The author of “Toxic Soup Redux: Why Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice Matter after Katrina” not only introduces “environmental racism” to the reader but also does such a good job at presenting evidence of the practice that one does not even question the legitimacy of this phenomena. As a chemistry major hoping to enter the research field, the idea of areas like “Cancer Alley” arising because of chemical industries, is unsettling.

Personally, I found “Law Enforcement Violence & Disaster” to be structured and read like a fact sheet, which took away from the seriousness of the subject matter. The subject matter was one in which I have a particular interest since reading “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander and attending several talks on mass incarceration. The construction of a makeshift jail immediately after Katrina is evidence of the high priority government places on incarceration, especially in predominantly African American communities.

After Hurricane Katrina hit, most of the news coverage showed the destruction that this deadly storm had created and what was being done to help those who had been affected. However, the news told nothing of the great inequality and complete loss of humanity that those of lower income witnessed. Reading about how minorities in New Orleans were dealt with in the aftermath of Katrina felt like reading a dystopian novel. I don’t understand why hard-hit communities were basically put under military dictatorship and why community members were treated like animals. These people needed HELP not abuse. Who were these police officers and soldiers protecting? It was certainly not the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The only possible explanation I could come up with besides these officers being the embodiment of pure evil, is what was talked about in the documentary Land of Opportunity. The article, “Police Brutality and Hurricane Katrina,” talked about a protest to prevent the demolition of 4,500 units of public housing that resulted in extreme violence of the police toward protestors. This exemplifies one of the main themes of the documentary: the government utilized a natural disaster to further its own agenda at the expense of the poor.

Question: How do we get local governments to actually care about the cities they are supposed to serve instead of caring about budget cuts?

I’m so angry. I’m just so angry at the way people were treated after Katrina and that I’m only finding out about it just now. Reading this week’s articles, it feels like Hurricane Katrina was a scapegoat for the plans already in motion to make a “new” New Orleans, one that pushes out lower-income families and minorities to make room for people of greater wealth. Police brutality is always a problem for those in the lower-income bracket, particularly for people of color, and so it’s hardly a surprise that verbal and physical abuse were employed, as well as unfair arrests. I’ve said this before in response to some readings, but it’s important not to forget that human beings are just that: human. While it may be more economically feasible to drive out poorer people, it’s not eradicating the problem. It does make me wonder, though: do y’all think the public housing would have been destroyed if Katrina hadn’t happened? Because I’m starting to think it would.

I don’t even really know where to go with these readings this week. Between governmental incompetence ranging from passively dangerous (underfunding) to actively harmful (policing), in response to states of emergency, I wonder what the point of government is at all. I think I’m thinking like Marx, but our government’s neoliberal leanings seem not to care very much for its people and only about what is most beneficial to the capitalist market system—handing out food and blankets does not help the invisible hand, so its uncared for. It would explain why the semi-anarchic Occupy movement would have gotten involved so readily. But how do you even go about fixing these problems? Can that be done on a community level? If the problem is funding, how do you get more besides just, well, asking, then being denied? If the problem is policing, how do you deal with those police from a community-level, if the people who could take actions against them are the very people responsible for giving their actions the green light? How are any of these problems solved without some grand governmental overhaul, which we can’t enact from our position as citizens anyway?

In Lisa Foderardo’s New York Times article on the Climate March of 2014, the issue of imminent anthropogenic destruction of the earth is discussed. From the lens of the protestors at this movement, climate change is a pressing issue that is closer than a lot of politicians would like to believe. From the way the article was written, the author seems to believe that the protest was well intentioned, but not heavily structured. Forderardo lists groups based on their appearances and rather than painting a portrait of solidarity amongst diversity, I felt that she was trying to portray an image of passion without any real direction. The grandmothers against climate change seem to have little to do with the topless women other than the fact that they all have something against climate change. However, I do believe that this means that the author may support these movements and support educating the public at large on slowing, if not stopping the effects of human damage on the environment.

She points out that we are have, in 2014, broken the record for the highest ambient temperatures; and she suggests that this is how we shall proceed if we do not inform the public on its erroneous ways.

One thing I am curious about is how people address the strange juxtaposition of actions. People at the climate march were ardent in their protests, but ended up creating a large mess. Lots of litter was present when the march ended; how does this paint environmental advocates in the public eye?

The “Cities Under Siege” article talks a lot about the fact that most urban areas are inhabited by minority groups who are usually of the lower-income classes and that suburbs are inhabited by mostly white people of the upper classes. However, I feel that this paradigm does not really fit New York City.  Anyone who lives in NYC knows that everything here is more expensive and that each borough, with the exception of Staten Island, is extremely diverse in terms of race and socioeconomic status. Nonetheless, Manhattan is the most expensive area to live in and can be considered the “inner city” when compared to the other boroughs. Most people have to move to the surrounding boroughs because of this rise in cost of living. Yet, Manhattan as a whole is still quite diverse. This fits in with how things were dealt with during Hurricane Sandy. Manhattan was helped first while some parts of other boroughs were left by the way side. This is especially true of southern Staten Island, a practically all-white neighborhood that was hardest hit by the storm. Although the rest of the country might fit the “inner city” and suburb paradigm, New York does not.

How then, can we explain the lack of aid that outer city areas of New York received?

I remember the posters all over the subway for the People’s Climate March. They’re still hanging in certain trains. I know some Macaulay students showed up for it and they enjoyed themselves. I didn’t really pay attention to it that much other than noting that, while a significant number of people did make it out, it wasn’t quite the million they were advertising. But I guess that’s one of the pitfalls with climate change right now. People don’t take it quite as seriously as other issues because it’s hard to personally document and it doesn’t seem as pressing. A vague ‘somewhere around the latter half of the century there will be more rain and more heat waves’ doesn’t really resonate as much as ‘Iran has a nuclear weapons program and the country’s president has publicly declared that after they wipe Israel off the map their next target is America.’ The projections put out by PlaNYC are certainly bleak, and on the West Coast California is steadily getting hotter and drier, but public protests only do so much.

Question: Is climate change an important issue to you? What would you do to make people more aware and more interested in this topic?

Climate change and the rise of sea levels continue to be a growing concern for the planet, and I believe that more action needs to be taken. While there have been proposals and plans to decrease greenhouse gases and better handle global warming, each year I see expert analyses of how the sea levels and temperatures will continue increasing in the future decades. PlaNYC’s official statement mentions that New York City will experience more heat waves and an increase in flooding. New York City was already hit by Hurricane Sandy and if there is no change and global warming continues, the chances of hurricanes occurring will increase. Graham’s Cities Under Siege states that the warming of the sub-surface of the ocean can cause “hurricanes to continue heating-up” which will make them more powerful. Everyone has the ability to help decrease global warming simply by using less energy and burning less fossil fuel. If there isn’t major action taken soon, the Earth will continue to worsen as more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

Question: What do you think is the best method to get more people to participate in helping the planet?