Paint by number

Seattle artist illustrates statistics on waste, health, and consumption

Posted by Adam Browning (Guest Contributor) at 8:56 PM on 18 Apr 2008

A graphic -- very graphic -- look at the numbers that define America.

For story: Paint by number
13 Comments | Post a Comment

Creativity blended with Cynicism

Spreading environmental message has never been that creative!
Creativity mixed with a cynical tone.
http://environe.blogspot.com

by Sephyrave at 12:16 AM on 19 Apr 2008

Chris Jordan's subjects are

much more than "waste, health, and consumption."

Do not minimize him.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 2:07 AM on 19 Apr 2008

Cool Beans

Great stuff for philosophical discussion. Looks at the larger picture which emerges from the contribution of millions of (somewhat) unique individual parts...

Mike Johnston

by enki at 7:32 AM on 19 Apr 2008

I Get Your Pointalism

Very clever and beautiful.

J. Bailo Participant Texeme.Construct()

by jabailo at 9:37 AM on 19 Apr 2008

Pointillism

By coincidence, we saw a magnificent production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George" on Thursday:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges-Pierre_Seurat.

Chris Jordan might be considered a pointillist, but perhaps better a mosaicist. Whatever. The point is, each small item that he finds to put into a much larger composition is carefully chosen and manipulated.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:49 AM on 20 Apr 2008

Infarkingcredible

Wow! The numbers are mind-boggling, and so are the photo-montages.

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 4:13 AM on 20 Apr 2008

"Fark! Fark!," the dog doth bark.

Please mention the artist's name as often as possible: Chris Jordan. He is terrific; and his conceptualization of Earth-destroying patterns as works of art is magnificent.

This is what Art is for.

Little Dog, aka Fiordiligi, aka Theodora, is meanwhile snoozing here; and never a rude syllable escapes her lips, even when her enemies Patty and Penny and Molly and Sadie dare to cross her path ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:30 AM on 20 Apr 2008

Yes, Mr. Adam Browning sir.

Do not please exploit your discovered website.

Chris Jordan, first of all, is a person.

Secondly, he is an artist, who worked long and hard to create these images.

Thirdly, he presumably does not like being overlooked and ignored, as a kind of serf, for work that he did.

Fourthly, given that he has a vision and a body of work which you admire, you might at least do him the courtesy of UTTERING HIS NAME.

Thank you, Guest Contributor Adam Browning.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:43 AM on 20 Apr 2008

Idea for a new photo-montage

These gave me an idea: what would the amount of corn used to produce ethanol in the United States looks like? The visual would look best expressed in cobs. I estimate that current production is running at 500,000 cobs per minute!

Here are my calculations and sources:

Number of cobs of dent corn per 100 kilograms of kernels = 364

Weight of a bushel of corn kernels, in kilograms: 25.22

Number of cobs to make one bushel of corn kernels = 364 x (25.22/100) = ~ 92

Number of gallons of ethanol per bushel = 2.7

Number of cobs per gallon = 92 cobs per bushel / 2.7 gallons per bushel = 34

Average daily rate of production of ethanol in the United States during the first quarter of 2008: approximately 21.4 million gallons per day

No. of cobs to supply 21.4 million gallons per day = 21.4 million x 34 = 727.6 million

No. of cobs consumed every hour to produce ethanol in the United States = 30.3 million

No. of cobs consumed every minute to produce ethanol in the United States = ~ 500,000

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 8:39 AM on 20 Apr 2008

Interesting, Ron

Using some of your numbers I calculate that it takes 1.18 gallons of gasoline to make a bushel of corn. Obscene.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 10:33 AM on 20 Apr 2008

Also, remember the chickens!

269 chickens killed every second; 20 million a day:

http://storiesinamerica.blogspot.com/2007/05/269-chickens ...

And those figures are from May of last year, so slightly out of date.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:39 PM on 20 Apr 2008

And the sharks!

Hard to get a precise figure, but it is definitely in the tens of millions per year:

http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1003-sharks.html

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:43 PM on 20 Apr 2008

A giant leak in the system!

And don't forget the precious water! The virtual water content of Biofuel:

1 gallon of biofuel =~ 9,000 gallons of precious water

http://edro.wordpress.com/water/virtual-water-content/

Ron, based on your calculation, the amount of water that is "leaked" out of the food system to produce ethanol is about 134 million gallons per minute!

At that rate you can fill up the interior of Yankee Stadium 10.3 times every hour!

[YS Interior Cubic Volume: 104 million cubic feet]

by LGT at 9:44 PM on 20 Apr 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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