Biomass energy plants: see themselves as a cost-effective solution for farmers who need to get rid of dead trees and other woody waste that pose wildfire risks without openly burning them; they also produce energy
Utilities companies: looking for the "least-cost, best-fit" source of energy, don't care where it comes from just that it's reasonably priced
Farmers: need cheap ways to dispose of waste
Technology to dispose of woody waste from almond trees in ways other than open burning or biomass facilities doesn't exist yet, at least at the scale needed for massive almond orchards
Closures of biomass energy plants have forced SJVAPCD to allow more open burning of agricultural waste, which produces particulate matter and contributes to already severe air quality in the Central Valley
The case study findings in the text have been discussed with senior staff at the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and members of the California Latino Legislative Caucus. It has also been presented at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration during a Scoping Analysis workshop with California policymakers and advocates.
“Despite these disadvantages, the state of California has failed to map wildfire vulnerability based on socioeconomic status. Without an accurate identification and mapping process, the state is unable to provide local governments and community-based groups with a reliable rendering of the populations most vulnerable to the impacts of wildfire. Most importantly, by failing to identify socially vulnerable communities across California, government entities are unable to understand in advance where to target limited resources and programs (Sadd et al., 2011).” (Mendez 57)
“To further ensure participation and strengthen capacity, federal, state and local governments should provide appropriate funding to community-based organizations working directly with vulnerable populations.Community-based organizations have stronger cultural competency in engaging with communities of color and immigrants,
greater levels of trust, and more flexibility to explicitly assist these populations. In community-based planning processes, vulnerable communities are actively engaged in the identification, analysis and interventions, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster risks. This approach helps reduce their vulnerabilities and enhance their capacities.” (Mendez 59)
This text highlights the importance of a mixed methods approach to disaster planning. Specifically, the importance of incorporating qualitative research methods as a way to anchor the voices of marginalized communities within disaster planning and provide context to emerging trends observed in climate related risks. Regarding disaster planning and undocumented immigrant communities for example, Mendez (2020) stresses that practitioners must go beyond addressing the contextual vulnerability of these communities and consider how to address systemic problems perpetuated by the agricultural industry. The lack of accountability and disregard for human life within the industry, coupled with the lack political power within undocumented immigrant communities, particularly those belonging to the Mixteco/ Indigena indigenous groups, are systems of oppression which must be addressed if climate disaster risks are to be truly addressed.
Mendez (2020) stresses that the intersectionality of race, class, gender, indigeneity, and many other dimensions of identities coalesce to shape the lived experiences of people in their local environments. Traditional quantitative methods, though useful in providing snapshots of disaster vulnerability, can do little in capturing the social environmental conditions which determine responses to extreme weather and climatic events. At best, it can serve to provide an obscured understanding of disaster risks, at worst, this one-dimensional methodology approach may exacerbate existing inequalities perpetuated by systems of racism, classicism, and sexism by rendering whole communities invisible simply by virtue of sampling biases (Mendez, 2020). The case study by which Mendez frames his central argument focuses on how Indigenous immigrants were systematically ignored in emergency response and alleviation efforts following the Thomas Fire in California’s Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
The Origami Bridge is intended to solve the problem that occur when there are mass destructions with natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes that resulted in the destroy of the local bridge. Whereas the design is aimed to substitute the local bridges with temporary bridge, furthermore to improve the transportation within the area aftermath. The design also considers the time matters during a disaster environment.
The bridge is developed by a team led by Dr. Ichiro Ario from Hiroshima University (Institute of Engineering), Japan.
The development funding is not mentioned in the article or from the university sites. Therefore, personally will assume that the funding is raised by the university and relevant engineering associations.