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…
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.
Following the attacks on 9/11/2001, a number of health issues arose in the population of residents and workers present. Dust and other toxins inhaled from the rubble created a number of respiratory issues. The need for monitoring of these, and other, health conditions is what lead to the need for such a policy. Without the policy in place, victims would need to fund their own healthcare, and with the large number of affected people, the price would be more or less ridiculous to force on people.
The film gave a lot of instances where the providers were more or less just having fun. For example, nearly every interview invoved the guys sitting down and drinking a beer while joking. While this proved their humanity, it also showed that the doctors spent much of their free time having fun rather than getting sleep. I would assume that they weren't drinkng while still "on call" or planning on giving care, and thus had the time to get proper rest. The amount of luxury afforded to the doctors after the trip also was a bit less compelling. At the end, the doctors were swimming at a nice pool and just relaxing, which is understandable for destressing. But it also seemed to take away some perspective. These doctors go on about how little resources they have to give and how the wish they could stay on their mission, but immediately turn back to luxury. Its just a bit hypocritical. And I understand that they cannot directly contribute to the people they care for in terms of wealth, but I found it was a bit unnecessary to include in the film.
The article addresses the lack of unity in the decision making proceess during emergencies. Lots of life-or-death decisions are left up to a doctor's judgemnet, which causes ambiguity as a result. One can argue that doctors are given this right to judgment as a sign of their training and the trust we put in them. However, when the trust is perceived as betrayed by affected individuals, the judgement is called into question.
Another point is the lack of evacuation preparadness in hospitals.