excalibur
Diamond Member
- Mar 19, 2015
- 28,374
- 57,356
- 2,290
Well, Puerto Rico is a mess. A corrupt, disaster of a mess.
There's a reason that more Puerto Ricans live in America than live in Puerto Rico itself.
Truth hurts.
Just as the dire situation in Puerto Rico after the storm is at least in part an outgrowth of existing financial and infrastructural woes, the ubiquitous threats of contamination are outgrowths of problems that plagued people before the storm. Indeed, the island’s financial crisis was also an environmental crisis. Much of the commonwealth’s debt is attributable to PREPA, the island’s government-owned power authority, whose ongoing problems produced rolling blackouts even before Maria.
...
The problems in Puerto Rico feel almost too big to grasp. The mounting pressures of an aging and inefficient energy infrastructure, multiplying contaminated sites, waste disposal, and the most contaminated drinking water supply in the United States have long pointed in the direction of disaster. And now the problems are so much bigger. Tons of manmade debris and millions of pounds of foliage clog streets and waterways, and threaten to produce an acute trash and pollution crisis in the months to come. At least four hurricane-related deaths have been attributed to diseases like leptospirosis from bacteria in water, a number that seems likely to rise.
...
www.theatlantic.com
There's a reason that more Puerto Ricans live in America than live in Puerto Rico itself.
Truth hurts.
Just as the dire situation in Puerto Rico after the storm is at least in part an outgrowth of existing financial and infrastructural woes, the ubiquitous threats of contamination are outgrowths of problems that plagued people before the storm. Indeed, the island’s financial crisis was also an environmental crisis. Much of the commonwealth’s debt is attributable to PREPA, the island’s government-owned power authority, whose ongoing problems produced rolling blackouts even before Maria.
...
The problems in Puerto Rico feel almost too big to grasp. The mounting pressures of an aging and inefficient energy infrastructure, multiplying contaminated sites, waste disposal, and the most contaminated drinking water supply in the United States have long pointed in the direction of disaster. And now the problems are so much bigger. Tons of manmade debris and millions of pounds of foliage clog streets and waterways, and threaten to produce an acute trash and pollution crisis in the months to come. At least four hurricane-related deaths have been attributed to diseases like leptospirosis from bacteria in water, a number that seems likely to rise.
...
An Unsustainable Island
Hurricane Maria has exposed and intensified Puerto Rico's ecological crisis and its human consequences. Can Puerto Ricans build a more sustainable future?
www.theatlantic.com
