Category: Western Europe

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How Small Data and Toxic Autobiographies Unearth the Limitations of the Italian Legislation on Industrial Risk: First Results from Gela, a Sicilian Petrochemical Town

Elisa Privitera, University of Catania. A General Overlook: Regulations about Risk, Democracy, and Socio-Environmental Injustice Catastrophic events have been direct and indirect triggers of policy changes concerning the assessment and mitigation of risk.[1] The Seveso Directives, which represent the main European laws on industrial risk, are an emblematic case since they were issued after the … Continue reading How Small Data and Toxic Autobiographies Unearth the Limitations of the Italian Legislation on Industrial Risk: First Results from Gela, a Sicilian Petrochemical Town

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Researching the Politics of Risk in Grangemouth and Ludwigshafen: Looking back to 2001

Peter Phillimore, Newcastle University. What led us nearly twenty years ago (in 2001) to undertake comparative ethnographic fieldwork in two centres renowned as hubs of the European chemical and petrochemical industry – Ludwigshafen in Germany, and Grangemouth in Scotland? What were the conversations and questions which led to this project? Our primary aim was to … Continue reading Researching the Politics of Risk in Grangemouth and Ludwigshafen: Looking back to 2001

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Santa Cruz Verde 2030: A new dawn for Tenerife?

Chris Waite, University of Warwick When Alexander von Humboldt reached the peak of El Teide in June 1799, he described how the ‘prodigious transparency of the atmosphere’ contributed to ‘the magical effect’ of Tenerife’s landscape1. Humboldt was on route to what would become an extraordinary Latin American expedition that saw him scale higher peaks than … Continue reading Santa Cruz Verde 2030: A new dawn for Tenerife?

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Petrochemical Landscapes: A European Perspective

Dr Calvin Jephcote, University of Warwick Petroleum has been the fuel for dramatic change in the twentieth century, as a source of energy it has revolutionised transport and powered technological advances, but as a chemical it has also enabled humankind to engineer synthetic environments.  The petrochemical industry was initially created from the desire to commoditise … Continue reading Petrochemical Landscapes: A European Perspective

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Book Review: Quando il potere è operaio: Autonomia e soggettività politica a Porto Marghera (1960-1980)

Dr Lorenzo Feltrin, University of Warwick @lorenzo_feltrin This year marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of Quando il potere è operaio: Autonomia e soggettività politica a Porto Marghera (1960-1980) (edited by Devi Sacchetto and Gianni Sbrogiò, 2009, Roma: Manifestolibri), translatable as “When Power is Workers’ Power: Autonomy and Political Subjectivity in Porto Marghera (1960-1980)”. … Continue reading Book Review: Quando il potere è operaio: Autonomia e soggettività politica a Porto Marghera (1960-1980)

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Contaminated Morals: the Struggle of Industrial Pollution in a Southern Italian City

Angelo Raffaele Ippolito (United Nations University – International Institute for Global Health) Bruno Andreas Walther (National Sun Yat-Sen University) Between 2017 and 2018, I carried out ethnographic fieldwork in the Southern Italian city of Taranto. Being from the city myself, I was aware of the ongoing struggle between a small group of active citizens and … Continue reading Contaminated Morals: the Struggle of Industrial Pollution in a Southern Italian City

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L’air d’un Bruxellois: self-portraits of personal exposure to air pollution

Nicola da Schio (Cosmopolis, VUB) with Arnaud Dubois, Cécile Herr, Katia Xenophontos, Lorenzo Glorie, Matthieu Coulonval. Pictures: ©FrancoisCorbiau & Aircasting.org We are thankful to Kobe Boussauw, Evi Dons, and Anna Plyushteva for their useful suggestions. Background Air pollution was already discussed by an earlier post of Toxic News. By looking at the examples of Ghent … Continue reading L’air d’un Bruxellois: self-portraits of personal exposure to air pollution

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Post-Industrial structures of Environmental Injustice within Western Europe

Dr Calvin Jephcote | Toxic Expertise Research Fellow | University of Warwick, UK Approximately 33% of European citizens are exposed to air pollutant levels that exceed EU air quality standards, and 90% of urban residents experience levels of air pollution which the World Health Organisation consider as damaging to health. Particles below 10μm in aerodynamic … Continue reading Post-Industrial structures of Environmental Injustice within Western Europe

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Decisions for a healthy and just city

Heike Köckler, Department of Community Health, Hochschule für Gesundheit, Bochum, Germany Johannes Flacke, ITC, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands A lot is known about environmental quality in cities and its health effects: noise causes sleep problems and has effects on blood pressure, toxic air emissions may cause lung disease and walkable neighborhoods invite everyday … Continue reading Decisions for a healthy and just city