In my opinion, something that is ethically wrong with this case is the fact that much of the pollution coming from biomass factories like Enviva are disproportionately affecting Black and Brown rural comminities. These communities experience health issues from the saw dust and can be seen cleaning sawdust off their outside belongings. It is important to see how much thes communities are impacted when looking at biomass corporations.
The complaints of Duplin County residents and the Environmental Justice Community Action Network about general permitting for hog farms in Eastern NC. These permits would give way to more ground and water pollution due to the relaxed regulations on corporate farms that hold multiple different numbers of livestock. Plans for the implementationa pipline called the "Grady Road project" interrupt the family and small scale farms in the ares. A quote from the Duplin County NAACP president Robert O. Moore says:
"The corporation has refused to implement any technology to clean up the water, citing the cost of doing so was too expensive. Yet the cost of this biogas project rivals the cost that would have been to implement cleaner and safer technology to ensure the safety of those living near these operations."
Many local groups in Eastern NC counties have previously tried to receive assistance to help with their agriculture waste managment systems, yet fall short due to many government officials only focusing on corporate farms.
Read more at the link: https://southerlymag.org/2022/03/24/biogas-could-do-more-harm-than-good…
I am mainly part of the research collective called “COVID-19 Places: Turkey.” I focus on the COVID-19 disaster governance and scientific cultures. So far, we have worked through google docs. By September, we plan to hold regular meetings, and add more to the PECE essay. This group welcomes new members.
I also have many questions at local, national, and transnational levels. Nevertheless, in the short-term (Fall 2020), I want to focus on the following research topics/areas:
The transnational governance of COVID-19
The ways science-society relations (and/or scientific cultures) shape and are shaped by the governance of COVID-19 in specific places (from community to institution to city to nation-state scale).
Tactics that can be developed through transnational collaboration so as to respond to the various problems deepening and/or emerging in the midst of this disaster, e.g., the problems we (may) encounter as educators, and so on.
I imagine all these as collaborative studies.
I am particularly interested in comparative approaches on how different sites (and academics in those places or studying them) are thinking about COVID in their localities. How are people dealing with issues of trust and information in an era when entire archives are in danger (like the police archives in Guatemala which had been rescued in the past decade and are now in danger). This question expands beyond COVID but has become crucial in the context of Ecuador where reliable data is hard to come by. Another important aspect for us is how indigenous communities are fairing amid the pandemic (here a fabulous article on the terrible situation in Brazil—which is not so different to Ecuador's). This touches on issues of communication, infrastructure, language, systemic racism, and more. Finally, I am also interested in ways in which we might be a able to contribute to some of these issues from our academic spaces. Collaborators (which can take many forms) are certainly welcomed.
On July 3, Selim Badur has interpreted this report (Açık Radyo - Korona Günleri programme) by drawing attention to "two interesting points":
1. The highest incidences were seen in persons aged 80 years and older but the second cluster includes persons aged 25 to 49 years (49.4%).
2. In the world, it is said that men are infected more than women. In Turkey, female cases aged 15 to 24 are more than male cases.
shortly attaching this news article on "coronavirus lockdown protests" to this reading. should be an obvious one to all.
Re: the discussion on "our" concepts of freedom
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Adding a popular quote - from Kafka's "A Report to an Academy"
I fear that perhaps you do not quite understand what I mean by "way out." I use the expression in its fullest and most popular sense—I deliberately do not use the word "freedom." I do not mean the spacious feeling of freedom on all sides. As an ape, perhaps, I knew that, and I have met men who yearn for it. But for my part I desired such freedom neither then nor now. In passing: may I say that all too often men are betrayed by the word freedom. And as freedom is counted among the most sublime feelings, so the corresponding disillusionment can be also sublime. In variety theaters I have often watched, before my turn came on, a couple of acrobats performing on trapezes high in the roof. They swung themselves, they rocked to and fro, they sprang into the air, they floated into each other's arms, one hung by the hair from the teeth of the other. "And that too is human freedom," I thought, "self-controlled movement." What a mockery of holy Mother Nature! Were the apes to see such a spectacle, no theater walls could stand the shock of their laughter.
No, freedom was not what I wanted. Only a way out; right or left, or in any direction; I made no other demand; even should the way out prove to be an illusion; the demand was a small one, the disappointment could be no bigger. To get out somewhere, to get out! Only not to stay motionless with raised arms, crushed against a wooden wall.