Analyze

Addressing climate change in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais demands collaboration across traditional bureaucratic divisions. While the team officially tasked with devising climate plans falls under the purview of the Secretary of the Environment, their efforts to reduce vulnerability to climate change and support those already suffering its effects have brought them into many uneasy alliances. These efforts ranged from acquiring funding or technical support from European partners with fundamentally different views of environmental projection, to securing logistical aid from Civil Defense which was a part of the Mineiro military cabinet, to encouraging cooperation from the major economic institutions primarily focused around mining and agriculture. Working with these different groups necessitated that climate analysts become adept at shifting their rhetorical framing from audience to audience, but this work carried great ethical and practical risk. Were the climate scientists acting cynically when they adopted rhetoric they did not fully believe? Were they being naïve in trusting partners who may not genuinely value climate justice? What kinds of self-reflection might assist climate analysts and STS scholars in our efforts to grapple with the moral complexities of climate governance? 

Image Source: Ricardo Moraes/Reuters, "Deadly dam burst in Brazil prompts calls for stricter mining regulations," The Guardian, 10, November 2015.

Wald, Jonathan. 2023. "Beyond Cynicism and Naïveté: Ethical Complexities of Climate Governance." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

 In 1991, the Public Health Service articulated a vision for primary prevention in Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Childhood Lead Poisoning, a departure from previous federal policy focused on finding and treating lead-poisoned children. This publication detailed a 15-year strategy for primary prevention and offered a cost-benefit analysis to demonstrate the monetized benefits of this approach. A strong national effort to follow this strategy developed but was eventually abandoned.

The organized campaign against universal screening began in California, where letters questioning the reported prevalence of elevated BLL began appearing in pediatric journals and newspapers. These letters acknowledged receiving editorial assistance from Kaiser Permanente Foundation Hospitals and argued that money spent on screening, treatment and abatement would be harmful to more worthy public health efforts. The AAP president took up this attack on universal screening as well, and efforts for universal screening were gradually eroded. 

Needleman identifies racism and the belief that lead poisoning “is a product of poor mothering, not of environmental pollution” as a driving factor shaping lead detection and prevention efforts (or the lack thereof) … “this weighting of personal choice or behavior over environment is a tool used to shift responsibility away from health authorities or polluters and onto the victim” (1875).

The Disaster Resiliance Leadership Academy works to strengthen global humanitarian leadership. The goal of this is to allow for increased resilience in communities and among individuals impacted by natural or manmade disasters. They do this by addressing the causes of vulnerability such as poverty and social inequality. They are able to do this through education, research, and application. 

This was created post-Katrina as a result of failures in disaster leadership. They saw that there as a lack of an organization that focused on leadership and resiliency in producing effective programs or outcomes, which makes DRLS so unique. 

This program is located at Tulane University in New Orleans, but has partnership with Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda, and the US. 

Because this is an academy, it does have tuition and fees. They are outlined as: Tuition, per credit hour: $981. Academic Support Fee, per semester: $420. Additional Fees (mandatory):$590 -- (Student Activity: $120, Health Center: $320, Reily Center: $150). Medical Insurance, per academic year: $3,030. Assuming people don't waive the medical insurance, take 16 credit hours (as is the norm for RPI), the yearly cost is: $20,156. 

The Provost's Office provides students up to $500 for travel needed to present a poster or paper at a conference. There are other opportunities to be granted money with the purpose of travel for conferences or training opportunities. 

Other than this information, I could not find who else would fund this academy. I can assume that Tulane takes on part of the burden as well as governmental agencies in their partner countries. 

The "core competencies" as the academy calls them, or the 5 academic pillars that are necessary for DRLA are: human & social factors, economics of disaster, encironment and infrastructure, disaster oprations, and measurement and evaluation. 

In this program, either a Master of Science or a certificate can be obtained. A Master's degree would require 36 credits that can be done in 2 years or in 3 semesters. 18 of these credits must come from core courses that highlight each of the academic pillars as well as 2 research-based courses. The other 18 come from electives, 6 of which must be DRLS. In order to obtain a certificate, 12 credit hours of coursework over 2 semesters is needed. These 12 should be composed of 4 core academic pillar courses.

The aim of this program is "to equip students with a skill-set in emergency preparedness, nonprofit leadership, disaster management, grass-root development, monitoring and evaluation and disaster risk and recovery".  Through this aim and other goals, the requirements for the program create graduates with the professional responsibility, ethical behavior, and integrity expected of leaders in this field. 

It's targeted to individuals who want to become leaders in times of disaster. Because this program targets the role and development of leadership and resilience as a means of producing adequate and effective outcomes, this program targets students who have high integrity and leadership skills. 

Yes - students can receive certifications or masters degrees. 

On the academy's front page, they have information regarding DRLA in the news and other highlights. It would appear that the program is highly regarded. USAID's Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance visits Tulane to speak to students about career opportunities, showing that this program produces leaders that would fit the role of a caring and talented worker. Graduate students were also able to collaborate with local volunteer teams in the Louisiana Flood Recovery. Some Tulane professors also have UNICEF grants, which allow them to help lead UNICEF tranings meant to strengthen social service workfoce. They have met with several governmental agencies and FEMA, which provides a framework highlighting how well esteemed this academy and program really is.