Wednesday October 14, 2020, from 12:30 - 1:30 pm on Zoom
“Military, Race, and Air Toxics: Exploring the Military’s Role in Producing Environmental Inequality in the United States”
Abstract
Militaries are commonly framed in the public discourse as necessary for national security. Recent cross-national analyses and case studies demonstrate, however, that military development may result in an array of environmental problems. Despite this focus, less attention has been paid to the relationships between environmental health risk and the intensity of domestic military development across the United States. This presentation draws on social theories of the treadmill of destruction, critical environmental justice, and racial capitalism to analyze the relationships between air toxic cancer risk, proximity to 689 active domestic U.S. military facilities, and each facility’s technological intensity. It will discuss recent quantitative findings from spatial data from the Department of Defense, the American Community Survey, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Bio
Camila Alvarez is an assistant professor of sociology at UC Merced. She earned her bachelor's in mathematics and sociology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She completed her masters and doctoral at the University of Oregon. Her career in sociology stems from her two passions of mathematics (nowadays mostly statistics) and awareness of social issues.
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