Analyze

By Scott G. Knowles: As part of the STL Anthropocene Field Campus the research team visited the Wood Refinery Refinery History Museum on March 9, 2019. This museum is located on the grounds of the Wood River Refinery, a Shell Oil refinery built in 1917 and today owned by Phillips 66. The site is Roxana, Illinois, just upriver from Granite City, and just over two miles from the convergence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Sitting on the actual grounds of the refinery, the museum is an invitation to think across the micro, meso, and macro scales of the Quotidian Anthropocene, in terms of geography and also in terms of time. This refinery was built at the crux of the WWI, at a time when United States petrochemical production was entering an intensive phase of production, invention, corporate structuring, and global engagement. The museum is an invitation to think across temporal scales, backwards to the start of the refinery--through the individual lives of the workers and engineers whose lives defined the refinery--and forward to indeterminate points of future memory. This photo captures a key moment in an informal interview we did with one of the history guides. He had worked in the museum for decades before retiring. He explained to us that the museum sits in the former research facility of the refinery--and the glass plat he is showing reveals a beautiful artifact, a photograph made of the complex when it was built. Our guide only showed us this collection of slides after our conversation had advanced, perhaps after he was sure we were truly interested in his story, and the deeper history of the refinery. The pride in the place, the community of workers, and the teaching ability of the museum was manifest. The research team felt impressed, but also concerned about the health impacts (and naturally the environmental impacts as well) of the refinery. There was a mismatch in the scales--the memory of the individual tied to emotions of pride and knowledge of hard work done there--and the Anthropocene, global scale of petrochemicals. How do we resolve this mismatch? The glass plate is somehow a clue.

Three ways the article is supported through using statements from the WHO about the problems of public health security, research studies on global epidemics such as “dark winter”, TB DOTS, and others. The article also uses direct quotes from credible sources such as national security officials: Richard Clark and the NSABB to name a few.

"For example, workshop participants suggested that in some causes armed groups may feel they needed to kidnap a doctor in order to recieve care; or perhaps soliders at a chekcpoint are concerned that an ambulance may contain explosives and obstruct deliever of health services in order to prevent bombing"

"Although violence directly affecting health service delievery in complex security enviornments has recieved a great deal of media attention, theres very little publically avaliable research, particularly peer reviewed, original research"

"Because rporting often focuses on the most serious attacks, such as kidnapping and fatalities, workshop participants stressed that incidents precieved to be less severe such as threats and obstructions are less likely to be underreported"

The main arguments presented in this article is the history of disasters in the United States and the cause of buildings’ demise due to structural discrepancies. The historical accounts of the burning of the capital and the Iroquois theatre fire show how disaster investigation started and then evolved to the investigation of 9/11.

They rely on the internet, videos, blogs and first hand accounts in order to spread awareness.

The methods, tools and data used to produce the claims in the article include: creating an argument- having separate sections of the paper: a cause, an effect and the resounding outcome. The authors created a story through describing the horrible accounts of what happened during and after Katrina. The cause is the hurricane which caused displacement of most of the population due to the flooding from the broken levee. This caused the government to hire outside resources to house and “collect” citizens. This ultimately caused rent to increase,=, and pushed the poor out of New Orleans. Through developing a solid argument; the paper gains credibility. The claims were also supported through direct quotes and government statistics.

The development of the system was funded by IBM, capital factory, telemental health institute, health wildcatters.

This article has been referenced and discussed by health professionals annually , as well as by the government to establish a need to address mental illness after disasters.