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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

This program, as mentioned earlier is set in Tulane University in New Orleans yet has a lot of global outreach. This program's website has a map showing their direct partners all over the world on the front page. Partners include, Tulane University, RAND Gulf States Policy Institute, Louisiana State University,University of South Alabama, Louisiana Public Health Institute, Benadir University, Catholic Relief Services, dozens of colleges and programs in Africa such as the University of Zimbabwe as well as the Kinshasa School of Public Health, other partners includes UNICEF-Mali and others in Asia, such as Moi University and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center. Needless to say these are just  few of the many partners this program based out of Tulane has all over the world.

It was harder to find this information, but from what I gathered, the concept of national health insurance first became a topic of discussion during the Truman administration. From 1958 to 1964, controversies rose and a bill was drafted, specifically by who is unknown, but the signing of the act was part of Johnson's Great Society. Though names are not listed, it is said that those who previously worked on the King-Anderson Bill drafted this current Medicaid policy and that Wilbur Cohen, Assistant Secretary for Legislation of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, really pushed for this Medicare bill.  

Adriana Petryna has a PhD in Anthropology from UC Berkeley and teaches courses in this field at UPenn. She specializes in globalization and public health as well as medical anthropology. Her interests lie in Europe and the US, mainly the Chernobyl disaster. She centers her work on public and private forms of scientific knowledge production. She is very interested in the way science and technology play a role in the context of crisis.

This article has been cited in a few works, many having to do with Chernobyl or other nuclear disasters such as Fukushima. This reports has also been cited in numerous reputable journals as well as cited by numerous health organizations and experts on the topic. A lot of information from this report has been used to support other works reporting on Chernobyl. 

The study addresses vulnerable populations by initially focusing on youths that were in the vicinity of the Fukushima disaster at the time of the event. These subjects are vulnerable due to their proximity to the nuclear disaster, but also due to their age and the fact that they are still developing, causing them to be at more risk. 

This was an excerpt from a book entitled "Medicine, rationality, and experience" by Byron J. Good. This book has been cited in 16 different papers and works. Many of the works it has been cited in include anthropology of the Middle East, global health, Nurse and lay community members and other topics associated with anthropology and cultural communication.

The American Red Cross is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, charitable organization. The American Red Cross isn't a federal agency, so they do not receive regular federal funding to carry out their services. They get their money from public voluntary contributions and from cost-recovery charges they have for their services, such as health and safety training courses they offer. There are times though that the federal government contracts with the American Red Cross and provides material and aid assistance to support the Red Cross at times.