EiJ Global Record: Eastern North Carolina, USA
The eastern Piedmont and southeastern lowlands of North Carolina are the “birthplace” of the environmental justice movement (EJ) in the United States.
The eastern Piedmont and southeastern lowlands of North Carolina are the “birthplace” of the environmental justice movement (EJ) in the United States.
Emely Hernandez talks about her academic and career interests, where she sees herself in 2050, her interest in environmental issues.
This gas leak took place in Bhopal, India and I think that the location has an important impact on the aftermath of the situation. After the gas leaked people protested to be compensated for their lost ones but many died before they were able to be justified. I feel that if this happened in America, circumstances would have been different, there would have been more media coverage, and action would be taken more swiftly. The location of this occurrence had an impact with how it was handled after and if it had occurred some place else then it would have been different.
This film focuses on the environmental and social problem of having large gas (lethal) plants near cities or other populated areas where people can be harmed. Environmentally these gasses are no good because they are emitted into the air and are very soluble in the water which leads to ocean acidification. Ocean acidification makes it so that the ocean has a lower pH level, this can harm marine wildlife. Socially, the gas is toxic to people and as seen in the Bhopal tragedy, it can kill people or severely alter their lives. This could be seen through the immediate deaths of civilians, deformities of children born after the incident, and the families affected even years after hoping for justice.
From watching the video, I feel affected emotionally because it was definitely hard to watch so many people die, especially the innocent children. It is a hard pill to swallow to watch the lives of so many people taken away from them so unexpectedly in their own homes. I feel affected by seeing the photo of the unknown child because it was hauntingly touching as it was for so many people that advocated for justice after this tragedy. It was also really daunting seeing so many people being buried and burned in mass because they were not granted the ability to be respectfully honored for their death which I think is something very valuable. Intellectually I think that this film made me think about how this tragedy could have been possibly prevented if the plant had been maintained and checked up on regularly or if the plant wasn’t so close to a whole city in the first place. And I also feel gratitude to those who are still advocating for justice for the victims and trying to get people with government power to make that change.
"Two FDNY EMTs who had to intervene to stop four police officers beating a handcuffed patient on a stretcher have turned the cops in to authorities"
""Three cops began to punch the patient in the face, EMS (had) to get in the middle of it to intervene. Pt's. wounds and injuries cleaned in the (ambulance)," the report said."
I further researched the reliability of some of the funds that were donated to in the months after the disaster. The FBI issued warnings to those donating to be sure they were giving money to a reliable fund, as there was a lot of fraud taking place. With so much money being donated internationally in a short period of time, it was likely easy for such to occur, and that also took away from the amount of aid Haiti received.
I also looked into the improvements in the country over the first few years since the earthquake. The people of Haiti were cited as having a strong desire to help rebuild, they just needed to be shown how. http://www.nbc29.com/story/20596283/haiti-sees-improvements-since-earth…
I looked up the rates of hospital bankruptcy/closing, the results looked to be interesting. The article (http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/hospital-bankruptcies-result-…) makes it seem avoidable, if the warnings are taken seriously in the years leading up to the crisis. "What they found was that filing hospitals tended to be smaller, not part of a health system and were more likely to be in the Northeast or West Coast. Many factors were involved, including poor financial management, changes in payer mix, reimbursement reductions, overzealous construction and purchasing of physician practices, decrease in volume and demographic shifts that were the impetus for filing."
I also looked up ER wait time statistics, by state, over the course of several years, etc. (https://projects.propublica.org/emergency/) Very interesting!