From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/13-7
by Subhankar Banerjee
Published on Friday, September 13, 2013 by Common Dreams
On Thursday as I was reading about war and peace, headlines about a flash flood in Boulder kept arriving all through the day: “At least 3 dead in Colorado flooding; Boulder ‘overwhelmed with water’” (LA Times), “Flood threat still strong as 3 killed in Colorado” (USA Today), “Boulder flood: 2nd death confirmed, county calls in National Guard to assist with rescues” (Boulder Daily Camera), “Boulder Flooding: Deadly High Waters in Northern Colorado Force Evacuations, Cause Mudslides” (Huffington Post), …
Soon I’ll talk about the flood, but first the warning.
Six years ago, on September 14, I had walked along the Boulder Creek, following the blue discs in artist Mary Miss’ outdoor art installation “Connect the Dots: Mapping the Highwater Hazards and History of Boulder Creek.” Both Mary and I were participating artists (“29 women, 12 men, 10 collaborations”) in what was quite possibly the first comprehensive art exhibition on climate change: “Weather Report: Art and Climate Change.” The exhibition idea was conceived by Marda Kirn of EcoArts; was organized by renowned curator, writer and activist Lucy Lippard; and was presented by the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA) in collaboration with EcoArts.
My photographs from the Arctic were presented at BMoCA and University of Colorado’s Norlin Library. I also gave a lecture at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), focusing on climate change issues in the far North. In addition to NCAR, Boulder also has the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Marda Kirn told The New York Times that Boulder has the “highest density of climate scientists in the world,” which the Times affectionately mocked in their review of the exhibition, “as if climatology Ph.D.’s were stacked like rolls of paper towels at Costco.” Boulder was indeed a perfect home for Weather Report.
On that September 14, I had difficulty imagining: A deadly flood in that little creek, really?
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/13-7
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