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Recovering a Black Cemetery: Automated Mapping of Hidden Gravesites Using an SUAV and GIS in East End Cemetery, Richmond, VA.
No full textEstimates suggest that over 15,000 people are buried at East End Cemetery, a historic African American cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, that until recently received no public funding for upkeep. Here, we present a case study analysis and potentially replicable methodology for counting and locating unmarked burial depressions in non-forested areas using a low-cost sUAV (drone) and simple, hydrology-based geographic information systems analyses. Upon visual inspection of 12% of our final 8,000 burial site dataset, we find our dataset is a plausible representation (75% accuracy) of potential grave locations. We hope that the methods presented below can be implemented to assist in reclaiming historically underfunded Black cemeteries across the American South
Examining the Relationship Between Environmental Justice and the Lack of Diversity in Environmental Organizations
Get PDFThis article highlights the ongoing lack of diversity in each of the
three major types of environmental organizations—conservation and
preservation organizations, governmental agencies, and environmental
grantmaking foundations—and assesses how this lack of diversity
has historically marginalized people of color. Assessing the history of
how the environmental movement has marginalized people of color is
key because from this marginalization grew the rise of the environmental
justice movement and recognition from the legal system of environmental
issues that disproportionately impacted people of color. Last,
this article presents solutions on how environmental organizations can
increase and retain diversity in their staff and leadership and put an
end to the history of defining environmental issues from a predominantly
White perspective
Expanding American Indian Land Stewardship: An Environmental Solution for a Country in Crisis
Get PDFLand is the central foundation around which all life is formed. Therefore,
societies must have a stable connection with the land in order to be structurally
sound. If this connection is weak or inflexible, every building-block of
civilization laid on top of it will inevitably crumble. Some societies have established
stable relationships with the land by working around and responding
to nature’s rhythms in order to satisfy their needs. Whereas other societies
have ignored nature’s intricacies and instead have tried to strong-arm
nature into yielding to their whims. These two diametrically
opposed approaches to conceiving of humans’ relationship with the land are
exemplified by America’s Indigenous peoples and Colonial immigrants, respectively.
Over the 15,000 plus years that American Indians have spent on
this continent, they have developed a system of land use that has allowed
them to live sustainably within their means. They have also created a system
of land stewardship that reflects their deep reverence for the land as a living,
breathing entity. This is in stark contrast to the system developed by White
immigrants, which treats the land as a commodity, and fails to devote resources
to its protection, unless it is benefitting a private interest. As this
paper will demonstrate, these conceptions of land are deeply entrenched in
each society’s identity. Thus, if America’s federal government is to find a
solution to its self-inflicted climate crisis, it must look outside of itself for
answers. It must instead look to the infinite stores of wisdom that have been
passed down for generations by our Nation’s original inhabitants. But America
must be careful not to perpetuate its appropriative track record by integrating
this wisdom into its existing management system without also integrating
the Indigenous peoples that provided it. Only by recognizing
American Indian land rights will America have a fighting chance in saving
this country from environmental extinction. As an achievable first step, the
U.S. federal government must recognize American Indians’ international law
right to Free, Prior, and Informed consent
Deconstructing Inequality: Cumulative Impacts, Environmental Justice, and Interstate Redevelopment
Get PDFThe siting and development of Interstate 81 in Syracuse, New York, similar
to highway projects across the nation, lead to the displacement of Black
Syracusans
and has exposed thousands of remaining residents at heightened
environmental harm. As the interstate is slated to be redeveloped due to age
and safety issues, national attention has focused on the highway as a potential
exemplar for similar projects across the United States. Federal law mandates
that environmental impact analysis be conducted, and due to the prevalence
of marginalized populations, environmental justice impacts are a
critical feature in this assessment. This article evaluates both the redevelopment
of the interstate through an assessment of a 10,000+ page draft environmental
impact statement, review of relevant policy documents and attendance
at public meetings to assess the potential for environmentally
sustainability and just outcomes. It concludes that, along with similar redevelopment
projects from online due to the nation’s aging infrastructure, environmental
analysis and planning must employ restorative justice frameworks
to strengthen and heal communities impacted from the legacy of racist
urban planning
Conjugal Relation: The Shakers\u27Question for Frontier Kentucky
Get PDFAt its heart, this is a case fraught with pain and loss that is not unique to this particular period in frontier Kentucky. Although the presence of the Shakers, and a community’s reaction to them, imbue this case with meaning historically, this divorce also speaks to unchanging questions about the nature of conjugal relation in the face of an uncertain eternity. This is a case that reveals something about broader anti-Shakerism, but it also demonstrates that for many, the broader contexts of religious change and budding institutions were not perceptible factors in their experience of life on the frontier. With the following microhistory, the goal is double: both to deepen the understanding of the broader forces at work behind the Bolers’ divorce, but also to restore the lived experience of an intimate conflict amidst uncertainty
The CCPA, Inferences Drawn, and Federal Preemption
Get PDFIn 2018, California passed an extensive data privacy law. One of its most significant features was the inclusion of “inferences drawn” within its definition of “personal information.” The law was significantly strengthened in 2020 with the expansion of rights for California consumers, and new obligations on businesses, including the incorporation of GDPRlike principles of data minimization, purpose limitation, storage limitation, and the creation of an independent agency to enforce these laws. In 2022, the Attorney General of California issued an Opinion that provided for an extremely broad interpretation of “inferences drawn.” Thereafter, the American Data Privacy Protection Act was introduced in the United States Congress. This law does not provide nearly the protection for inferences that California law does, and this federal bill threatens to preempt almost all of California’s data privacy law. This article argues that, given the importance of California being able to finally regulate “inferences drawn,” any federal bill must either provide similar protection, exclude California law from preemption, or be opposed
Trial by Centipawns: A Comprehensive Analysis of Defamation Actions in Online Chess & The Probative Value of Statistical Evidence in Civil Trials
Get PDFTruthfully, I did not intend to publish this article at such an opportune time. I have been concerned about defamation in online chess for several years. However, I suspected that it was a dormant problem that would need to be addressed sometime in the undetermined future. I did not suspect that the day would come so soon
In Answer to the Pauline Principle: Consent, Logical Constraints, and Free Will.
No full textJames Sterba uses the Pauline Principle to argue that the occurrence of significant, horrendous evils is logically incompatible with the existence of a good God. The Pauline Principle states that (as a rule) one must never do evil so that good may come from it, and according to Sterba, this principle implies that God may not permit significant evils even if that permission would be necessary to secure other, greater goods. By contrast, I argue that the occurrence of significant evils is logically compatible with the existence of a good God because victims of significant evils may themselves reasonably consent to their suffering. In particular, I argue that they may be able to accept their suffering if it turns out that there was no way for God to secure relevant greater goods (or prevent other, greater evils) except by way of allowing their suffering, and God also provides them with other compensating, heavenly comforts. After using this consent-based argument to address Sterba’s logical problem from evil, I briefly consider how this argument may also help address a related evidential problem from evil, which suggests that while it is possible that victims of significant evils would consent to their suffering, it is unlikely that they would do so. While I do not provide a definitive solution to this evidential problem of evil, I highlight one important example of a trade-off that God may need to make that would—along with the provision of compensating, heavenly comforts—potentially persuade victims of significant evils to consent to their suffering. Specifically, I argue that there may be a necessary trade-off that God needs to make between permitting significant evils (on the one hand) and protecting a certain, morally significant form of free will (on the other hand)
