Colin D. Butler and Anthony J. McMichael
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195171853
- eISBN:
- 9780199865352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195171853.003.0018
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter describes social injustice in relation to environmental health. It covers the scale and distribution of environmental health hazards, the relationship between social injustice and ...
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This chapter describes social injustice in relation to environmental health. It covers the scale and distribution of environmental health hazards, the relationship between social injustice and environmental health, in terms of water contamination, air pollution, soil contamination, food contamination, and exposure to chemicals and global climate and ecosystem change. The chapter also describes the impact of globalization on environmental health. It describes what needs to be done, including achieving environmental justice, creating greater awareness of the cost of environmental hazards, harnessing sufficient political and economic will, reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals, performing epidemiologic research, and reforming organizations and institutions.Less
This chapter describes social injustice in relation to environmental health. It covers the scale and distribution of environmental health hazards, the relationship between social injustice and environmental health, in terms of water contamination, air pollution, soil contamination, food contamination, and exposure to chemicals and global climate and ecosystem change. The chapter also describes the impact of globalization on environmental health. It describes what needs to be done, including achieving environmental justice, creating greater awareness of the cost of environmental hazards, harnessing sufficient political and economic will, reducing exposure to hazardous chemicals, performing epidemiologic research, and reforming organizations and institutions.
Susan Scott Parrish
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691168838
- eISBN:
- 9781400884261
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691168838.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter discusses the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It argues that although historians have uncovered the details of what caused the flood to unfold the way it did, less work has ...
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This introductory chapter discusses the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It argues that although historians have uncovered the details of what caused the flood to unfold the way it did, less work has been done to explain how, what was arguably the most publicly consuming environmental catastrophe of the twentieth century in the United States, assumed public meaning. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore how this disaster took on form and meaning as it was nationally and internationally represented across multiple media platforms, both while the flood moved inexorably southward and, subsequently, over the next two decades. The book begins by looking at the social and environmental causes of the disaster, and by briefly describing the sociological certitudes of the 1920s into which it broke. It then investigates how this disaster went public, and made publics, as it was mediated through newspapers, radio, blues songs, and theater benefits. Finally, it looks at how the flood comprises an important chapter in the history of literary modernism.Less
This introductory chapter discusses the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. It argues that although historians have uncovered the details of what caused the flood to unfold the way it did, less work has been done to explain how, what was arguably the most publicly consuming environmental catastrophe of the twentieth century in the United States, assumed public meaning. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore how this disaster took on form and meaning as it was nationally and internationally represented across multiple media platforms, both while the flood moved inexorably southward and, subsequently, over the next two decades. The book begins by looking at the social and environmental causes of the disaster, and by briefly describing the sociological certitudes of the 1920s into which it broke. It then investigates how this disaster went public, and made publics, as it was mediated through newspapers, radio, blues songs, and theater benefits. Finally, it looks at how the flood comprises an important chapter in the history of literary modernism.
Simon Nicholson and Sikina Jinnah (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262034364
- eISBN:
- 9780262332132
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262034364.001.0001
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
Humanity’s collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in ...
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Humanity’s collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in effect creating an Earth 2.0 on which the human signature is everywhere, a “new earth” in desperate need of humane and insightful guidance. In this volume, prominent scholars and practitioners in the field of global environmental politics consider the ecological and political realities of life on the new earth, and probe the field’s deepest and most enduring questions at a time of increasing environmental stress. Arranged in complementary pairs, the essays in this volume include reflections on environmental pedagogy, analysis of new geopolitical realities, reflections on the power of social movements and international institutions, and calls for more compelling narratives to promote environmental action. At the heart of the volume is sustained attention to the role of traditional scholarly activities in a world confronting environmental disaster. Some contributors make the case that it is the scholar’s role to provide activists with the necessary knowledge and tools; others argue for more direct engagement and political action. All the contributors confront the overriding question: What is the best use of their individual and combined energies, given the dire environmental reality?Less
Humanity’s collective impact on the Earth is vast. The rate and scale of human-driven environmental destruction is quickly outstripping our political and social capacities for managing it. We are in effect creating an Earth 2.0 on which the human signature is everywhere, a “new earth” in desperate need of humane and insightful guidance. In this volume, prominent scholars and practitioners in the field of global environmental politics consider the ecological and political realities of life on the new earth, and probe the field’s deepest and most enduring questions at a time of increasing environmental stress. Arranged in complementary pairs, the essays in this volume include reflections on environmental pedagogy, analysis of new geopolitical realities, reflections on the power of social movements and international institutions, and calls for more compelling narratives to promote environmental action. At the heart of the volume is sustained attention to the role of traditional scholarly activities in a world confronting environmental disaster. Some contributors make the case that it is the scholar’s role to provide activists with the necessary knowledge and tools; others argue for more direct engagement and political action. All the contributors confront the overriding question: What is the best use of their individual and combined energies, given the dire environmental reality?
Rodolfo Saracci, Benedetto Terracini, and Franco Merletti
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780198569541
- eISBN:
- 9780191724077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198569541.003.0036
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health, Epidemiology
This chapter traces the development of epidemiology in Italy. Starting with the strong basis of genetics and the social movement of the 1960s, epidemiology began to gain a foothold in academic ...
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This chapter traces the development of epidemiology in Italy. Starting with the strong basis of genetics and the social movement of the 1960s, epidemiology began to gain a foothold in academic institutions. A major impetus for use of the subject was the need to investigate a number of environmental disasters. The creation of the Associazione Italiano di Epidemiologia (Italian Association of Epidemiologists) provided a firm foundation for the subject and it has prospered greatly since then.Less
This chapter traces the development of epidemiology in Italy. Starting with the strong basis of genetics and the social movement of the 1960s, epidemiology began to gain a foothold in academic institutions. A major impetus for use of the subject was the need to investigate a number of environmental disasters. The creation of the Associazione Italiano di Epidemiologia (Italian Association of Epidemiologists) provided a firm foundation for the subject and it has prospered greatly since then.
Simone Turchetti
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226595658
- eISBN:
- 9780226595825
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226595825.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
During the 1970s both the CCMS and the Science Committee took environmentalism in their stride by promoting novel actions and research (on sea pollution, air quality, clean car engines and much ...
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During the 1970s both the CCMS and the Science Committee took environmentalism in their stride by promoting novel actions and research (on sea pollution, air quality, clean car engines and much more). While describing the nature of these initiatives, this chapter shows NATO's efforts to run counter difficult economic circumstances (rampant inflation), and especially NATO officials and delegations' hesitations on the alliance's environmental focus. These issues prevented the CCMS from developing an action program ambitious enough, but they did not stop the reformation of the Science Committee. By the end of the decade most of its subgroups with a focus on defense-oriented studies were disbanded, and new ones with an emphasis on environmental research were set up.Less
During the 1970s both the CCMS and the Science Committee took environmentalism in their stride by promoting novel actions and research (on sea pollution, air quality, clean car engines and much more). While describing the nature of these initiatives, this chapter shows NATO's efforts to run counter difficult economic circumstances (rampant inflation), and especially NATO officials and delegations' hesitations on the alliance's environmental focus. These issues prevented the CCMS from developing an action program ambitious enough, but they did not stop the reformation of the Science Committee. By the end of the decade most of its subgroups with a focus on defense-oriented studies were disbanded, and new ones with an emphasis on environmental research were set up.
Duncan Maysilles
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807834596
- eISBN:
- 9781469603155
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807877937_maysilles
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
It is hard to make a desert in a place that receives sixty inches of rain each year. After decades of copper mining, however, all that remained of the old hardwood forests in the Ducktown Mining ...
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It is hard to make a desert in a place that receives sixty inches of rain each year. After decades of copper mining, however, all that remained of the old hardwood forests in the Ducktown Mining District of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was a fifty-square-mile barren expanse of heavily gullied red hills—a landscape created by sulfur dioxide smoke from copper smelting and destructive logging practices. This book examines this environmental disaster, one of the worst the South has experienced, and its impact on environmental law and Appalachian conservation. Beginning in 1896, the widening destruction wrought in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina by Ducktown copper mining spawned hundreds of private lawsuits, culminating in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., the U.S. Supreme Court's first air pollution case. In its 1907 decision, the Court recognized for the first time the sovereign right of individual states to protect their natural resources from transborder pollution, a foundational opinion in the formation of American environmental law. The author reveals how the Supreme Court case brought together the disparate forces of agrarian populism, industrial logging, and the forest conservation movement to set a legal precedent that remains relevant in environmental law today.Less
It is hard to make a desert in a place that receives sixty inches of rain each year. After decades of copper mining, however, all that remained of the old hardwood forests in the Ducktown Mining District of the Southern Appalachian Mountains was a fifty-square-mile barren expanse of heavily gullied red hills—a landscape created by sulfur dioxide smoke from copper smelting and destructive logging practices. This book examines this environmental disaster, one of the worst the South has experienced, and its impact on environmental law and Appalachian conservation. Beginning in 1896, the widening destruction wrought in Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina by Ducktown copper mining spawned hundreds of private lawsuits, culminating in Georgia v. Tennessee Copper Co., the U.S. Supreme Court's first air pollution case. In its 1907 decision, the Court recognized for the first time the sovereign right of individual states to protect their natural resources from transborder pollution, a foundational opinion in the formation of American environmental law. The author reveals how the Supreme Court case brought together the disparate forces of agrarian populism, industrial logging, and the forest conservation movement to set a legal precedent that remains relevant in environmental law today.
Susan Scott Parrish
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691168838
- eISBN:
- 9781400884261
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691168838.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which covered nearly thirty thousand square miles across seven states, was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history. Due to the speed of new media and the ...
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The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which covered nearly thirty thousand square miles across seven states, was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history. Due to the speed of new media and the slow progress of the flood, this was the first environmental disaster to be experienced on a mass scale. As it moved from north to south down an environmentally and technologically altered valley, inundating plantations and displacing more than half a million people, the flood provoked an intense and lasting cultural response. This book shows how the event took on public meanings. Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a “great relief machine,” but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees in “concentration camps” prompted pundits like W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells to warn of the return of slavery to Dixie. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood “the most colossal blunder in civilized history.” This book examines how these and other key figures shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event. The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, this book enables us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.Less
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, which covered nearly thirty thousand square miles across seven states, was the most destructive river flood in U.S. history. Due to the speed of new media and the slow progress of the flood, this was the first environmental disaster to be experienced on a mass scale. As it moved from north to south down an environmentally and technologically altered valley, inundating plantations and displacing more than half a million people, the flood provoked an intense and lasting cultural response. This book shows how the event took on public meanings. Americans at first seemed united in what Herbert Hoover called a “great relief machine,” but deep rifts soon arose. Southerners, pointing to faulty federal levee design, decried the attack of Yankee water. The condition of African American evacuees in “concentration camps” prompted pundits like W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells to warn of the return of slavery to Dixie. And environmentalists like Gifford Pinchot called the flood “the most colossal blunder in civilized history.” This book examines how these and other key figures shaped public awareness and collective memory of the event. The crises of this period that usually dominate historical accounts are war and financial collapse, this book enables us to assess how mediated environmental disasters became central to modern consciousness.
Michael Lavalette
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781847427182
- eISBN:
- 9781447303558
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781847427182.003.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Social Policy
This book explores ‘social work in extremis’, focusing on case studies that look at social work responses in ‘extreme’ or crisis situations. It discusses what social work institutions, social workers ...
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This book explores ‘social work in extremis’, focusing on case studies that look at social work responses in ‘extreme’ or crisis situations. It discusses what social work institutions, social workers and community activists do during episodes of war, military occupation, environmental disaster, forced migrations and political and economic restructuring. It examines the response of state social work and welfare institutions in these circumstances, the extent to which social work students and educators can engage with campaigning movements in post-crisis situations and alternative forms of ‘popular social work’ that can develop in the face of extreme circumstances. It suggests that, faced with crisis situations, there is an immediate requirement to establish a social work that can engage with communities and meet people's needs. Faced with these immediate needs, communities and social movements act to create an engaged popular social work. The book also provides a glimpse of a ‘popular social work’, one that is flexible, open, reliable, non-stigmatising and non-conditional and hence stands in sharp contrast to the worst practices and manifestations of ‘official’ social work.Less
This book explores ‘social work in extremis’, focusing on case studies that look at social work responses in ‘extreme’ or crisis situations. It discusses what social work institutions, social workers and community activists do during episodes of war, military occupation, environmental disaster, forced migrations and political and economic restructuring. It examines the response of state social work and welfare institutions in these circumstances, the extent to which social work students and educators can engage with campaigning movements in post-crisis situations and alternative forms of ‘popular social work’ that can develop in the face of extreme circumstances. It suggests that, faced with crisis situations, there is an immediate requirement to establish a social work that can engage with communities and meet people's needs. Faced with these immediate needs, communities and social movements act to create an engaged popular social work. The book also provides a glimpse of a ‘popular social work’, one that is flexible, open, reliable, non-stigmatising and non-conditional and hence stands in sharp contrast to the worst practices and manifestations of ‘official’ social work.
Andrew W. Kahrl
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469628721
- eISBN:
- 9781469628745
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469628721.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
The chapter follows the demise of Jim Crow and rise of the modern Sunbelt and examines its impact on African American coastal landowners and coastal ecologies. It does so by telling the histories of ...
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The chapter follows the demise of Jim Crow and rise of the modern Sunbelt and examines its impact on African American coastal landowners and coastal ecologies. It does so by telling the histories of the sites profiled in the preceding chapters from the 1960s to the present. It shows how black beaches faced a similar set of challenges in the post-segregated Sunbelt South, including smaller crowds and declining revenue, hostile and indifferent public officials, and predatory land speculators. It catalogs the instruments of displacement and dispossession used by speculators and developers to acquire black-owned land, and tells the stories of African Americans who lost their property due to fraud, deception, and other highly unethical but often legal practices. Particular emphasis is paid to the impact of environmental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and reckless over-development of coastal areas on historically black communities, as well as changes in the political economy of the South that fueled the growth of corporate-owned resorts, hotels, and gated communities.Less
The chapter follows the demise of Jim Crow and rise of the modern Sunbelt and examines its impact on African American coastal landowners and coastal ecologies. It does so by telling the histories of the sites profiled in the preceding chapters from the 1960s to the present. It shows how black beaches faced a similar set of challenges in the post-segregated Sunbelt South, including smaller crowds and declining revenue, hostile and indifferent public officials, and predatory land speculators. It catalogs the instruments of displacement and dispossession used by speculators and developers to acquire black-owned land, and tells the stories of African Americans who lost their property due to fraud, deception, and other highly unethical but often legal practices. Particular emphasis is paid to the impact of environmental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and reckless over-development of coastal areas on historically black communities, as well as changes in the political economy of the South that fueled the growth of corporate-owned resorts, hotels, and gated communities.
Anna Katharina Schaffner
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231172301
- eISBN:
- 9780231538855
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231172301.003.0013
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
The final chapter discusses exhaustion on a planetary scale, and addresses climate change and environmental disaster, population growth, and the exploitation of the earth's raw materials.
The final chapter discusses exhaustion on a planetary scale, and addresses climate change and environmental disaster, population growth, and the exploitation of the earth's raw materials.
Ross Barrett and Daniel Worden (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816689682
- eISBN:
- 9781452949314
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816689682.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Environmental History
In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry, oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what ...
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In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry, oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what exactly is “oil culture”? This book pursues an answer through petrocapitalism’s history in literature, film, fine art, wartime propaganda, and museum displays. Investigating cultural discourses that have taken shape around oil, the book composes the first sustained attempt to understand how petroleum has suffused the Western imagination. The chapters examine the oil culture nexus, beginning with the whale oil culture it replaced and analyzing literature and films such as Giant, Sundown, Bernardo Bertolucci’s La Via del Petrolio, and Ben Okri’s “What the Tapster Saw”; corporate art, museum installations, and contemporary photography; and apocalyptic visions of environmental disaster and science fiction. By considering oil as both a natural resource and a trope, the chapters show how oil’s dominance is part of culture rather than an economic or physical necessity.Less
In the 150 years since the birth of the petroleum industry, oil has saturated our culture, fueling our cars and wars, our economy and policies. But just as thoroughly, culture saturates oil. So what exactly is “oil culture”? This book pursues an answer through petrocapitalism’s history in literature, film, fine art, wartime propaganda, and museum displays. Investigating cultural discourses that have taken shape around oil, the book composes the first sustained attempt to understand how petroleum has suffused the Western imagination. The chapters examine the oil culture nexus, beginning with the whale oil culture it replaced and analyzing literature and films such as Giant, Sundown, Bernardo Bertolucci’s La Via del Petrolio, and Ben Okri’s “What the Tapster Saw”; corporate art, museum installations, and contemporary photography; and apocalyptic visions of environmental disaster and science fiction. By considering oil as both a natural resource and a trope, the chapters show how oil’s dominance is part of culture rather than an economic or physical necessity.
Peter N. Stearns
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814783627
- eISBN:
- 9780814783634
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814783627.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter sketches measurable deteriorations under modernity's shadow, which are capable of at least recurrently affecting resultant overall satisfaction. Deteriorations of community cohesiveness, ...
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This chapter sketches measurable deteriorations under modernity's shadow, which are capable of at least recurrently affecting resultant overall satisfaction. Deteriorations of community cohesiveness, environment, and outbreak of war, among others, illustrate that human beings have developed the capacity to destroy themselves and the planet, and some would argue that they are busily doing so already. But there are greater complications to this negative vision that must be taken into account, such as the fact that the many downsides discussed so far in this chapter may be evaluated differently according to each affected individual or community. Hence, while modernity has a number of measurable down sides, its more complicated impacts may in fact be the more interesting and decisive contributors to the happiness gap. Arguably, the processes that require adjustment in daily behaviors, particularly when they mix advantages and disadvantages, induce the most nuanced reactions to modernity as a whole.Less
This chapter sketches measurable deteriorations under modernity's shadow, which are capable of at least recurrently affecting resultant overall satisfaction. Deteriorations of community cohesiveness, environment, and outbreak of war, among others, illustrate that human beings have developed the capacity to destroy themselves and the planet, and some would argue that they are busily doing so already. But there are greater complications to this negative vision that must be taken into account, such as the fact that the many downsides discussed so far in this chapter may be evaluated differently according to each affected individual or community. Hence, while modernity has a number of measurable down sides, its more complicated impacts may in fact be the more interesting and decisive contributors to the happiness gap. Arguably, the processes that require adjustment in daily behaviors, particularly when they mix advantages and disadvantages, induce the most nuanced reactions to modernity as a whole.
