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Non-human Beings, "Natural" Infrastructure by Alberto Morales

AlbertoM

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.

Emerging Interspecies Relations

AlbertoM

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

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wolmad

Detailed research into historical cases was done to produce the claims and arguements presented in this article. No new investigation was conducted to obtain support for the arguement, and the historical cases were used to draw ties with the ongoing investigations taking place at the World Trade Center site.

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maryclare.crochiere

I further researched the reliability of some of the funds that were donated to in the months after the disaster. The FBI issued warnings to those donating to be sure they were giving money to a reliable fund, as there was a lot of fraud taking place. With so much money being donated internationally in a short period of time, it was likely easy for such to occur, and that also took away from the amount of aid Haiti received.

I also looked into the improvements in the country over the first few years since the earthquake. The people of Haiti were cited as having a strong desire to help rebuild, they just needed to be shown how. http://www.nbc29.com/story/20596283/haiti-sees-improvements-since-earth…

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maryclare.crochiere

It is an international program with the following member states/countries and the year that they joined:

"1957: Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Monaco, Morocco, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Socialist Federal Rep. of Yugoslavia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, Viet Nam

  • 1958: Belgium, Ecuador, Finland, Iran, Luxembourg, Mexico, Philippines, Sudan
  • 1959: Iraq
  • 1960: Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Senegal
  • 1961: Lebanon, Mali, Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • 1962: Liberia, Saudi Arabia
  • 1963: Algeria, Bolivia, Côte d'Ivoire, Libya, Syria, Uruguay
  • 1964: Cameroon, Gabon, Kuwait, Nigeria
  • 1965: Costa Rica, Cyprus, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar
  • 1966: Jordan, Panama
  • 1967: Sierra Leone, Singapore, Uganda
  • 1968: Liechtenstein
  • 1969: Malaysia, Niger, Zambia
  • 1970: Ireland
  • 1972: Bangladesh
  • 1973: Mongolia
  • 1974: Mauritius
  • 1976: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Tanzania
  • 1977: Nicaragua
  • 1983: Namibia
  • 1984: China
  • 1986: Zimbabwe
  • 1992: Estonia, Slovenia
  • 1993: Armenia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia
  • 1994: The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Kazakhstan, Marshall Islands, Uzbekistan, Yemen
  • 1995: Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • 1996: Georgia
  • 1997: Latvia, Malta, Moldova
  • 1998: Burkina Faso
  • 1999: Angola, Benin
  • 2000: Tajikistan
  • 2001: Azerbaijan, Central African Republic, Serbia
  • 2002: Eritrea, Botswana
  • 2003: Honduras, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan
  • 2004: Mauritania
  • 2005: Chad
  • 2006: Belize, Malawi, Montenegro, Mozambique
  • 2007: Cabo Verde*
  • 2008: Nepal, Palau
  • 2009: Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Lesotho, Oman
  • 2011: Lao People's Democratic Republic, Tonga*
  • 2012: Dominica, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago
  • 2013: San Marino, Swaziland
  • 2014: Bahamas, Brunei Darussalam, Comoros*
  • 2015: Djibouti, Guyana, Vanuatu, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados
  • 2016: Saint Lucia*Saint Vincent and the Grenadines*The Gambia*, Turkmenistan"

Events on the calendar are located in a number of different countries from the above list. The headquarters is in Vienna, Austria.

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wolmad

“ Living with long-term stress related to loss of family, community, jobs, and social security as well as the continuous struggle for a decent life in unsettled life circumstances, they manifest what we are calling ‘chronic disaster syndrome.’”

“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.”

“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.”

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maryclare.crochiere

"History shows that, with time, a given community of engineers and scientists has generally proven able to explain the technical particulars of a structural collapse. Yet, the demands placed in an investigation have as much, or more, to do with defining the dominant investigator and quickly addressing the fears and anger of the press, government, and an outraged public than they do with discovering the defiinintive technical truths of a catastrophic event."

"Steam power...utterly transformed American economic and social life in the 19th century. With this promising technology, though, arrived a whole series of risks, catastrophic boiler explosions being the most dramatic, and the deadliest."

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maryclare.crochiere

The Turkish culture associates "epillepsy" with mental retardation, so they usually refer to seizures as 'fainting". This can cause confusion when in a medical setting, as fainting and seizures are two different issues. The stories usually falled into one of five plot categories. The conditions were typically caused by a frightful experience, a childhood fever or injury, no apparent reason, chronic suffering, or an evil eye. These classifications help see trends and learn where improvements can be made.