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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 article discusses several disasters that resulted in major loss of human life in the US; it examines the similarities and differences between them, and how they've evolved through the years. The first disaster that was discussed was the burning of the US Capitol Building in 1814. The article then moves on to discuss the Hague Street boiler explosion and building collapse in New York in 1850, the Iroquois Theater FIre in Chicago in 1903, and finally, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. This article points out that in the first two investigations, there was a lot of finger pointing that took place when the government (both federal and local) and private individuals investigated the aftermath. Moving into investigating the more recent two incidents, individuals and organizations may have finger-pointed, but they also conducted thorough investigations that resulted in recommendations for change to save life and property in the future.

Dider Fassin is a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in New Jersey. As a physician, he is an expert in internal medicine and public health. He also has studied mortality disparities and is said to have developed the field of critical moral anthropology. Dr. Fassin doesn't appear to be professionally situated with respect to emergency response. He currently studies "punishment, asylum, inequality, and the politics of life," all of which are abstracted greatly from emergency response. He has published a book entitled The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry Into the Condition of Victimhood, which may be of interest of the DSTS Network. 

I further examined the course of events and response to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. I also drew upon my knowledge of how the UN works to investigate how they would be able to assist in response to emergencies of the nuclear type. I also looked at how the nuclear reactor near my home town prepares citizens in its immediate vicinity for emergencies related to it.

This system was built for academia worldwide to study the historical context behind technical and scientific issues related to large-scale disasters. They enhance the knowledge of scholars of where science and technology, history, and Asia meet. The site uses volunteers to translate various resources into English, Japanese, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, and Chinese so many people can share in the knowledge that others have.

This article discusses how organizations can respond to and mitigate the effects of public health disasters. They discuss different responses to past crises and how past crises are different than those that have been presenting themselves in the modern era.

It was difficult to figure where this article had been referenced or discussed. It was included in a volume of History and Technology, so it would have been distributed along with the rest of the articles in the book. On "researchgate.net" it did not list anyone who had cited it, so my assumption is that it is not heavily referred to outside of this class.

Emergency response isn't addressed in this report. This report deals with higher-level policy and morality issues.