Puerto Rico's future at stake

The purpose of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development's symposium/workshop entitled, "Quantifying Sustainability in Puerto Rico: A Scientific Discussion," was to establish a dialogue between researchers and decision-makers and facilitate research to be used in policy and decision-making. The symposium was designed to discuss sustainability; present ongoing research/work related to the identified issues; discuss what researchers think policy-makers could do to move Puerto Rico toward sustainability, relative to their research; and discuss what was necessary to implement their research island-wide (e.g., data description [spatial and temporal resolution], policy relevance). The subsequent workshop provided participants an opportunity to present what they learned from the talks, how they could use the information, and what was necessary to implement the research into decisions (i.e., what research is needed to fill gaps). Participants included representatives from federal agencies, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, academic researchers, and nongovernmental organizations; participants provided expertise from several disciplines.

Journal of Student Research, 2021

The decline of Puerto Rico’s economy has been inextricably linked to the federal government’s phasing out and ultimate elimination of tax incentives that made it attractive for U.S. companies to establish operations on the island. One unsurprising consequence of these tax incentives is that they made the economy heavily dependent on both U.S. policies and the actions of U.S. companies. Thus, when the federal government repealed the incentives, including the well-known section 936, a major economic decline on the island was virtually inevitable, particularly in the absence of any alternative program to fill the vacuum left by the departure of U.S. firms. The consequence has been the creation of crippling debt, sky-rocketing unemployment, and the reversal of economic growth. The historical problems with the island’s fragile and outdated energy sector and power grid -- which are heavily dependent on expensive, imported fossil fuels, has been exacerbated by the economic decline. One vi...

Series: Climate Change and Social Change The damage from the two hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico was multiplied by US austerity plans that deprived the island of resources to implement its carefully crafted climate plans. Public debt and calls for privatization are further hampering Puerto Rico's recovery. Repairing damaged housing, utilities, and creating greater resilience requires major investment and community-based adaptation initiatives.

Shima Journal, 2019

This essay is based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out from December 2017 to August 2019. In it, I reframe the condition of disaster that Puerto Rico faced after Hurricane Maria through a consideration of the political economy of the post-hurricane crisis. I consider the ways that Puerto Rico has become a highly active extractive zone on the periphery of US empire and the role of Maria in these transformations, including in terms of the politics of knowledge production. I investigate the notion of auto-gestión for the ways it acts as both a mode of survival within the permanent crisis, and as a quandary of decolonisation that sometimes buttresses colonial state power. I also document some of the autonomous efforts that were part of the recovery, questions that people who survived the storm continue to confront in their everyday lives, and the importance of resource sharing strategies that exist outside the commodity market. Ultimately, enacting food sovereignty within a colony is a paradox, but one that harbours transformative potential. What is transformed after Maria? What changes lie ahead? What role will small farming and climate change play? Puerto Rico's future remains in question.

Seas at the Millenium. …, 2000

Puerto Rico is part of a volcanic island platform that includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico's prevailing weather is tropical. The trade winds blow consistently from east-northeast or east in the winter and from east-southeast in the summer. Stronger wind speeds are recorded during summer and winter than in spring and autumn. The narrow island shelf can be described in terms of north, east, south and west provinces. The north is the narrowest and is marked by higher wave energy and more terrigenous sediments. The east, south and west are carbonate platforms with coral reefs and dominantly carbonate sediments. Each of these provinces has different physical energies. Marine habitats are being diminished by excessive influxes of sediments and nutrients and by overfishing. During the past 50 years, more than 50 percent of the living coral has been lost and the rate of loss of reef areas has accelerated during the past 20 years. The high population density (>1,000 people per square mile) and a shift of population to coastal areas has had a strong effect. Although the problems of loss of habitat are generally recognized, very little has been done to protect the environment. Local resources for protection are meager, and Federal (United States) efforts are directed to Florida, Hawaii and the Pacific in terms of coral reef preservation.

NACLA Report on the Americas, 2018

New Labor Forum, 2018

Human Rights Magazine, 2024

Presently, power outages in Puerto Rico are a recurring problem and are compounded by voltage fluctuations that routinely damage household appliances and critical hospital equipment. These climate disasters potently elucidate that the over-heated waters surrounding the archipelago are propelling frequent extreme weather events that negatively impact the people of the archipelago.

2009

Puerto Rico and Greece face major challenges to resolving their debt. Both Puerto Rico and Greece are beholden to larger and more powerful political entities (the United States and European Union respectively) and therefore cannot determine for themselves how to resolve their crises. Furthermore, the financial institutions that provided the loans in both cases have called on the respective governments to implement austerity measures, asserting that Puerto Rico and Greece are primarily responsible for their economic turmoil. Thousands of public sector workers protested on September 11 in Puerto Rico against the austerity plan, which will freeze collective bargaining agreements and ban new hires and pay raises in order to save $622 million per year by 2020. Equally important will be following collective action responses in both the island and diaspora.