I’ve been a fan of Chris Jordan’s photographs for quite some time. No other work that I’ve seen captures the sheer magnitude of our culture’s dark side in a way that is extremely powerful, very personal and unmistakably quantifiable. Chris has taken on some provocative topics over the years, showing us how one hundred million toothpicks equate to the number of trees cut in the U.S. to make junk mail every year to a layout of 65,000 cigarettes equaling the number of teenagers in the U.S. who become addicted to cigarettes every month.
Inspired by the tragedy of mountaintop removal in Appalachia, Chris’ latest work shows us in a very provocative way just how much coal we consume each day.
Check it out on Grist.