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Environmental Justice House Course

Year Initiated: Fall 2020

Members of the UEU and Duke Climate Coalition as well as other passionate students across Duke have come together to create a house course focusing on environmental justice issues within North Carolina: HOUSECS 59 -12, ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE NC

Available Fall 2020, this house course aims to provide students with a strong understanding of the history of the environmental justice movement, its intersections with racial justice, and current grass-roots action within the United States, particularly within North Carolina. Set up as a series of guest lectures from prominent academics and environmental justice warriors and advocates, this house course will be a deep dive into the relationship between people, society, and environmental health. From capitalism and coal ash to hog farming and natural gas pipelines, this course touches upon environmental racism and pressing justice issues within North Carolina and hopes to amplify the voices and experiences of the diverse cultures, races, and identities fighting on the front lines to address these issues at Duke, in Durham, and statewide. 

 

The hope is to collaborate with Duke Conservation Tech and Duke Climate Coalition every year to make this course available every Fall. 

Class sessions meet on Tuesdays from 7:00-8:30 PM EST.

This class doubles as an environmental justice webinar series open to all students, faculty, staff, and community members. Webinars take place on Tuesdays from 7:00-8:00 PM EST. A schedule for the series is available below!

Register for any and all webinars here: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0TUjGRuzqWzLoO1

For those who are not available at the scheduled webinar time but would still like to learn from our speakers, webinar recordings are available below or here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF0DNaSNetzSEkLWAysAV_w/videos

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Webinar Schedule

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**For more information, please reach out to our course instructors or faculty sponsor (see information below)**

What It's Like to Live in Cancer Alley | NowThis
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What It's Like to Live in Cancer Alley | NowThis

People are dying of cancer at an alarming rate in this county — and their own hometown is killing them. » Subscribe to NowThis: http://go.nowth.is/News_Subscribe In this cancer documentary, NowThis News tackles the important issue of environmental injustice. Factors in our environment might lead to cancer. Louisiana residents in 'cancer alley' discovered this first hand. They're feeling the effects of environmental racism and the illness brought on by living in cancer alley. Mississippi River factories, the Petrol corridor specifically, might have made them sick. This cancer alley documentary explains how residents feel about it all. #CancerAlley #Louisiana #EnvironmentalInjustice #EnvironmentalRacism Connect with NowThis » Like us on Facebook: http://go.nowth.is/News_Facebook » Tweet us on Twitter: http://go.nowth.is/News_Twitter » Follow us on Instagram: http://go.nowth.is/News_Instagram » Find us on Snapchat: http://go.nowth.is/News_Snapchat Direct from the NowThis newsroom, NowThis Reports will deliver new short documentary-style videos each week, exploring a wide range of topics and featuring people and stories from all around the world. NowThis is your premier news outlet providing you with all the videos you need to stay up to date on all the latest in trending news. From entertainment to politics, to viral videos and breaking news stories, we’re delivering all you need to know straight to your social feeds. We live where you live. http://www.youtube.com/nowthisnews @nowthisnews
One reason why coronavirus hits Black people the hardest
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One reason why coronavirus hits Black people the hardest

Toxic air can weaponize the coronavirus. Become a Video Lab member! http://bit.ly/video-lab Across the US, black people are dying from Covid-19 at disproportionately high rates. While there are many different factors at play behind the stark racial disparities — there’s one possible reason that’s been lurking in the air for decades: pollution. The long history of segregation and housing discrimination has long put black people at greater risk of living near chemical plants, factories and highways, exposing them to higher levels of air pollutants. These pollutants have had a chronically negative impact on health, leading to conditions like hypertension and asthma. Now, those same diseases are associated with severe cases of Covid-19, and showing that where you live can determine whether you survive from Covid-19. Read the full study on air pollution exposure and Covid-19 mortality: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm Read the study on historic redlining and emergency room visits due to asthma: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(19)30241-4/fulltext Read the study on Disparities in Distribution of Particulate Matter Emission Sources by Race and Poverty Status: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844406/ To learn more about the experiences of residents in St. John the Baptist Parish, check out the Concerned Citizens of St. John website: https://www.ccosj.com/ To learn more about some of the air pollution risks in the Midwest, check out the Environmental Law & Policy Center: http://elpc.org/. They also run an air monitoring site for Chicago that highlights some of these disparities: https://airqualitychicago.org/ Read more about Cancer Alley from ProPublica/ The Times-Picayune and The Advocate: https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_49fe4540-f74a-11e9-8d20-eb0f97323b91.html https://projects.propublica.org/louisiana-toxic-air/ And The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2019/may/06/cancertown-louisana-reserve-special-report A lot of our data comes from the National Air Toxics Assessment Cancer Risk map, which you can check out through the EPA: https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/ The Covid Tracking Project also regularly compiles Covid-19 data on race: https://covidtracking.com/race Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com. Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on Facebook: http://goo.gl/U2g06o Or Twitter: http://goo.gl/XFrZ5H
How Black Lives Matter And Environmental Justice Are Connected
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How Black Lives Matter And Environmental Justice Are Connected

"The people who are currently facing the harshest impacts of climate change are people of color." Why this woman's post about Environmentalists For Black Lives Matter went viral. Special thanks to Leah: https://www.instagram.com/greengirlleah https://www.greengirlleah.com/ Subscribe to Goodful: https://bzfd.it/2QApoPk About Goodful: Feel better, be better, and do better. Subscribe to Goodful for all your healthy self care needs, from food to fitness and everything in between! Connect with Goodful: Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialgoodful/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodful/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/goodful Check out our website: https://www.goodful.com/ Subscribe to the Goodful Newsletter: https://www.buzzfeed.com/newsletters/goodful Credits: https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfmp/videos/106973 MUSIC Licensed via Audio Network STILLS Houses next to oil refinery UniversalImagesGroup / Contributor/Getty Images Houses next to oil refinery UniversalImagesGroup / Contributor/Getty Images Cracked asphalt road - stock photo Simon McGill/Getty Images Fracking operations along the Front Range of Colorado. Helen H. Richardson / Contributor/Getty Images VIDEO “Justice for Eric Garner – Fire NYP Officer Daniel Pantaleo” – Protesters in NYC Tomas Abad - Footage/Getty Images Air Polluiton From Coal-Fired Power Station - stock video captamotion/Getty Images Refinery in Wilmington, California at Sunset - Drone Shot - stock video Hal Bergman/Getty Images Smoke Bombs and Tear Gas Fired in Streets During Protests in Ferguson Scripps - WPIX, New York/Getty Images Smoke pours out of smokestacks at the Navajo Generating Station's coal-fired power plant in Arizona. - stock video Aerial Filmworks/Getty Images Mother Holding Young Daughter At A Doctors Appointment - stock video FatCamera/Getty Images News Report Offers New Details Of Encounter Between Michael Brown And Ferguson Cop Joe Raedle/Getty Images Ferguson Protestors Run From Tear Gas and Riot Police Scripps - WPIX, New York/Getty Images Technical university Munich -colloquium - stock video Christian Ender/Getty Images Reads a book - stock video Beer1024/Getty Images Women shopping Christmas presents online from home - stock video Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images To get it done, just get it started - stock video Rowan Jordan/Getty Images EXTERNAL CREDITS Leah Thomas https://www.greengirlleah.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/Goodful

Fall 2020 Instructors

Ashley Rosen
Class of 2022

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Ashley is a junior Mechanical Engineering major passionate about the intersection between engineering, innovation, and the environment as well as supporting women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). In addition to serving as Vice President of External Affairs for the UEU, she is an active member of FEMMES (Females Excelling in More Math Engineering and Science).

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Rachita Gowdu
Class of 2023

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Rachita is a sophomore interested in pursuing an interdepartmental major in Environmental Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. She is interested in diving deeper into topics of environmental justice and situating communities of color within the climate crisis and environmental activism.

 

 

Sophia Jefferey
Class of 2022

Sophia is a junior studying Chemistry with the goal to research renewable energy solutions. She is the Co-President of Duke Climate Coalition. 

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Cameron Oglesby
Class of 2021

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Cameron is a senior studying environmental science and policy and journalism. Passionate about environmental communications, she's dedicated to making EJ issues pervasive at Duke and diversifying environmental spaces. She one day hopes to document the relationship between culture, tradition, land, and nature, and give voice to the stories of life and struggle of BIPOC communities around the world. 

Fall 2020 Faculty Advisor

Rebecca Vidra 

Faculty Director, Duke Environmental Leadership Program

Senior Lecturer, Environmental Science and Policy

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Rebecca is a senior lecturer in the Nicholas School, where she teaches survey courses in environmental science and seminars in environmental ethics and restoration ecology. You can find her in traditional classrooms on campus, online classrooms through her role as the Faculty Director of the Duke Environmental Leadership Program, and on beaches as the Program Director for the DukeEngage in Kaua’i Program. She is inspired by her students’ ability to co-create courses and embraces Robert Heinlein’s philosophy of “when one teaches, two learn”. 

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