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Visualizing the limits to growth and the metabolic rift in the neoliberal nexus
Abstract:
<p>While the water-energy-food nexus has become a key approach for creating sustainability management plans for complex socio-ecological systems, major inefficiencies persist thus retarding management goals. Key gaps include a need for linkages between macro to micro-scale processes, critical theoretical approaches, and investigation of the local outcomes of industry. This research employs environmental justice GIS methods to delineate risk zones for exposure to water pollution resulting from nexus metabolism in a region of long-term rural industrialization – Kern County, California. Here, the nexus is conceptualized as the intersections of industrial agriculture, fossil fuel development, and water. Marx’s metabolic rift theory and the limits to growth provide the theoretical assumptions that an economic system based on never-ending growth results in socio-environmental crises. Risk buffers were created around fossil fuel development wells and agricultural lands that receive the highest amounts of pesticides according to crop type. Buffer areas were dissolved to create risk zones. Databases containing tap water quality and nexus industry-related disease death rates were imported into ArcGIS Pro to examine impacts inside vs outside the risk zones. Results show that, while several chemicals related to nexus industries throughout the valley portion of the county far exceed safety thresholds, levels for most of these chemicals are significantly higher within the risk zones and even greater yet in areas where the risk zones overlap. While Alzheimer’s deaths per capita are higher in the risk zones, cancer death rates per capita are higher in the fossil fuel risk zones vs the agricultural risk zone.</p>
Keywords: Critical Geography, Global Change, Sustainability, GIS, Complex Socio-Ecological Systems
Authors:
Deseret Weeks, University of California, Merced; Submitting Author / Primary Presenter
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Visualizing the limits to growth and the metabolic rift in the neoliberal nexus
Category
In-Person Paper Abstract