soci final i put the sections in

• Air problem/ harris county


  •Many counties simply do not collect air pollution data•Air quality often is only monitored in areas where there is consistent source pollution

  •This pollution is carried to other counties that do not have monitors set up

  •Harris County has several oil refineries, and petrochemical plants, they receive an F by the American Lung Association
• Air part 2


  •Many refineries in the state pollute more than they are supposed to

  •13 had excess levels of benzyne at a level that required EPA action

  •Benzyne is a known carcinogen, and has impacted low-income communities, and communities of color throughout Texas

  •This is during NORMAL operations

  •The risk for excess emissions, is severely heightened during non-normal operations
• Non-Normal Operations

  •Hurricane Harvey, and Winter Storm Uri both presented problems for refineries

  •During Harvey:

  •14,225,386 pounds of excess emissions

  •34,424 pounds of benzyne

  •4,437,028 pounds of sulfur dioxide

  •During Uri:

  •4,714,693 Pounds of excess emissions

  •40,078 Pounds of Benzyne

  •1,114,528 Pounds of sulfur dioxide
• Non normal fines


  •2020: 3,032 “excess emissions events”

  •39.4 Million Pounds of Chemicals

  •23 were punished

  •~25,000 emissions events in the last 7 years were excessive, 462 penalties were issued

  •$6,000 per event

  •Exxon Mobil made 56 billion dollars last year Neighborhoods in Houston are in the 94th percentile of cancer risk
• Water Problem


  •The Texas water problem is the thing that Teacher studies

  •There is no data

  •The entire state does not want to monitor for pollutants

  •They are scared of what would happen if they monitored for pollutants

  •I am scared of what is happening with said pollutants
• Studying without data


  •Many of the failures begin with data quality for some of the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) pollutants

  •Some of these pollutants have not been monitored by the TCEQ since 1991!

  •Many waterbodies in Texas are impaired…

  •Many more of these waterbodies do not have sufficient information to make a determination about toxicity
• Water Standards 


  (look at graph)

  
• Last known monitoring dates

  Last date was 8/13/1991

  
• Bryan Park water


  •Had problems with arsenic

  •The property was controlled by a real estate trust

  •The trust said that the remediation was complete, draining the water would not be toxic

  •There has been no verified study to determine if the arsenic was in any way mitigated before being sold

  •People and animals recreate here…
• what does the bryan water problem mean 


  •Cancer, seizures, cognitive impairment, death

  •Problems with bioaccumulation

  •Issues for shellfish, and other water dwelling organisms

  •Issues with recreation

  •Potential mass food logistics issues
• Harris county cancer and population study


  •Hispanic: 6.40

  •Poverty Line: 10.40

  •Child Poverty: 6.50

  •25+ No high school: 22.98

  •Mothers under 18: 4.19

  % above 50,000: .14
• Norm/Tenorm problem


  •NORM/TENORM??

  •This waste is particularly scary because many of the disposal pits are near water, or agricultural lands

  •Texas does not require permits for certain pits if they do not exceed a certain radiation threshold

  •Does it ever exceed what is legally acceptable?

  •“Beta radiation found in these waste pits were 800% higher than is legally acceptable”
• Norm and TENORM definition


  Norm is naturally occurring radioactive material

  tenorm is Technology Enhanced Naturally occurring radioactive matierial
• why does texas not care 


  money from oil and gas companies
• actually why does texas not care

  •The two State environmental entities are the TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) and the RRC (Railroad Commission)

  •Why the Railroad Commission???

  •Oil, Gas, and other byproducts were first transported on rail lines, this led to them being in direct control of that product

  •The Texas Railroad Commission has not been in charge of any rail line since 2005

  •They don’t change the name to deceive the public
• the two agencies


  •Both the TCEQ, and the RRC have industry loyalists as their heads

  •Every RRC Commissioner (An elected official) has money invested in oil and natural gas companies, and many refuse to recuse themselves when their interests collide with their official job

  •Perhaps the most notable recent example is commissioner Craddick, Craddick was invested in a gas company that DID NOT SCENT GAS THROUGH POPULATED AREAS

  •The RRC purposefully does not hire enough people to make sure emissions rules are followed

  •Currently, between 69-84% of natural gas flaring in the state has no permitting 
• Community capital ( ADOPT A HIGHWAY)

  •Texas is not all bad for the environment

  •The Adopt-A-Highway program was started here

  •The Don’t Mess With Texas Program resulted in massive reductions in trash along Texas highways

  •Adopt-A-Beach has similar results, people in Texas do care about the environment and will voluntarily spend hours of their time contributing to a network of volunteerism 
• HOPE FOR TEXAS?


  •What is the hope then???

  •Thankfully, there is some

  •Younger people are more likely to vote for policies in support of more sustainable energy alternatives (Both sides of the aisle)

  •Research is stemming the tide for certain pollutants

  •Increasing Ethics????
• VIOLENCE, ARE HUMANS MORE VIOLENT 


  •Human beings have been responsible for more deaths and destruction than any other species

  •Animal extinction caused by human action is more than one thousand times higher than the natural extinction rate

  •In the Americas 80 per cent of all large animals became extinct once humans started settling these continents

  •More species were destroyed as a result of the increased number of human settlements, which negatively impacted the local habitat
• how old is human violence


  •This question has some methodological issues

  •Some scholars suggest that humans have been violent since our inception

  •Some of the rare burial pits from 34-40 thousand years ago display violent deaths

  •Other scholars suggest humans have been peaceful for most of human history

  •Cave paintings, some of our oldest records depict violence, however these are difficult to use as evidence
• how old is human violence part 2


  •The invention of writing in Mesopotamia gives more descriptive records

  •These too have bias

  •Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament show that torture, massacres and war were prevalent in the ancient world
• how old is human violence part 3

  •Such literary and religious documents, as well as early court and church records, tend to exaggerate the numbers of injured and killed

  •Flavius Josephus’ War of the Jews (75 CE) suggests 1.1 million deaths during the siege of Jerusalem

  •A cautious estimate suggests that Jerusalem at that time could have had a population of  no more than 60 thousand 
• Credible evidence of violence


  •Records dramatize, what would an anthropologist do with our records today?

  •Bone evidence is better than written records

  •Jebel Sahaba (Present day Egypt) has the bodies of 59 people from 13,000 years ago all with flint embedded in the bones

  •The oldest European evidence of a substantial violent conflict comes from the Dneiper rapids region in Ukraine 10,000 years ago
• Violence in a social world


  •What is violence?

  •Some scholars measure violence with the intentionality and materiality

  •This includes:

  •Battle deaths

  •Homicide rates

  •Rape figures

  •Hate crime murders

  •Execution rates

  •Lynching episodes

  Documented instances of child physical abuse
• Structural Violence


  •Other scholars approach violence argue that it involves setting up structural conditions to generate violent outcomes

  •This includes:

  •Psychological abuse

  •Economic disparities

  •Pedagogical practices

  Differences in life expectancies
• Early organized Violence


  •In the world of foragers, violence is sporadic and largely comes from the outside

  •The permanent sedentary social life is characterized by the presence of violence that is produced internally

  •Simple hunter-gatherers largely did not engage in protracted violence

  •Complex hunter-gatherers particularly those who establish chiefdoms, often participate in excessive violent acts
• preconditions of war


  •Administrative capacity had to expand in order to maintain a military structure

  •Regular fiscal income could fund protracted wars and advance state capacity

  •Preparations for war include:

  •Building of better transport and communication networks

  •Greater industrial capacities

  •Implementation of novel scientific discoveries

  •More systematic development of military and other technologies
• WW1


  •20 million deaths

  •21 million wounded

  •10km of movement

  •Development of biological and chemical warfare*

  •Highlights some of our less aggressive characteristics
• Neville Chamberlin


  My good friends,

  This is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.

  We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.
• Chamberlin part 2


  Said it was war to end all wars, and the world would be at peace.
• WW2


  •The single most devastating human made event to ever occur on the planet to date

  •The six years of conflict resulted in a staggering 66 million deaths with a substantially increased ratio of civilian casualties

  •20 million soldiers to 46 million civilians

  •World War II was a pinnacle of the organizational and ideological developments that were initiated in the early modernity

  •Characterized by ideological purity, propaganda and mass mobilization
• Holocaust 


  •Ideological purity turned to racial purity

  •Jews, Poles, Gays, Blacks, Romani, and others were exterminated on the basis of racial purity

  •Organized mass murder, forced servitude, starvation, medical experimentation, sterilization, and humiliation all done by a highly propagandized society

  •True Aryans are designed to own the world, all others must be culled 
• Party polarization 


  as time goes on the parties are getting more and more divided on issues, both sides see the other as more unfavorable than in the past.

  in the past 1994 16% of democrats and 17% of republicans saw the other side as a threat to the nations wellbeing while today it is 38% of democrats and 43% of republicans.
• Echo Chambers


  information is being repeated and people stay where the information is all of the same view point as they already follow
• Polarization type part one


  •Partisan Alignment Polarization

  •Partisan alignment is based on social and cultural cleavages

  •There are often crosscutting cleavages, such as those based on social class, region or religion

  •Sometimes multiple lines of potential disagreement in society become highly overlapping, aligned or consolidated

  This may dominate political relations
• Political polarization type 2


  •Affective Polarization

  •Members of different social groups hold strong positive or negative attitudes about the groups themselves

  •These are not about issues per say

  •It is about feelings of the other social group (i.e. Democrats or Republicans)
• New-Consensus turn


  •Scholars argue political polarization began in the 1960’s

  •There was considerable regional divides, particularly with the decaying rust belt, and the growing sun belt

  •Conservatives were organized and shifted policy agendas, and layered their preferences over the enduring features of twentieth-century liberalism

  •There was still cooperation, law enforcement particularly under Reagan was funded, leading to some disparities under the law for drug possession
• Rural urban divide 


  where people live is an echo chamber in itself

  
• Trump biden polarisation increase


  people have gotten more and more hatred for the other party with more recent presidents

  
• presidents from 1960-2022 partisenship increase


  look at graph showing chart of increasing divide