Emely Hernandez Biographical Profile: UCI EcoGovLab Internship Program Azusa 2023
Emely Hernandez talks about her academic and career interests, where she sees herself in 2050, her interest in environmental issues.
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.
The authors of the article are Andrew Lakoff and Stephen Collier, both of whom are anthropologists. Andrew Lakoff works at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Stephen Collier works at The New School in New York City. The two focus a large ammount of their studies on international studies and biopolitics, and have collaborated on a number of papers pertaining to these topics. One of Lakoff's most current works is a book called Disaster and the Politics of Intervention, which may be relivant ot the the DSTS network.
This policy doesn't directly address vulnerable populations.
This article has been referenced in various other articles in the DSTS field, including Engineering Risk and Disaster: Disaster-STS and the American History of Technology (S. Knowles) and The World Trade Center Analyses: Case Study of Ethics, Public Policy and the Engineering Profession (WH Coste).
The program is not often featured in the news, however its research and statistics are often cited in a variety of news sources and journals, including The Crime Report, a publication by John Jay College.