water and increased cancer rates, it kind of seems like we still have to choose.

Which shouldn’t be the case. President Obama’s statement that we shouldn’t have to choose between the environment and economy would have been more aptly suited to his appeal for clean energy. The President furthered his commitment to the development of solar and wind energy on Tuesday night and (finally) ended government subsides to oil companies.

We’ve subsidized oil companies for a century.  That’s long enough. It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that rarely has been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that never has been more promising.  Pass clean energy tax credits.  Create these jobs.

In addition to blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline a few weeks ago, Obama has required the Department of Defense, the world’s largest energy consumer, to purchase enough clean energy to “power a quarter million homes a year.” He also announced the development of clean energy on public land: “enough to power 3 million homes.”

The overriding theme of Tuesday’s speech was, not surprisingly, money and jobs. Obama’s inspiration for both increased oil and gas development, and clean energy, was how much money would be saved, and how many jobs created. Unfortunately, the underlying theme was, not surprisingly, good politics.

Give oil and natural gas to get clean energy. It’s frustrating to see so many great steps in the right direction that are accompanied by so many poor steps in the played-out, wrong direction.

The environment itself is rarely a big player in presidential elections, but this year energy is sure to be a key component to the election scene. Where do you stand?

With last week’s Golden Globes and yesterday’s release of the Oscar nominations, award season (or Urchie season, as its known in discerning circles) is fully upon us. This year, the Golden Globe nominations and winners were so laughable we didn’t even bother to cover them (The Descendants for Best Motion Picture, Drama? An Alec Baldwin snub for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series?). But despite difficulties finding newer releases in New Zealand, I have been thoroughly excited about film this year and on pins and needles waiting for the Oscar nominees to be announced.

The good news is I’m not as appalled as I was by the Golden Globes. The bad news is the Academy has some explaining to do. Let me make one thing clear right away: George Clooney is a brilliant actor. One of the best. For examples of this, simply see his performances in Up in the Air, Syriana, and Burn After Reading. He’s even been nominated for an Urchie. That being said, he does not deserve an Academy Award for The Descendants. The Descendants in general does not deserve to be within 100 feet of the Academy Awards. Since when does a generic, feel good movie deserve an Oscar? Luckily, I think there is ample enough talent in the Best Actor category that we don’t have to worry about a Descendants win.

Actor In a Leading Role
◦    Demián Bichir, A Better Life
◦    George Clooney, The Descendants
◦    Jean Dujardin, The Artist
◦    Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
◦    Brad Pitt, Moneyball

For me, this contest is between Jean Dujardin for The Artist and Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. While Dujardin will probably walk away with the Oscar, I’ll be rooting for Oldman. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was, in my opinion, the best film of the year, and unjustly snubbed in all other categories but Best Music (Original Score) and Writing (Adapted Screenplay), which it unquestioningly deserves. Oldman delivers a gut-wrenchingly flawless performance, and his win in this category would slightly abate the huge oversight of this film’s directing, cinematography, and editing by the Academy.

The Best Picture category is rife with cheesy, undeserving nominees, like The Descendants and War Horse. Notably absent for me are Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Iron Lady, both of which deserve recognition for more than just their acting. It should also be noted that while in recent years the Academy has chosen to nominate ten films, this year it only selected 9, leaving room for one of the aforementioned films. A grave oversight, indeed.

Best Picture
◦    The Artist Thomas Langmann, Producer
◦    The Descendants Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
◦    Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Scott Rudin, Producer
◦    The Help Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
◦    Hugo Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
◦    Midnight in Paris Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
◦    Moneyball Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producer
◦    The Tree of Life Nominees to be determined
◦    War Horse Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Luckily, as has been consistent for quite some time, the Best Actress category is chock full of well-deserving performances. The Oscar could easily and happily go to any of these talented women, but I do hope it goes to Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady. That performance will go down in history, and the Academy would be wise to get onboard.

Actress in a Leading Role
•    Actress In a Leading Role
◦    Glenn Close Albert Nobbs
◦    Viola Davis The Help
◦    Rooney Mara The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
◦    Meryl Streep The Iron Lady
◦    Michelle Williams My Week With Marilyn

And then we’re back to gripes, which for me can be summed up by one word: Bridesmaids. In a shameful turn, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo were nominated for Writing (Original Screenplay). While the feminist in me knows that this is a huge accomplishment for a female comedian, the film lover in me refuses to believe that there weren’t far, far better original screenplays over the past year. Bridesmaids was cute and funny, but always with a disclaimer, like ‘for a comedy,’ or ‘for that kind of movie.’ It was good because people were surprised that it was not a full-on stupidity/chauvinist/illegal substances fest like most other big budget comedies nowadays. That is no reason to nominate it for an Academy Award.

Writing (Original Screenplay)
◦    The Artist Written by Michel Hazanavicius
◦    Bridesmaids Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
◦    Margin Call Written by J.C. Chandor
◦    Midnight in Paris Written by Woody Allen
◦    A Separation Written by Asghar Farhadi

And then there’s the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category. Tucked in among such standout performances as Bérénice Bejo in The Artist and Octavia Spencer and Jessica Chastain in The Help is Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. To be clear, McCarthy, a fine actress and throughly likable person, has been nominated for one of the penultimate acting awards in the world for playing a farting, belching, offensive character in a frivolous, unsubstantial comedy. What about Bryce Dallas Howard’s fist-clenchingly hatable yet sympathetic turn in The Help? If they simply wanted to nominate someone from Bridesmaids to attract viewers, why not the far more deserving Rose Byrne?

Actress In a Supporting Role
◦    Bérénice Bejo The Artist
◦    Jessica Chastain The Help
◦    Melissa McCarthy Bridesmaids
◦    Janet McTeer Albert Nobbs
◦    Octavia Spencer The Help

Tune into the Oscars on Sunday 26 February to find out the winners and stay tuned to the Urchin Movement for full coverage. Thankfully, the Urchies are soon upon us, and we will have the opportunity to right every award season wrong. Urchins to the rescue!

I am not sure that it is possible for anyone brought up in the East to appreciate entirely what New York, the idea of New York, means to those of us who came out of the West and the South.

—Joan Didion, ‘Goodbye to All That’, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

I’ve lived in New York City for six months, and in about a week I will visit home for the first time since leaving. Home is Los Angeles, by the way, and of course it always will be, which is why I’m excited, if not a little anxious, to spend a week there.

During my last six months in Los Angeles, my decision to move to New York City already final, I spent many moments walking along the edge of Redondo Beach, daydreaming about how different my new life would be. It will feel rather strange now to walk that same stretch of beach, this time thinking (not even remembering, recalling, or imagining, but thinking) about my very real life, my actual reality, the one that’s waiting for me at home, New York City, as I visit family and friends back West.

It just so happened (although, these occurrences tend to happen to me more and more often as of late) that, two days ago, for no purposeful reason, I read Joan Didion’s superb and Cali-centric book of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The last essay, ‘Goodbye to All That,’ struck me particularly. It’s a meditative essay, written in retrospect, of Didion’s first eight years in New York City. She is, like me, from California (Sacramento, to be exact, which of course is very different from Los Angeles), and moved to New York City when she was around 22 or 23. In the essay she documents the slow erosion of what New York City meant to her. At 28, in her mind, the city seemed to age along with her and everything seemed old. The excitement had withered away, and the loneliness of the big City, so liberating a feeling at one time, began to sink her down. After eight years, she and her husband moved—where else?—to Los Angeles.

Joan Didion is many things to me, but is prophet one of them? I suddenly recall an LA friend of mine tell me that New York is the kind of place that chews you up for a few years and then spits you back out. I then recall a distant cousin of mine, a former New Yorker who has since lived in many other places, still regard New York as the place in which he could’ve lived and died.

Of course these thoughts are all interesting at best and pointless at worst. Six months is a very young amount of time. And, perhaps most importantly, anyone who knows me shouldn’t ignore the fact that the urge to travel may trump any physical place in this entire world for the rest of my life, no matter how much I think I love it.

We’ll just never know.

(I almost forgot to mention: Joan Didion moved back to New York City in 2005.)

Uruguay

I’d never thought much about Uruguay until this past week when I met a couple from its capital, Montevideo, at the hostel where I’m staying in New Zealand. From them, I learned that the majority of Uruguay’s 3.3 million people live in Montevideo and that the rest of the country is largely rolling hills and farmland. They told me the colonial architecture is exquisite and the beaches are some of the best in the world.

From Wikipedia (welcome back!) I learned that Uruguay is ranked 1st in the Human Development Index in Latin America, was the first South American country to legalise same-sex civil unions and gay adoption, and was named the ninth ‘most livable and greenest’ country in the world by Reader’s Digest. Uruguay was the first country in the world to provide every student a free laptop and internet and the majority of its military is deployed as UN peacekeepers.

From what I’ve heard and read, Uruguay sounds like a fascinating, beautiful, and completely unique place. For a country I’ve rarely thought about outside the Olympics or the World Cup, I cannot wait to visit.

Everest Base Camp

After reading Into Thin Air a few years ago, I had the sudden desire to climb Mt. Everest. Don’t ask why a book about the worst Everest disaster ever made me want to climb it… Anyway, I soon realised I’d rather keep my brain cells intact than fry them in such altitudes. I will be content with just seeing the mountain up close, and the South Everest Base Camp is about as close as you can get.

Sure, it’s super touristy. Thousands of hikers and climbers visit the Base Camp each year. And the camp itself is practically a city – complete with plenty of litter from years of expeditions. The trek itself can take nearly a week from Lukla or Kathmandu and passes through some pretty spectacular scenery: through Dingboche with Ana Dablam in the background, along the Dudh Kosi valley, and past Gorakshep, the original Everest Base Camp.

Rome, Italy

I’ve held a latent fascination with the city of Rome for a few years and for a few reasons. I suppose being born and raised in America, a country still considered a toddler in years compared to Italy’s capital, I’m in awe that a place so old can still stand – however well it continues to do so is still beyond my knowledge, and it is just one of the things I want to learn. And consider this: in my almost twenty-six years of existence, I’ve spent about 6 or 7 waking hours in Rome, enough time to feel the dirt under my shoes and gaze up at the monuments while the sun sets behind them.

After that all-too-brief visit, my fascination increased when I came back to America and watched the films of Fellini, Antonioni, and De Sica, who each portrayed and projected Rome in relation to themselves. For Fellini, Rome seemed the site of a collision between the ancient and the modern. Antonioni presented Rome not only as the capital of Italy but also the capital of tragic beauty and equally tragic romance. De Sica’s Rome was grounded in grit, its inhabitants struggling to make their own way out of Italy’s recent fascist history.

And so I thought it’d be a worthwhile experience to live there, long enough to be able to produce my own image of Rome, one to add to that ever-growing shelf that we built for it, because it seems that Rome is simply that type of city.

Margaret

There are some mysterious forces at work if I'm awake this early on a Sunday.

 Sarah

Some mysterious forces told me I'd be mini-golfing when I got dressed this morning.

 Geo

What on earth is this strange white powder? And why is it making me cold?

 Next week’s theme: Good as gold

Share your loot with us!

With a photographer [Henri-Cartier Bresson] and a poet [Andres Henestrosa] as roommates, and none of us with any money to speak of, I recall no period in my life when I’ve had more fun with less cash.

—Langston Hughes, from I Wonder As I Wander,
providing us with evidence of a Pre-Urchin Movement

Inspired by the amazing photography of Daniel Beltra earlier this week, I began perusing one of my latest library finds (one of 18, I might add): Travel Photography. Equal parts history book, how to guide, and travel gallery, the book is a fantastic resource for anyone interested in photography. It was in this book that I learned about Dutch photographer Frans Lanting and his LIFE Project with wife Chris Eckstrom.

A fellow Wildlife Photographer of the Year from 1991, Lanting has served as National Geographic‘s Photographer-in-Residence and on the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund and the Chairman’s Council of Conservation International. In 2006, Lanting and Eckstrom, a former National Geographic staff writer, launched The LIFE Project in collaboration with world famous composer Philip Glass and former American Ballet Theater lighting director Alexander Nichols.

The LIFE Project tells the story of life throughout our planet’s history, from the formation of the planet itself to the evolution of plants and animals. After consulting with evolutionary biologists, geologists, and paleontologists, Lanting spent seven years travelling the world in search of settings, animals, and people that could distill the planet’s history into a collection of images. Lanting says of the LIFE Project:

In 1999 when photographing the timeless ritual of horseshoe crabs spawning in the shallow waters of Delaware Bay, I realized that these ancient creatures offer a window into the past. I decided to explore the planet for examples of how time tempers the shape of life on Earth and how the Earth is in turn changed by the life it harbors.

Once Lanting had amassed the photographs he thought best told Earth’s story, he sent them to Philip Glass, who composed an orchestral piece. Alexander Nichols then choreographed the photographs to Glass’s music. The final product, Life: A Journey Through Time, was shown on giant screens hung over orchestras in major cities throughout the world. The next performance will be next week with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to the live performances, Lanting has also created a book of the photography used in the Project, as well as a traveling exhibition and website. On the website, you can view both a slideshow set to some of Glass’s compositions as well as a timeline of the creation of life on earth with commentary about each photograph.

A Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, Lanting is committed to preserving the natural wonders of the world, from ancient rock formations to animals who lived with the dinosaurs. The LIFE Project combines two things extremely dear to the Urchins: artistic collaboration and activism. Art is a serious and significant pursuit in its own right, but awareness that leads to activism has the ability to transcend and change the world.

Visit Lanting’s website to learn more about The LIFE Project, view his stunning photography, and find a performance near you.

You could almost hear the screams of college students across the United States as Wikipedia went dark yesterday in protest of PIPA and SOPA. Within hours of the Wikipedia and Reddit blackouts (among many others), Congress pulled a 180 on the two bills that once had near bi-partisan support.

I hope I'm allowed to use this...

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was originally written in response to years of internet piracy of copyrighted films, music, books, and other material. Major lobbyists, including Walt Disney, supported the bill. Nearly everyone can agree on the merits of protecting intellectual material, but the devil is in the details, as they say. According to Wikipedia, SOPA would bar ”advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing websites, barring search engines from linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block access to the sites.” It could also allegedly shut down sites like YouTube.

Anti-SOPA and PIPA advocates finally got some major political heavyweights on their side when President Obama came out in protest against the two bills. On January 14, Obama Administration said it would not support any bill that could potentially censor the internet.

Both bills are going back to the drawing board for review.

What did you think of the blackout? Did it affect you? Did you even notice? And what do you think will come of revisals to SOPA and PIPA?

One typically cold and grey February morning while I was studying abroad in London in 2007, I walked past the Natural History Museum on my way to nowhere in particular. I spent a lot of time that spring exploring London on foot, and usually without any specific destination. But this was no ordinary day (as if any in London ever are.) On that fateful morning I learned two things that would change my life forever: that most museums in London are free to the public, and that every year since 1965 the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine have been conducting a Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

As a result of these discoveries, I came to know every museum in London inside and out, and have now seen the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit four times, twice in London and once each in Washington, D.C. and Sydney, Australia. The exhibit is truly one of my favorite things in the world and perfectly combines my love of animals and nature with an interest in photography and a deep appreciation for artistic works. Made up of over 100 winning photographs, the exhibit is enchanting and enthralling. Rarely is the vastness and awe-inspiring beauty of the planet and its inhabitants so apparent.

Loving this exhibition as I do, you can imagine my excitement to find it on display at Sydney’s Australian Museum during my visit earlier this month. After a good two hours perusing and thoroughly enjoying the photographs, I was about to move on to the museum’s other much-anticipated attraction, an entire floor of sparkly, shiny gemstones, when I realized there were a few photographs displayed in a hallway that I had missed. It was then that I discovered the photography of Daniel Beltra.

Winner of both the 2011 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award and the 2011 Wildlife Photojournalist Award, Spanish born Daniel Beltra is a world-renowned conservation photographer whose works often showcase both natural beauty and human impact on the environment.  Beltra has been a photographer for Greenpeace and his images have been published in such prestigious publications are The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, Le Monde, and El Pais.

For the Wildlife Photojournalist Award, Beltra had to submit ‘a memorable story told in six images.’  The story Beltra chose to tell was that of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill, which he spent two months photographing in 2010. Included in that six photograph portfolio entitled The price of oil is the one for which Beltra won the competition’s biggest prize: Wildlife Photographer of the Year. The winning image shows eight pelicans at a temporary bird-rescue facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana. According to Beltra, ‘Crude oil trickles off the feathers of the rescued brown pelicans, turning the white lining sheets into a sticky, stinking mess. The pelicans are going through the first stage of cleaning. They’ve already been sprayed with a light oil to break up the heavy crude trapped in their feathers.’

The following are the remaining five photographs that completed Beltra’s submission for the Wildlife Photojournalist Award.

Beltra’s win in both categories has been lauded as a move towards a more environmentally active and conservation-minded stance by the competition.

You can view more of Daniel Beltra’s photography on his website.

The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is now on display at museums and galleries around the world. Click here to learn more about the competition and here to find a location near you.