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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 correlations between mental health disorders and EMS is discussed since those in emergency response are more open to suffer form mental disorders in the midst of disasters. Aside form that the focus was more on how to better study vulnerable populations who have experienced trauma, such as EMS.

The personal stories of the event, especially of the one paramedic whose name I didn't catch (Hispanic, Female). The emotional tellings of the events were incrediably visceral. I cannot conceive a scenario worse than what they had to deal with. 

The authors include Paul E Farmer, Bruce Nizeye, Sara Stulac, Salmaan Keshavjee. Paul Farmer is a physician and anthropologist that is very active on this subject and has many different publications on the matter. Paul and the other authors are all involved with Partners in Health. All authors are doctors and very active in global health and efforts. Partners in Health focuses on developing healthcare in countries of need.  

This is a 180 page document that has hundreds of components in terms of what information, as well as measures and advice that the report includes and recommends. The report contains information on the radioactive release amounts and deposition in the urban, environmental, agricultural and aquatic areas surrounding the plant. Recommendations for future monitoring and research are also provided. Countermeasures are also widely discussed and ways in which people can combat and help reverse effects of the radiation and evacuations. The effects the disaster had on plants and animals is also analyzed and supported by facts and figures. The amount of human exposure and recommendations are also discussed. Future trends are analyzed as well as very detailed reports of the weather during the time of the incident, how that effected things, how specific types of animals were effected, the differences between external and internal doses.  A break down of the impact on air, shelter, surface water, groundwater etc. is also provided. Needless to say, pretty much any single detail that could possibly be known about the condition during the event and after the event were researched and documented in this report. 

-“…since the era in which demand for foreign labor made immigration a social necessity seem so remote, the immigrant’s body was entirely legitimized through its function as an instrument of production, the performance of which was interrupted by illness or accident.” – Succinctly captures modern views of illness of foreigners.

-Unless his presence constitutes a threat to public order, any foreigner habitually resident in France whose health is such that he requires medical treatment the lack of which could lead to exceptionally serious consequences, and provided that he is effectively unable to receive appropriate treatment in his country of origin, will be granted a temporary residence permit validated ‘for private and family life.’” Ordinance of November 2, 1945; modified on May 11, 1998 to bring into line with the European Convention of Human Rights

-“Should we accept ‘getting our hands dirty’ by agreeing to work with the immigrants’ service of the prefect’s office on the difficult issue of deportations?” asked Charles Candillier, a medical officer in the Seine-Saint-Denis Directorate of Healthy and Social Welfare, in an internal memo. His answer is crystal clear: “Although we recognize the ethical ambiguities of the situation, we did agree, on the grounds that our intervention could only be beneficial in helping to prevent arbitrary explusions.”

A recent article was published about the technologies that the American Red Cross relies on and offers. Red Cross offers a free mobile app that provides lifesaving information on anyones phone who wants and needs it. Many volunteers utilize this information to be able to respond on scene when necessary. Their national shelter system and home fire geographic information system also helps them map out the best escape routes and prevention methods utilizing technology as well as providing them with fast response alarm times. The American Red Cross also depends on other organizations as well as technologies to help transport people, volunteers, medicine, etc to areas in need. They also depend on other organizations for response orders and collaboration of technologies, resource, hospitals and knowledge. 

The argument is supported through the use of other work by professionals in this field and on this topic, which corroborate the author's own findings and provide material support for his arguments. Secondly, case studies along with statistics and data are provided along with stories of patients and their experiences in Ankara. Along with interviews and statistics, an in depth background is also provided by the author in which he analyzes the meaning of narrative and explains its connection with culture. 

It creates a history and a better undestanding of the events that affected so many people on the East coast. It also compares the two storms to exhibit in both cases there were things we could have done better.