{"id":{"repo_id":"mit","oai_identifier":"oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/106763"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mit/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/106763","repository":{"repo_id":"mit","name":"MIT","base_url":"https://dspace.mit.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Geographies of nowhere : Smeltertown and the rising wave of environmental refugees","abstract":"We don't often think of modern American communities as places that disappear. But lead pollution erased the tiny Texas community of Smeltertown from the map. And Smeltertown isn't alone. Across America we've scraped communities from the landscape, smudged them from our memories. Pollution made these places unfit for human habitation. It turned the residents of these communities into environmental refugees. Another kind of pollution climate change - threatens to push even more people from their homes. That these communities are gone is tragic. That there are billions of climate change refugees poised to join these environmental refugees is terrifying. What can we do to stop this tide? What can lessons can we learn from the towns that have already disappeared? What lessons can we learn from Smeltertown?","abstract_html":"We don't often think of modern American communities as places that disappear. But lead pollution erased the tiny Texas community of Smeltertown from the map. And Smeltertown isn't alone. Across America we've scraped communities from the landscape, smudged them from our memories. Pollution made these places unfit for human habitation. It turned the residents of these communities into environmental refugees. Another kind of pollution climate change - threatens to push even more people from their homes. That these communities are gone is tragic. That there are billions of climate change refugees poised to join these environmental refugees is terrifying. What can we do to stop this tide? What can lessons can we learn from the towns that have already disappeared? What lessons can we learn from Smeltertown?","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Pierre-Louis, Kendra"],"institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Thomas Levenson."],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2016,"date_issued":"2016","date_published":"2016","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:22:04Z","subjects":["Graduate Program in Science Writing."],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission."],"rights_urls":["http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106763","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Thomas Levenson."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing","MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.other","label":"Dc Contributor Other","values":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission."]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106763"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016.","Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. \"September 2016.\"","Includes bibliographical references (page 22)."]},{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["We don't often think of modern American communities as places that disappear. But lead pollution erased the tiny Texas community of Smeltertown from the map. And Smeltertown isn't alone. Across America we've scraped communities from the landscape, smudged them from our memories. Pollution made these places unfit for human habitation. It turned the residents of these communities into environmental refugees. Another kind of pollution climate change - threatens to push even more people from their homes. That these communities are gone is tragic. That there are billions of climate change refugees poised to join these environmental refugees is terrifying. What can we do to stop this tide? What can lessons can we learn from the towns that have already disappeared? What lessons can we learn from Smeltertown?"]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["S.M. in Science Writing"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Geographies of nowhere : Smeltertown and the rising wave of environmental refugees"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Thomas Levenson."],"dc:contributor.department":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing","MIT Program in Writing & Humanistic Studies"],"dc:contributor.other":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing."],"dc:creator":["Pierre-Louis, Kendra"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2017-01-30T19:17:15Z"],"dc:date.available":["2017-01-30T19:17:15Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2016"],"dc:description":["Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Graduate Program in Science Writing, 2016.","Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. \"September 2016.\"","Includes bibliographical references (page 22)."],"dc:description.abstract":["We don't often think of modern American communities as places that disappear. But lead pollution erased the tiny Texas community of Smeltertown from the map. And Smeltertown isn't alone. Across America we've scraped communities from the landscape, smudged them from our memories. Pollution made these places unfit for human habitation. It turned the residents of these communities into environmental refugees. Another kind of pollution climate change - threatens to push even more people from their homes. That these communities are gone is tragic. That there are billions of climate change refugees poised to join these environmental refugees is terrifying. What can we do to stop this tide? What can lessons can we learn from the towns that have already disappeared? What lessons can we learn from Smeltertown?"],"dc:description.degree":["S.M. in Science Writing"],"dc:identifier.uri":["http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/106763"],"dc:language.iso":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology"],"dc:rights":["MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission."],"dc:rights.uri":["http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582"],"dc:subject":["Graduate Program in Science Writing."],"dc:title":["Geographies of nowhere : Smeltertown and the rising wave of environmental refugees"],"dc:type":["Thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:22:04Z"}