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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 artice cites WHO preparadness plans and Doctors without Borders as sources of policy on emergency response, in the context of global health. With the rise in infectious disease, there is a risk for "global threat" that is not directly targeted at a group, but rather engineered through social and economic factors. This means that emrgency preparadness is key. However, the article metions the use of Emergency repsonse as a bit of a cop-out. It is much easier to plan for the worst than prevent it from happening. The author states "... measures focused on mitigating potential emergencies are easier to implement rhan longer-term structural interventions." 

The film would have the most impact on the general population, like something that would be played on a news channel before prime time. The level of emotional appeal and interpersonal drama is enough to keep anyone intersted for the length of the film. The film does however paint the experience in a negative light, which could discourage professionals from pursuin mission worlk. Thats why the general population would be most receptive to the struggles. Its easy for them to say "I would do something like that if...." without having the ability to do anything. 

“In particular, the syndrome articulates the powerful way in which displacement is simultaneously recognized as a cause, symptom, and, ultimately, false cure for disasters. Chronic disaster syndrome represents the health outcome of life in an ongoing state of “disaster” or “emergency” (Agamben 1998; Fassin and Vasquez 2005) that, as in this case, is perpetuated by industries of “disaster” capitalism (Klein 2007; Klinenberg and Frank 2005). The total collapse of infrastructure and social services initiated by storm and floods produced what Naomi Klein calls the perfect conditions of “shock”—a collapse so severe as to authorize a new government arrangement in which the state contracts with private firms to provide services it previously provided”

“One of the recurring themes that we heard from those who were still displaced in trailers or temporary living situations (e.g., with relatives), but more so from those who had returned and were, in a few cases, back in their homes, was that, even if the neighborhoods were being rebuilt, people had lost so much that nothing would never be the same.”

“We were, like I said, we were close. No more. Not anymore. And some of it too is that we got away from one another and we realized how little we got in common. Or else the storm took it away. I don’t know which it is, you know. Cause I’m an analyzing person and I’ll try to figure it all out sooner or later. But it’s either we just really don’t have anything to talk about anymore, or we never did, and we just thought we did. It’s weird. …”

“This chain of events prompted residents to say things like: “We all asked, ‘Who was meaner: Katrina, Rita or FEMA? And everybody’s pointing at FEMA.’ Which is worse— Katrina, Rita or FEMA? FEMA””

“Katrina offered an opportunity for disaster capitalism to become entrenched, supported fully by the U.S. government. But the failure of an effective recovery in New Orleans has created yet another kind of “disaster”—the ongoing disaster. New Orleans offers an example of the perpetuation of a “state of emergency” that was initiated by Katrina but has been sustained by ongoing politicoeconomic machinery—a machinery that ultimately needs to “have a disaster” to justify its existence.”

“Hurricane Katrina was an “event” disaster that mobilized a “state of emergency,” which subsequently led to the authorization of a military response to an “ongoing” disaster that the failure of bureaucratic machinery helped to prolong. The “state” was erased as a functioning buffer for the poorest sectors of the socioeconomic hierarchy, and in its place a “free market” in private-sector development contracts emerged. Just as those citizens who were living paycheck to paycheck or welfare check to welfare check were evicted first by the forces of nature and then by the force of the unfettered free market authorized by the “emergency,” so too were the social programs, previously offered by the government to provide safety nets to these populations, eviscerated”

The World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA65.4 on the global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response from health and social sectors at the country level. This resolution called for the creation of a plan detailing services, legislation, strategies and programmes provided for the purpose of treating mental health conditions.

I'd assume the author, Tina Moore, received the information from the FDNY and NYPD reports mentioned in the article. 

This article has implications for public health, as the treatment of people, rather than patients, is what is emphasized here. 

Participants receive a PhD upon successful completion of the program.