Following the article, the author J. Kenens has published another paper "Changing perspectives: tracing the evolution of citizen radiation measuring organizations after Fukushima (2020)" DOI: 10.1051/radiopro/2020041 (link) that draws on the research on citizen science in Japan with a new focus on the comparison of their practices directly after the nuclear accident and today.
It is interesting to see how citizen science in Japan is enacted and how the concept of citizen science is dependent to the social and cultural context. Also looking at it not only from a top-down perspective, where universities or organizations are involved, but also the bottom-up perspective that includes only those practices that are done by citizens alone opens up a new space. As I am currently engaging with research on air pollution in different sites, I could build from this text in considering the link between "citizen-driven approaches and institutional imparatives in the governance" (p. 7) of issues with air pollution.
The text is an article about citizen science in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The first noteworthy detail about this text that struck me is the inclusion of Japanese words and even their original spelling. This creates a kind of closeness to the field that the authors did their research in.
The authors engaged in multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork that took place in and around Fukushima but also in other geografical sites like Tochigi, Miyagi, Aichi, Tokyo and Kyoto. There, they conduct semi-structured interviews with various organisations that are all somehow involved with citizen science or radiation measurement. To learn about the citizens that measure radioactivity and create their own data on radiation because of a lack of provided data by the government, a literature review of policy documents and workshops with those citizen scientists is performed.
I am an environmental engineer with a profound interest on providing urban sustainability through the use of biotechnology. I currently research about air pollution in public health and its environmental factors related. My interest is focused on how to adopt greenery as air pollution mitigation strategy in developing cities of south America.
While making this briefly research about NOLA, I observed how air pollution has been historically related to a environmental injustice issue. An example of this is a 1960s study documenting asthma incidence among black communities due its near location to dumps, where subterranean burning happened commonly. This depicts the “southern pattern” in New Orleans, where African American were forced to reside in undesired areas subjected to frequent flooding, unhealthy air and noise levels, as well as unsanitary water and sewerage conditions. Morse (2008) describes Katrina as a turn point, where America’s attention on the enduring legacy of racial segregation and poverty were refocused. Local government remarked the necessity of green restoration in flooding areas, where most of segregated population lived in. Communities and foundations are also working together to sustain the urban landscape mainly for flood control. Therefore, I got interest on know how urban reforestation in NOLA was adopted as a tool for climate change adaptation but also in knowing how it acts as a pathway to reach environmental justice.
This article explains the horrible effect Sandy had on the Shore area. The devastation to the entire area. People sufffered and are still suffering. This article shows interviews from many different people on how they over came and built back from Sandy.
This article explains that there is still desvestation from Hurrican Sandy. Raw sweage seeped in the Passica River and the efforts to remove it still exist. New Jersey's infrasture is very vulnerable. The DEP developed a 230 million system to build flood walls and hopefully this will help in case of future storm.
The author of this article obviously toured the facility to see the structure of the switch station, the author states that most switch stations are ugly, but when you combine art to the walls it can be quite pleasing to the eye. The author also spoke with the Mayor of the City of Newark to get his take on the development and the purpose.
"The Secret Sauce" "Mayor Ras Baraka jokingly called the art/collaboration joked about Newark’s seemingly forever-ongoing revitalization. Alluding to the process that created the building he stood in front of, Baraka called art and collaboration—between public and private, between community and architect—the “secret sauce” of successful neighborhood revitalization".
stated by David Adjaye “What I’ve learned in architecture and design is that, when the opportunity seems complicated, that’s when your creativity has to rise to that opportunity,” firm principal David Adjaye told the crowd.
The article points out how in need the city was of the switch station, after Super Storm Sandy, many over half of the residents were out of power, this due in large to the poor infrastructure and the way it handled overloads when a diasester hit. The switch station would elimnate all of those issue by upgrading the infrastructure to handle issues in extreme weather conditions.
The switch station will help in the future if another storm occurs. This will reassure the reisdences of the city that power will be restore quickly or they will not loose power all together. Along with that the switch station is not an eye sore, the residence of Newark made it very clear that was on of the requirements that the facility not be ugly.
This article.video explains how a bunch of grade school children decided to learn how to prepare for emergency storm situations. The FEMA for kids organization came to First Avenue School in Newark, NJ and put on a presentation how to plan and organize when a disaster stricks. The FEMA organization explained how to keep your pets safe what you need to have availiable for your pet, food, blanket's etc. They also reviewed first aid kits and what to place in the kits, bandages, antibotics, bandaids. etc.