Noah Hirschegger

Environmental narratives begin with scenic requirements such as a place and time which
introduce the story's setting. The setting determines the course for the narrative that follows.
Furthermore, it defines the boundaries and perspective from which the story will be told. For
instance, the boundaries of a story could be “limited to” what is legible, and “limited by” what is
excluded and disavowed. Furthermore, perspectives such as vantage points can position the
reader in anticipation of a particular narrative. As Cronon demonstrates in “A Place for Stories”
narrative succeeds as much as it hides discontinuities and contradictions. Hence, the setting will
introduce the ways at which the author positions the course of the story. Which in-itself
demonstrates the foundations of exclusion and erasure for the narratives that follow.

In another sense, the setting is the author painting a picture. And unsurprisingly, in such
cases as environmental graphs and images, this “painting of a picture” is already provided.
Hence, the narrative can be understood from “what is”, and “what isn't” visually provided. Sara
Pritchard and Joshua Howe examine two images, the Black Marble and the Keeling curve,
through what is and what isn't provided visually, and how it develops the narrative of the image.

The Black Marble has a color scheme that blends the ocean, remote land, and the cosmos,
while distinguishing suburbs, cities, and industrial corridors [Prichard, 312]. Additionally, the
image is a view from space that provides a large-scale vantage point. What the image Black
Marble provides is a way to view the earth that focuses on light pollution and the human
footprint. Its color scheme separates what NASA has defined as natural from what is unnatural,
into two starkly different colors [Prichard, 315]. This aspect of the image reinforces the idea that
human civilization is separate from nature. Additionally, the large-scale vantage point of this
image directs the viewer to examine large-scale issues, such as light pollution, and promotes
comparison to the similar 40-year-old image the Blue Marble. Although narrative can be noticed
within the image itself, in this case, what is left out from the image is far more insightful.
Prichard claims that “arrangements of discourses, objects, practices, and subject position work
together within a particular discipline or knowledge tradition to shape what is perceptible,
knowable, and therefore know - and simultaneously, what is imperceptible.” For the Black
Marble, what is imperceptible takes a literal meaning. In the rendering of the Black Marble,
NASA removed natural light sources from earth, such as volcanoes, fires, and sunlight (showing
the world fully at night). These aspects of earth's natural light are literally imperceptible. The
narrative within this image is set in the visual difference between the natural and the unnatural,
therefore, the removal of such natural light was done in order to protect the binary that
differentiates human civilization and earth.

Unlike the Black Marble, what is perceptible/knowable from the Keeling curve is most
insightful to its narrative. The curve is constructed to show C02-levels over time. It has two
plots, one of annual averages, and one of monthly [Howe, 287]. Howe states that the oscillating
monthly averages are an integral part of the curve, so much so that the curve becomes
unrecognizable without it. Additionally, he claims that these oscillations are portrayed as earth's
timeless breathing. As such, the earth in this graph is personified, and portrayed in a way that
shows earth as “organic” and living. In “A Place for Stories” Cronon says “opening landscapes
must be different from closing ones to make the plot work.” Under such presumptions, if the
opening landscape for the Keeling curve is an earth full of life, the closing one must be a lifeless
earth. And therein lies the message hidden within the Keeling curve. As the C02 levels in this
graph seem to endlessly climb, it draws attention to not just the impact of C02 on earth's natural
cycles, but more importantly to the negative impact human activity (fossil fuels) has on life on
earth.

Cronon says “however compelling these stories may be as depictions of environmental

change, their narratives have less to do with nature than with human discourse.” This applies to
both the Keeling curve and the Blue Marble. As these images are less about the changing
environment as they are about the struggle between man and nature. And in both instances, this
struggle between man and nature is the result of “painting” human activity in direct conflict with
the natural.

From the black marble we have discerned that narrative influences what is perceptible
and imperceptible within the framework of the story. This ties directly to Cronon's point that
“narrative succeeds as much as it hides discontinuities and contradictions.” Hiding contradictions
and discontinuities can sometimes come in the form of lost stories. In “Emergence and
Aftermath” David Kneas touches upon inevitability syndrome, a narrative that directly leads to
the exclusion of stories about the changing social plays surrounding periods of presence and
absence of Ascendent Copper. Inevitable syndrome is “the assumption that subsoil resources are
naturally there, and destined for extraction.” [Kneas, 754] Under this assumption the landscape
of Junin Ecuador is bound to an eventuality of copper extraction. This undermines the
importance of stories about the ecologistas and mineros, as from this narrative the end (resource
extraction) is independent of such stories. Yet, Kneas examination of the social plays between
ecologistas and mineros suggest that soil copper mining in Junin still remains uncertain [Kneas,
756]. This brings to question how narratives, such as resource inevitability, shape the ways in
which resources can be imagined, abstracted, and brought into being [Kneas, 754].

I assert that the way in which the environment can be imagined is bounded by what the
narrative attempts to erase and exclude. For instance, Tania Li examines statistical picturing of
the underutilized-land market. Statistical picturing uses terms such “annual allowable cut”, and
“maximum sustainable yield” to define land [Li, 592]. The result is a perspective from which
land can only be financially legible. In addition, since land cannot be physically moved,
statistical picturing becomes a way in which investors can picture land at a distance [Li, 593].
Hence, statistical picturing uses a perspective and language which excludes the ways in which
the land is currently being occupied and therefore limits the ways in which the land can be
imagined [to finance]. This demonstrates that statistical picturing is a narrative which “succeeds”
in the sense that it shares no other information or perspectives that could undermine its financial
interpretation of land. This disavows alternative methods of inscription such as labor.
Additionally, this demonstrates that in conjunction with place and time, language also constructs
the setting for the narrative to follow.

Cronon shows that the plot of a narrative is dependent on its beginnings. While the
introduced place, language, and time of a story can be insightful to the objectives of the
narrative, it is important to examine what is being excluded. With the exclusion of discontinuities
and contradictory perspectives, narratives attempt to limit the ways in which images of nature
can be constructed, in both metaphorical and literal sense. Such that in writing elements
narratives could use language to limit the bounds of the discussion, while narratives in pictorial
elements could be limited by what is physically removed. Cronon says “although narrative may
not be intrinsic to events in the physical universe, it is fundamental to the way we humans
organize our experience.” This demonstrates stories of nature are ultimately more about the
human discourse surrounding a particular aspect of the environment than with the environment
itself, and that events of nature by themselves are neither good nor bad. It is with the inscription
of human narratives on these events that we create the stories of our environment.