Analyze

What I find really noteworthy in this text is how Julia Watts Belser takes the poem by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and includes it into a scientific text. In this way, she not only allows an affected person to have her say, the poem also leaves the reader with a very striking image of the connection between the river and the body, in multiple ways, as well as the connection between enviromental harm and disability.

The text was published in 2020 (Vol. 40, No. 4) by The Ohio State University Libraries in their Journal Disability Studies Quarterly (DSQ). It is, as you can read on their Homepage "a multidisciplinary and international journal of interest to social scientists, scholars in the humanities and arts, disability rights advocates, and others concerned with the issues of people with disabilities. It represents the full range of methods, epistemologies, perspectives, and content that the field of disability studies embraces. DSQ is committed to developing theoretical and practical knowledge about disability and to promoting the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in society."

The author connects disability theories and activism with environmental justice, this approach allows her to show how disability is related to and through environmental harm, she shows how diagnoses are used politically in these cases, and looks critically at how these processes determine how, when and in what favor human and environmental harm is taken into account. The writing is shaped by the consequences of the Anthropocene like environmental harm linked to health isusses, especially affected are communities of color and poor communities in the United States, here pre-existing patters of structural inequality, already known from climate change come into play,  this communities are the most affected and the least responsible.

The text left me with a question that I actually often find frustrating in the process of research. On page 6, the authors take up the criticism of a Fukushima resident who says: “[W]hat you call research does not give benefits to local people” (Miyamoto and Ankei, 2008, cited in Ankei, 2013, p.24). The authors here suggest adopting or borrowing terms from the field that are used by citizens to create a more “socially robust science” (Bonhoure et al. 2019, Nowotny, 2003). From the authors' point of view, this can be achieved above all by paying closer and careful attention to the language of citizen organizations and the contexts these groups work in. After further elaboration, the authors call for citizen science terms and concepts developed by, for and with citizens to better reflect the values, priorities, and stakes of its main agents and of all concerned parties. But I am not sure that this approach alone would be sufficient to adequately address such expressed criticism. Perhaps one should ask about the expectations of people one is researching with/about in order to enter into a conversation and to be able to understand this criticism. Perhaps the authors will address this point again in further publications. I think to ask oneself how to deal with this criticism methodically and ethically could also be very fruitful for empirical research in general.

To help the government with air pollution, people can try to use their cars less. This can be done through walking, biking, or carpooling to their destinations. This will help lessen the usage of fossil fuels that decrease the air quality. Although this may not seem like much, if more and more people begin to do this, eventually the results will begin to show

Air pollution in Newark that is caused by port traffic, waste facilities, industrial plants, and trucks. Some of the air pollution in New Jersey is also caused by air pollution drifting in from Pennsylvania.

One of the possible solutions to air pollution is the truck replacement program where old trucks are being replaced with newer trucks to "curb diesel emissions, and that low-sulfur fuels were making ships’ engines run cleaner." However, this is difficult to implement because it can affect the jobs of many truckers and trucking companies by limiting how many pickups they can make.

Yes and no. Communities should be able to do something about their air quality in their area but within the state's command. For example, states should have a state regulation on air quality and be able to enforce that regulation. However, individual communities should be able to do what they want to meet that state regulation on air quality. With this, communities still have the freedom to do something about their air quality while the state maintains its power

Despite air pollution being a problem for every group, this article specifies children as the victims. For example, the author quotes Congressmen Donald M. Payne, Jr saying, "Every single day, children in Newark are exposed to harmful levels of pollution from the port and other sources that rob them of their health, just because of where they live" (Adams). Adams most likely did this to show the severity of this problem by shedding light onto the victims. Air pollution also increases the chances for children developing asthma. Adams writes, "one in four Newark children suffers from asthma, and the hospitalization rate is 150 percent greater for kids living in the city than in the rest of the state, and more than thirty times the rate nationwide."

Air pollution caused by industries and use of transportation has many health risks that can affect the community

In the future, I do believe that industrial development and sustainable development are compatible because there is a possibililty of a new source of green energy that is not fossil fuel that can aid both developments. However, currently I do not believe that it is possible to have industrial and sustainable development together with the current resources that we have. Fossil fuels are too harmful for the environment while implementation of green energy in industry is too costly and will not yield the same amount of productivity. Once there is a source that is as powerful and easy to implement, such as fossil fuel, becomes apparent, or companies/officials find an efficient way to implement green energy into industry, then industrial and sustainable development will become compatible.