Skip to main content

Search

EiJ Hazard: PFAS

pfas_hazard_thumbnail.png

FOR ECOGOVLAB/CCEJP CURRICULUM: Use this as a research resource during 11th and 12th Grade Lesson 2 on Hazards.

What do you hope to get out of the lab?

kvalladares

I hope to be involved in projects that aim to gather scientific evidence to inform environmental decision making and advocate for greater equity and justice in environmental governance. Through this work, I hope to learn the skills needed to engage in community based research and leverage community knowledge as expert knowledge. In my department, things are often siloed and issues are only seen through one perspective. I really want to gain more experience in collaborating with a wide array of stakeholders to come up with approaches to mitigate the environmental injustices experienced in under-resourced communities.

pece_annotation_1473109683

josh.correira

One argument presented is that public engagement leads to increased vigilance and emergency preparedness. Nuclear emergency response should not be governed by one elite body of scientists. Information should be crowd sourced from the public to increase awareness and transparency and lead to more ideas as well as public support. Another argument presented is that risk prevention has historically been the focus of governing bodies instead of risk acceptance and emergency response. A nuclear reactor being placed near the ocean is more fiscally responsible but natural disasters are unavoidable, regardless of the amount of risk prevention that has been taken. Instead, the focus should be on emergency response after natural disaster strikes. Safety is also sometimes substituted for profitability.

pece_annotation_1473044060

ciera.williams

The main arguments brought up in this article are the shift in thought from nuclear disaster prevention to disaster response and the importance of the STS community in providing input for policy. From these arguments, another is proposed in the form of the need for an international nuclear disaster response team. 

pece_annotation_1473633257

ciera.williams
Annotation of

The ARC is almost like the founding group in diaster response. Its policies and guidelines are the framework for many organizations in the United States and abroad. So, it doesn't really promote a new way of addressing emergency response, as it is the original. 

pece_annotation_1473634217

josh.correira

The report addresses disaster and health in how it describes actors' emergency response to the initial disaster as adequate but states the aid supplied does not allow progress to occur. The victims of the disaster were given temporary shelter in tents, but many still live in tents at the time of this report being written. These conditions led to a cholera outbreak which the actors did not seem to care about or provide aid for.