Analyze

“The large question this study addresses is the following: How do people make sense of (and cope with) toxic danger? The Martinezes’ story anticipates the complexity of the answer(s): physical and psychological suffering is compounded by doubts, disagreements, suspicions, fears, and endless waiting.” (4)

‘Flammable is a story of people’s confusion, mistakes and/or blindness regarding the toxicity that surrounds them. Flammable is also a story of silent habituation to contamination and of almost complete absence of mass protest against toxic onslaught’ (4)

“Schoolteachers, journalists, and lawyers are also part and parcel of daily life in Flammable. Together, all these actors contribute to what Flammable residents know about their place. They also influence what they ignore, what they want to know, and what they misrecognize. Government officials, company personnel, physicians, teachers, journalists, and lawyers jointly (but hardly cooperatively, given that their opinions don’t count equally) shape locals’ experiences of contamination and risk. This book examines how and why this production of shared knowledge (or lack thereof ) occurs.” (5)

“All in all, confusions, bewilderments, divisions, rumors, frustrations, and hopes are making Flammable residents wait—they wait for more testing, for further and better knowledge, for relocation, and for the “huge” settlement with one of the “powerful companies” that will, in the words of a neighbor, “allow us to move out.” This waiting is, as we will show, one of the ways in which Flammable residents experience submission.” (6) 

“We did our best to learn how to listen, look, and touch with respect and care, knowing with Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1992:28) that “seeing, listening, touching, recording, can be, if done with care and sensitivity, acts of fraternity and sisterhood, acts of solidarity. Above all, they are the work of recognition. Not to look, not to touch, not to record, can be the hostile act, the act of indifference and of turning away.” (14)

‘… the culture of toxic uncertainty is a complex web of meanings and shared understandings’ (108)

Labor of confusion: “During the long period of slowly germinating contamination, the actions of government authorities toward pollution in the neighborhood were less consistent and more contradictory than either the denial or underestimation that has been documented in the existing literature. Those multiple incongruous actions gave shape to what we term, extending the insights of students of ideology and symbolic power (Thompson 1984; Eagleton 1991; Bourdieu 1991), a labor of confusion that has a decisive effect on shared (mis)understandings.” (10)

 Ulrich Beck, social invisibility, lack of “social thinking” about environmental issues (Beck 1992)

Bourdieu, symbolic violence - misrecognition of power structures on part of the oppressed enables domination

Toxic uncertainty: “a way of experiencing toxic suffering that is shaped by what we call, borrowing from Charles Tilly (1996), the interacting “invisible elbows” of external power forces and of everyday routine survival struggles” (6)

Flammable is an account of how people in a particular place make sense of slow, invisible environmental pollution. The people of Flammable live in an Argentinean shantytown located next to petrochemical companies and storage facilities. They have been deeply affected by the rise in unemployment in the 1990s, with most residents subsisting on part-time manual jobs at one of the companies, retirement pensions, state welfare programmes and what else they can find. The area in which these residents live is known and recognized by government experts to be contaminated and unsafe for human habitation–and yet widespread confusion and uncertainty amongst residents and a lack of government actions means that the shantytown continues to exist. Auyero and Swistun explore the multitude of influences that ‘‘shape what people see, what they don’t see, what they know, what they don’t know, and what they would like to know, what they do and what they don’t do’’ (145). They show how residents gradually naturalize their situations, which, combined with the mystification of dominant discourses, contributes to their quiescence in the face of contamination. 

The Community Air Protection Program Online Resource Center is "a one-stop shop to obtain data, guidance, and tools to support improving air quality at the community scale. The Resource Center serves as a centralized repository of information and resources for use by community members, air districts, and the public. It will be continuously updated as new documents, materials, and data become available."

See this recording and supporting documents for CARB's AB 617 Consultation Group Meeting on February 26, 2020.

"The AB 617 Consultation Group includes individuals representing environmental justice organizations, air districts, industry, academia, public health organizations, and local government. Consultation Group meetings provide an opportunity to discuss of various aspects of Community Air Protection Program implementation. Consultation Group meetings complement additional outreach and consultation efforts through a variety of forums including public workshops, community meetings, and discussions with individual organizations and stakeholders."

Since its foundation in the mid 1960's, CARB has produced 0ver 2500 fact sheets, reports, datasets, or other forms of information on the state of air pollution in California, on its public health impacts, and on strategies for reducing this pollution and improving public health. See this link to their repository.

Some recent research, data, or other information relevant to our work in Santa Ana includes the AB 617 Statewide Strategy Summary - Q1-2021 Archive, Health Analysis Project,  2022 Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation - Proposed Drayage Truck Requirements, Understanding the Sources and Formation Regimes of Present-day PM2.5 to Mitigate Particulate Pollution in California, California’s 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan Fact Sheet, Research on Health Effects of Air Pollution, and Research on Environmental Justice.

Relevant ongoing research includes a Study of Pollution Exposure and Life Expectancy Across Time in Different Generations in California.

"CARB establishes state air quality regulations which protect public health by addressing all major sources of smog-forming air pollution, and other forms of air pollution. As a result, cars today are 99 percent cleaner than in the 1970s, resulting in less air pollution overall, shorter hospital stays and fewer days missed from school and work due to respiratory and cardiopulmonary diseases.

California regulations, based on extensive research and sound science, have driven innovation, leading to significant technological developments such as the catalytic converter (which helped slash ozone by 60 percent), and the production of highly marketable low- and zero-emission cars and trucks, and cleaner fuels.

The Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Nunez) expanded CARB’s role to development and oversight of California’s main greenhouse gas reduction programs. These include cap-and-trade, the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) programs. As a result of these efforts, the state is on track to roll back carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. With the passage of additional laws (such as SB 32 in 2014 and AB 398 in 2017), CARB is now mapping out how these programs and others can help California reach its next target: reducing greenhouse gas emissions an additional 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The ultimate goal for California is to reduce greenhouse gases 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050."

CARB is made up 16 Board members, 12 of whom are appointed by the Governor and approved by the State Senate.  Out of these 12 board members, the Chair, is the only full-time member. The governor may appoint any board member as the chair. As for the rest, six serve on local air districts, four work to shape air quality rules, and two are "public members." Two of the remaining four board members are appointed by the Senate and Assembly to represent environmental justice committees. And two other "non voting members" are also appointed by the Senate and Assembly to serve as "legislative oversight."

CARB sits at the middle tier of the California's Environmental Protection chain of command:

• The United States Environmental Protection Agency sets nationwide air quality and emissions standards and oversees state efforts and enforcement.
• The California Air Resources Board focuses on California’s unique air quality challenges by setting the state’s own stricter emissions standards for a range of statewide pollution sources including vehicles, fuels and consumer products.
• Thirty-five local air pollution control districts regulate emissions from businesses and stationary facilities, ranging from oil refineries to auto body shops and dry cleaners.

CARB was formed through a merger of the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the California Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board in 1967, just after Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford-Carrell Air Resources Act in August of 1967. The purpose of the organization was to better enable California to address its already considerable air pollution woes. It was discovered that exhaust from motor vehicles was the primary cause of "smog" in the 1950's. In 1966, California responded with the first tailpipe emission standards in the US. In 1970, California's clean air efforts were given extra support with the federal Clean Air Act, as the federal government gave California special permission for stricter standards to address the pollution concerns, as the state had the worst air quality in the nation.

CARB's work entailed forming partnerships between state, local, and federal government, academia, and industry to generate policy, technology, and consumer-behavior solutions to smog, and to cleaner air more generally. Air smog alerts went from 148 in 1970 to zero alerts in 2000. As smog levels have been greatly reduced, the newer focus is on Greenhouse Gas emissions and on PM2.5. This shift in focus began in the early to mid 2000's. the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 was signed by Schwarzenegger, to initiate this new focus for CARB.

The California Air Resources Board is one of six boards, departments, and offices under the umbrella of the California Environmental Protection Agency. CARB describes it's mission as being: "to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy. CARB is the lead agency for climate change programs and oversees all air pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain health-based air quality standards."