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PERSPECTIVE: Head, Heart, Hands: Painting the Images of NEPA
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 February 2006
Extract
In a recent issue of Orion magazine, Mary O'Brien wrote an article emphasizing that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires considering “all reasonable alternatives to the proposed action,” and that this consideration within the context of NEPA “has become the heart of an EIS [Environmental Impact Statement].” When I first read this statement, my immediate reaction was that the environmental consequence (the impact a proposed action has on the natural and human environment) is the “heart” of an EIS, not the more “heady” or reasoned development and deliberation of alternatives. The Impressionist painter Georges Seurat, most famous for his breakthrough painting, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte—1884 (see cover of this issue of Environmental Practice), pushed art to the edge with his pointillist technique (creating images by painting dots of color) and his profound ability to infuse the canvas with light. In this commentary, I describe or “paint” the images of NEPA as embodied not only in the elements of the EIS but also in the images of our being. I also draw similarities between Seurat's artistry in the creation of his masterpiece and the “art” of NEPA practice. This personal view of NEPA is based on 22 years of NEPA practice as well as a lifetime appreciation for the arts.
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- © 2005 National Association of Environmental Professionals