It’s not just about rebuilding infrastructure after storms: Cities need to systematically rethink their knowledge systems which are at the heart of urban resilience.
Evidence shows that US taxpayers are less willing to support extensive disaster relief when the victims are not white. Could that explain the Trump administration’s lackluster support for Puerto Rico?
If humanitarian need can’t move the Trump administration to save Puerto Rico, then perhaps American self-interest will: The island is a crucial part of the country’s economic and military machinery.
Puerto Rico’s Cayo Santiago Research Station has been a world-famous site for primate studies since 1938. Now scientists are working to save its staff and rhesus monkey colony after Hurricane Maria.
Hurricane Maria has left 3.4 million Puerto Ricans facing shortages of food, health care and transit, an American humanitarian crisis fueled by the US territory’s May 2017 bankruptcy.
Levi Gahman, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus et Gabrielle Thongs, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus
The Caribbean is facing its second deadly hurricane in as many weeks. This isn’t just bad luck: the region’s extreme vulnerability to disaster also reflects entrenched social inequalities.