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Lead Hazard

karishmakkhanal
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WHAT (& WHAT FOR): Lead is a metal often found in pipes, and in old paint (before it was banned in paint in the late 1970s). Before 1996, lead also found in vehicle fuel resulting in  soil contamination in many communities from both paint dust and vehicle pollution. 

HEALTH IMPACT: Lead is a neurotoxin and is known to have no safe blood lead level in children. 

Has been linked to:

  1. Brain swelling, anemia, seizures, renal failure, reduced IQ, and ADHD

  2. Damages brain development in children

  3. Connected to behavioral problems like aggression and bullying, and internalizing problems such as depression and anxiety 

LOCAL IMPACT: Recent research in Santa Ana has shown that there is a disproportionately impact of solid lead contamination crisis on lower income, people of color communities. 

POSSIBLE RESPONSES: There are many ways to respond to lead contamination:

  1. Providing special health care for children with high blood lead levels, and investigating possible sources of lead exposure in homes, daycares and school, playground, etc.

  2. Implement strict housing policies where landlord and city housing officials are required to have lead inspections of homes for lead paint hazards (especially in low income, people of color communities)

  3. Requiring a minimum reduction standard for lead paint in older homes 

  4. Requiring blood lead level test as part of the routine check up for children (extremely important for children in low-income housing)

Tanya Matthan: environmental justice and epistemic violence

tanyamatthan
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In their introduction, Vermeylen's argument for a particularist and decolonial approach to justice through a recognition of plural ontologies and epistemologies that decenters Western liberal discourse and its theory of justice. How does bringing the lens of coloniality into environmental justice literature alter our visions of energy futures? Can we make appeals to environmental justice without recourse to liberal theories of individual rights and property ownership? More specifically, I am wondering how our team can study and address this dynamic plurality of ways of understanding and experiencing in/justice in this site, and how can we engage this plurality in productive ways? What axes of difference and inequality should we be looking for/at (race, gender, class, sexual orientation, citizenship, housing status, etc)? If the Anthropocene is coloniality by another name, how can we foreground this in our approach?

Settler Colonialism in Texas

kgupta
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Environmental justice narratives in the U.S. often fall into "sacrifice zone" narratives that universalize experiences on the community-level, reproducing specifically bounded narratives about American lives and livelihoods, relationships to nature and capital, and the kinds of knowledge and authority that matter. Vermeylen's article disrupts this idea, rightfully arguing that environmental justice requires a more upfront confrontation with the socio-historical causes of oppression brought about by coloniality, as well as the fact that we need to question the righteousness of EJ discourses that rely on white settler logics.

For the Austin Field Campus, how can we bring attention to Anglo-American settler colonialism in our approaches to EJ and gentrification? And thinking back to the NOLA Field Campus, what Texas histories should we be drawing from to understand energy transitions in the city? 

pece_annotation_1473007380

joerene.aviles
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Teach 3.11 was developed to serve students and general public. It allows the public to have more access to different books, teaching material, and research regarding disasters. The website was built in response to the Fukushima disaster of 2011, in order to provide "an educational space for understanding the history, memory, and context of social disasters" (Teach 3.11). The editorial team has members from different countries, reflecting the international collaboration that natural and nuclear disasters require. With it's availability in six different languages, public contribution and comments enabled on articles gives a global platform for discussion and sharing. They are currently accepting papers for their "Terms of Disaster" collection.

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harrison.leinweber
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This system was built for academia worldwide to study the historical context behind technical and scientific issues related to large-scale disasters. They enhance the knowledge of scholars of where science and technology, history, and Asia meet. The site uses volunteers to translate various resources into English, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, and Chinese so many people can share in the knowledge that others have.

pece_annotation_1473634523

harrison.leinweber
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The data is presented much like on Twitter or Facebook with a timeline showing the most recent information first with a small exerpt of the article and the ability to click on a "read more" button to view the article in full.

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harrison.leinweber
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Users can voice interest in annotating or translating works to teach3eleven [at] gmail.com. The website operators maintain a listing of works that they would like annotated. Users can also share annotations via twitter, facebook, tumbler, google+, and email. Users are also able to comment on the articles directly on the website and can reply to eachothers comments for discussion there as well.