Analyze

Assessing the PM2.5 impact of biomass combustion in megacity Dhaka, Bangladesh - PubMed (nih.gov)

This article is about crop burning in Dhaka, Bangladesh and attempts to figure out if there is more or less harmful PM2.5 particulate air pollution caused by either fossil fuels or biomass, and during which season is one or the other higher in the air pollution it produces. During monsoon season, fossil fuels lead in the most PM2.5 releases at 44.3%. When it is not monsoon season and is the winter season, the percentages are way higher for PM2.5 air particulate releases at 41.4% for the remainder of the year. Across the globe, there are now people stepping up to uncover the true and real environmental and health impacts this harmful particulate byproduct causes in different parts of the world and with differring weather conditions than what we see in North Carolina. 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351209404_PM25_Emissions_from_…;

This study is set in South/Southeast Asia and uncovering that, when trying to count the percentages of PM2.5 put off during biomass, the true amount of emissions were being gravely undercalculated. Specifically rice straw burning becuase the amount burned varied so much because of different harvest and burning practices that it just wasn't taken into consideration. What this study does is go bottom up using these strategies: "subnational spatial database of rice-harvested area, region-specific fuel-loading factors, region, and burning-practice-specific emission and combustion factors, including literature-derived estimates of straw and stubble burned"(Lasko et al. 2021, 1). 

In this essay the authors have highlighted some of the stakeholders in the fight against industrial biomass operations as members of the surrounding community who live with these operations as close as their own backyards, and experience the environmental pollution directly everyday. They highlighted Belinda Joyner, a resident of Northhampton County, and an environmental activist who rose to defend her community and their lands and livelihoods due to expanding hazardous infrastructures such as the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Enviva power plant. Other stakeholders besides activists and organziers such as Belinda include the people of Northampton County who attend hearings with government officials and take a stance agaisnt pollution, as well as organizations such as the Dogwood Alliance. The county is predominantly Black and working class, one of several in North Carolina that bear the brunt of exploittion and pollution by powerful biomass manufacturers such as Drax and Enviva.

This timeline essay provides more examples from recent years of community responses and collective action for environmental justice.

The development of both pipelines and CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations) in eastern NC have prompted action from justice organizations such as the North Carolina Environmnetal Justice Network (NCEJN). To address the ongoing problem of CAFOs, NCEJN has provided a number of resources on their site, as well as ways to take action by signing a petition to stop the use of hog waste as fertilizer. Prior to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) being canceled in 2020, NCEJN played a role in organizing protests and taking legal actions- in conjunction with many other community member and activist groups- against Dominion and Duke Energy, the companies responsible for the ACP's construction. 

N/A, but when I looked up Telefonica, their homepage is all COVID-19 stuff which is pretty much what everyone is doing but I may look more closely at this particular case and continuity with the current situation

The initiative forecloses a serious discussion about the harms caused by transnational capital and privatization of the telecom industry

And it forecloses more meaningful connections across difference/ more meaningful activism by putting people into a happy shallow self-centered kind of activism

It forecloses a deeper engagement with issues and inequalities that cause child labor and make it harmful for the children and their families

It forecloses more radical conclusions for tech workers hoping to contribute to ‘social good’

The “free press” generated by social media sharing of the gamified achievements of the app users, which were branded with Telefonica

The publicity video for downloading the app was also shared on social media and was posted to the author’s facebook by her presumably nonacademic friend; the video is also on Telefonica’s YouTube channel, perhaps it was an ad on TV or internet as well? The project was also described on the company’s website, although I think that is no longer available.

All users of their prepaid phones being invited to “symbolically vote” against child labor when refilling, by sending a text - 1 million votes was to trigger the “campus party” (hackathon), which then brought together people who came up with the surveillance app

Denuncia-thon which enforced offline connections of the ‘digital activists’ - euphoric

Statements to the academics about moving beyond philanthropy, and about sustainability and leadership, naturalizing their goodness, in contrast to mining companies

Life-changing, according to the tech contractor: "able to make his work count toward a 'social good'" 674 - euphoria described by the otherwise formal corporate overseer of the project, cyber-optimism described by the tech worker - but the beneficiary is abstract to the point of the “activists” not having any idea how the app impacts them (which it doesn't); the distance is emphasized by the author, you see the child worker on the street but you don’t interact with them. The closeness of the online/offline relationship among “geeks with a heart” intensifies the Othering and abstracting of the beneficiary. 

Continuing the development orthodoxy - the ethical is defined in terms of universalized values like “children’s rights” without any deeper understanding of local context than that child street vendors exist. 

Responsibility is twisted around to work with the exit narratives - failed or quickly terminated programs are ok because they are responsible for enabling other actors who are really responsible for the outcomes. They enact the ethical and responsibility by platforming it for others to participate in and carry out - through the interactive apps, the hackathons, and the immediate handoff of all collected data to an overworked government agency

They also redefine the ethical and responsibility to line up with their corporate plans anyway - market expansion becomes the right thing to do because they bring digital access to information