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publication of data in open science

As a participant in the NOLA Anthropocene Campus, I have gained insights on how communities, stewards, and managers of ecosystems in New Orleans have rolled out forms of interspecies care vis-à-vis ongoing environmental changes, coastal erosion, climate catastrophes and their deeply present and current effects (i.e., the 2010 BP oil disaster). Whilst much analytical lens has been given to geospatial changes in the study of the Anthropocene, here, I focus on how relations to non-human beings, also threatened by the changing tides of NOLA’s waterscapes, can enrich our understanding of such global transformations.

After disasters like Katrina, urban floodwaters harbored many hidden perils in the form of microbes that cause disease. Pathogenic bacterial exposure occurred when wastewater treatment plants and underground sewage got flooded, thus affecting the microbial landscape of New Orleans and increasing the potential of public health risks throughout Southern Louisiana. But one need not wait for a disaster event like Katrina to face these perils. Quotidian activities like decades of human waste and sewage pollution have contaminated public beaches now filled with lurking microbes. Even street puddle waters, such as those found on Bourbon Street, contain unsanitary bacteria level from years of close human exploitation of horses and inadequate drainage in 100-year old thoroughfares. More recently, microbial ecologies have also changed in the Gulf of Mexico due to the harnessing of energy resources like petroleum. Lush habitats for countless species are more and more in danger sounding the bells of extinction for the imperiled southern wild.

Human-alteration has severely damaged the wetland marshes and swamps that would have protected New Orleans from drowning in the water surge that Hurricane Katrina brought from the Gulf of Mexico. The latter is something that lifelong residents (i.e., indigenous coastal groups) of the Mississippi River Mouth have been pointing to for a  long time. Over the past century, the river delta’s “natural” infrastructure has been altered by the leveeing of the Mississippi River. Consequently, much of the silt and sediments that would generally run south and deposit in the river mouth to refeed the delta get siphoned off earlier upstream by various irrigation systems.

While some actors see it as a futile effort, there have been many proposals to restore the Mississippi River Delta. For instance, the aerial planting of mangrove seeds has even been recommended to help protect the struggling marshes and Louisiana’s coastal region. Tierra Resources, a wetland’s restoration company, proposed that bombing Lousiana’s coast with mangrove seeds could save it. Mangrove root systems are especially useful in providing structures to trap sediments and provide habitats for countless species. Additionally, mangroves have been touted as highly efficient species in carbon sequestration, thus taking carbon dioxide out of the biosphere.

Species diffusion into new environments has been of great concern for the different lifeways these soggy localities sustain, whether human or non-human. Many so-called “invasive species” have been identified throughout the river delta by researchers at the Center for Bioenvironmental Research hosted by Tulane and Xavier University. Such species have disrupted local ecological relations and practices and have had profound economic effects. Some plants have even entirely blocked waterways in the swamps and estuaries where salt and freshwater mix. 

Louisiana’s humid subtropical climate, and the diverse ecosystems therein, also warrant attention in that they can incubate some of the world’s deadliest parasites and other microbes. Of particular concern would be some of today's Neglected Tropical Diseases (i.e., Chagas, Cysticercosis, Dengue fever, Leishmaniasis, Schistosomiasis, Trachoma, Toxocariasis, and West Nile virus) often perceived as only affecting tropical regions of Latin America and revealing the enduring legacies of colonial health disparities.

How and when are seemingly quotidian events and upsets understood as not isolated but rather as produced in conjunction with other anthropocenics worldwide? What roles will interspecies relations and forms of care play as we cope with further anthropocenic agitation?

NOLA’s oldest tree, McDonogh Oak in City Park, 800 years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK9YoGpng_c&t=0s

Other trees in New Orleans: https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/new-orleans-louisiana/trees

 The mission of the IAEA is to promote and help the development of peaceful nuclear technologies and promote safety standards as well as inspect compliance to the commitments to non-proliferation treaties. (iaea.org)

                The IAEA has worked with Iran to complete seven projects and has another nine in the works for development of nuclear power, spent fuel processing, radiopharmaceuticals, heavy water, and security projects. (en.mehrnews.com/)

                The IAEA just held a conference in Manila to assist the Philippines in determining whether or not to revive its mothballed nuclear power plant, under the larger umbrella of the future of nuclear in the Asia-Pacific. (bworldonline.com)

                The agency also responded to the Fukushima incident. During the incident, they assisted Japan by analyzing a plethora of data and sending recommendation and results of their work. Over the last 5 years, the IAEA has sent ten expert missions and will assist in decommissioning the plant. Meanwhile, the IAEA is helping with monitoring leak/contamination management and managing radioactive waste. They are furthering first response efforts by hosting drills to better train and equip first responders for nuclear disasters. (iaea.org)

1)  “Our goal in collaborating with this project was to develop a set of anthropologically oriented case studies, drawn from a community sample (in contrast to more common clinical studies).”

2)  “We invited persons identified as suffering seizure disorders, along with their families, to tell us stories about their illness and to describe their illness experiences - to tell us about their seizures, their efforts to find effective treatment, the responses to their condition by persons in their community, and the effects of the illness on their lives.”

3)  “Data from this study provide the opportunity for addressing not only problems of medical care and public health, but for reflecting on theoretical and methodological questions central to this book as well.”

Virtually all of the references include in their title “social”, “structural violence”, a mention of poverty or underdeveloped country/community, or gender/social-status/race. The nature of the references concur with the nature of the article and references mainly other research articles which portray some aspect of the authors’ argument. 

The Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act was drafted by congress in 1985 as part of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985 which is a larger healthcare and social security law. The law passed in 1986.

                This article is an excerpt from a book which I do not have access to. The bibliography is not contained in the excerpt but bases on the supporting evidence used in the article we can infer a few things about it (see “What were the methods, tools and/or data used to produce the claims or arguments made…” above).

The New York Times conducted over 100 Interviews over 6 months with police officers, firefighters, government workers, and witnesses.

“Those interviews were supplemented by reviews of 1,000 pages of oral histories collected by the Fire Department, 20 hours of police and fire radio transmissions and 4,000 pages of city records, and by creating a database that tracked 2,500 eyewitness reports of sightings of fire companies, individual firefighters and other rescue personnel that morning.”

The main point of the article is to show that Riker Island is an environmental and ethical catastrophe. This is supported by the heat emergencies that are risking lives of inmates. Air pollution in the facility is rampant due to methane gas that is being produced by the landfill it was built on. The decomposing landfill causes shifting in the ground that is leading to cracking which subjects the facilities to flooding during adverse weather.