Spring 2023 - to continue to learn, build, create experimental collaborative research methodologies with EcoGovLab participants.
To write (collaboratively) an article on collaborative methodology practiced within our lab.
To learn to negotiate incommensurabilities better while also developing ways to bridge difference, first in lab practices and second in engagements with other ej practitiones.
Stakeholders:
Children and families vulnerable to asthma
Cattle ranchers
CALTrans
Almond farmers
NOAA
EPA
SJV Air Pollution Control
Kern River Oil Field
Central California Asthma Collaborative
Teve Brown of NOAA said the valley suffers from cows + cards. At Harris Ranch a large industrial cattle farm trucks drive 6,000miles/day for 60 loads of feed producing nitrogen oxides (NOx). NOx combines with the ammonia from cow manure and urine to from ammonium nitrate which accounts for more that 1/2 of the areas most polluted days of PM2.5.
In addition, Interstate is a major thorough bringing more traffic pollution and farming practices including nitrogen fertilizer contributes 1/3 of NOx in California air. The SJV also holds 9000 oil wells and because all the light oil has been drilled, the current production is described as the "thickest, dirtiest petroleum" in the nation.
Intersecting factors: landscape (bowl shape of the Valley); economic (agriculture that contributes to PM2.5); transportation corridor that add more traffic pollution; and state-wide wildfires that bring more particulate pollution which is trapped; and political environment in which area elects representatives (ex: Devin Nunes) who deny global warming and reject environmental protection.
Air pollution--the result of cows+cars--is the focus of this multimedia article. One in six children in the SJV suggest from asthma. It is estimated that air pollution costs SJV as much as $11 billion annually the result of emergency room visits, lost school days, and other public health impacts.
The setting for this article is the San Joaquin Valley which encompasses 2/3rds of the Central Valley CA. Because of it's fertle farmland, it supplies 1/4 of the food to "American plates."
In terms of setting, like other valley's in CA (ex: San Gabriel Valley) and the whole LA Basin, the SJV's bowl-like landscape (mountain ranges on 3-sides) results in temperature inversion that traps smo closer to the ground during Wintertime.
A coalition of churches, synagogues, mosques, and cultural organizations located in the Inland Empire. Unfortunately, without any up-to-date number of members in this coalition.
For the org. there is a spiritual connection linking the desert landscapes and religious beliefs. Their primary focus is congregating more groups around environmental hazards in desert lands.
The organization is looking for a “new dimension and depth” in the discussion about the environmental crisis. Engaging in different fields:
Desert Stewardship Project is an interfaith coalition dedicated to protecting the deserts of California.
EEC is the writing team for 10Strands, CCEJ project for 8th grade curriculum.
EEC is organized as a collaborative (initially they were made up of over 75 organizations that include School District representation) with a board of trustees (13 members). Mary Walls, who is on a 10S writing team, is the chair of this org. In addition they have an Advisory Board. Their website lists 13 sponsors and 3 "grantors' including SoCal Edison. They describe themselves as a grassroots alliance.
The EEC seems to have officially started in Feb 2015 with their first EEC Symposium although planning meetings began in 2014 following the Stanford University Collaborative Impact Model.
On their website the EEC thanks the iecf Inland Empire Community Foundation a non-profit, public charity