So I got back to New York with all of these pictures, and there was a long time when I didn’t know what the green stuff was, and there was a lot of discussion with the engineers and the chemists to figure it out.

But let’s stay on this point of how you present your work. James Hansen explained his activism in opposing mountain top removal by basically saying that his duties as a grandfather looking out for the interests of his grandchildren was more important than upholding an appearance of impartiality as a climate scientist. Do you feel similarly about your willingness to be political as an artist?
Well, first and foremost, I’m an artist. But you know, good art has always had a message. Mozart’s operas had a message. If it doesn’t have a message, is it just divertimenti, — something put up to divert the eye for a few passing moments and match the sofa? So I don’t have a philosophical conflict with carrying those two mantels just as I don’t think Dr. Hansen does. He saw a vacancy in the public dialogue and jumped right into it. Because let’s face it — the whole subjugation of science to the political will is a very dangerous tendency in the American dialogue. I hope that I can use art to step into that dialogue. If science doesn’t convince, maybe art will.