Thread by @rebecca_altman

Back in 2008, in @Orion_Magazine, @ssteingraber1 reflected on the curious phenomenon of “environmental amnesia,” which she observed while giving lectures around the US on toxics & pollution. This is one of my favorite essays. A thread. #envhist

orionmagazine.org/article/enviro…

“I’ve noticed two opposing trends,” @ssteingraber1 writes in @Orion_Magazine. One is an 🔺 awareness of toxics & their env-health implications. But the other is that this knowledge pertains to products more than the hazards of production, esp legacy or relic pollution . #envhist

“The location of homes on former orchards (where arsenical pesticides were used) or near old toxic-dump sites (where drums of solvents were buried) — these matters seem blurrier and blurrier to the folks in my audiences.” @ssteingraber1 via @Orion_Magazine #envhist

Tonight, I finished — Sites Unseen — by Scott Frickel (@Brown_EnvSoc) and James Elliott (@RiceUniversity) — who (in part) attempt a systematic, sociological answer to @ssteingraber1 questions about the origins of “environmental amnesia.” #envhist @EnviroSocASA

Sites Unseen (@RussellSageFdn) is a fascinating account of the social-ecological-Industrial-political processes of churning and succession that layer industrial and environmental legacies in cities. Ahd that contribute to their collective forgetting. @Brown_EnvSoc #envhist

Frickel & Elliott write — “Our study indicates that 93 - 99% of potentially hazardous sites are not included on any state or federal hazardous site list or Brownfield inventory this fact a loan should give regulators and policy makers pause.” #sitesunseen #envhist

”How do we get regulatory agencies to think historically about relic hazardous waste,” they ask? And to counter what @ssteingraber1 has called “environmental amnesia,” which also runs rampant in policy and institutions?

They go on to suggest public/DYI research methods that citizens, schools, cities can use to begin to exhume, audit, map cities’ #envhist + industrial past as a way to better understand complex and potentially interacting present + future hazards. #citizenscience [end]

cc @threadreaderapp unroll
Also of interest — @SEHNetwork @carolynsehn @DiscardStudies @jodyaroberts @ehepler @DrBobBullard @RBrulle @nathalie_jas @ToxicExpertise @toxiclegacies @smzavestoski @nmackend @stephmalin_soc @TimmonsRoberts @KgouldA @EganHistory

Thought you’d like to know yet another legacy of your work, @ssteingraber1 — and good on you — and deep 🍃thank you’s🍃 @Orion_Magazine for carrying it out and into the world.

^alone 😩

(Though they acknowledge their research project began in 2006.)

Of good grief — more too-tired-typos... ^DIY 😉

And psssstt @Brown_EnvSoc — I’m an alum — (PhD 2008) 🤗