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Analyze

TebbeM Desert StoryMaps Question 5

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  • In 2003, the Imperial Irrigation District signed the Quantification Settlement Agreement, in which they transferred the water from agricultural runoff that formerly fed the Salton Sea to supply municipalities in Southern California. The agreement kept water flowing into the lake until 2018 in order to give time to come up with ways to mitigate environmental effects of the lake's desiccation. These solutions have not materialized.
  • UCR scientists are collecting dust for microbial analysis

TebbeM Desert StoryMaps Question 2

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  • Increased salinity
    • Waterfowl dieoffs
  • Desiccation produces toxic dust that blows
    • Childhood asthma and other respiratory conditions
    • 15% of Imperial County residents have asthma
    • wind-blown dust can act as a pathway for microbes, fungi, and viruses to enter lungs by attaching to dust particles
  • Municipal sewage from Mexicali
  • Waste from prisons

TebbeM Desert StoryMaps Question 5.2

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The "Disparities in Environmental Exposures and Health Impacts" project has four goals:

  1. To establish a community advisory board to provide local stakeholder input;
  2. To identify spatial patterns and trends in population exposure and in pollutant transport;
  3. To distribute particle collectors at sites that represent the range of sources of particulate matter and to identify the elemental and biological composition of particles;
  4. To use environmental chamber exposure studies to develop a protocol for monitoring pulmonary inflammation impacts of aerosol particulates identified from the particle collectors.

TebbeM Desert StoryMaps Question 4

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  • Investors who left in the first half of the 20th century
  • Residents who remained in the area (highly Latinx)
    • Labor exploitation, especially of immigrants through programs like the Bracero program
  • Indigenous groups - especially the Torres Martinez, 40% of whose land is underneath the Salton Sea
  • Agriculture
    • Historically not identified as an unwanted land use, which allowed farmers to get away with more than other industries

Police Brutality in Kenya

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Nanjala Nyabola, a Kenyan journalist and author tweeted: 'There were two anti-police brutality protests in Nairobi today. The one featuring white people made it's way to the US embassy undisturbed. The one led by working class and poor folks ended in teargas and arbitrary arrests.'

On March 25, 2020 the Kenyan government imposed a curfew to limit movement in Nairobi to prevent the spreading of COVID-19. In the ensuing months, the police 'enforced' the curfew by killing as many people as COVID-19 in Nairobi. The police have had a long and bloody history in Nairobi. Missing Voices Kenya have documented the shocking number of people who have lots their lives to police brutality over the years. Although groups in poor neighbourhoods such as Mathare have long held protests against police violence, the recent murder of George Floyd in the US has lent momentum to this movement. Thus, these groups took to the street to walk to the apartment where Yasin Moyo, a 13 year old playing on his balcony was killed by police, to demand that Black lives mattered- everywhere. The protests ended in the police tear gassing protestors.

A separate group comprising of many white protestors marched to the US Embassy to protest extrajudicial killings in the US and Kenya. From reports I have been reading about the protests on Twitter, these groups were left unharmed by the police. It is thus important that we recognize the the situatedness of protests agains police violence in different parts of the world, and the specific histories and contexts that shape each one of them, while recognizing their common themes.