Cecilia A. Green, Syracuse University and Farah Nibbs, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Many countries collect and store rainwater for use during drought or dry seasons. But this technique is rarely used in the Caribbean, where hurricanes can leave people without water for months.
Corruption has made hurricane Caribbean countries’ recovery less efficient and more expensive, new research shows. Misuse of funds may also trigger more disaster-related deaths.
The Caribbean braces for another hurricane season even as many nations remain crippled by the catastrophic damage of 2017. Here, experts assess the region’s difficult and costly storm recovery.
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
The 2017 hurricane season showed that Caribbean nations urgently need more resilient power grids. But the effects of climate change – including more severe storms – complicate the shift to renewables.
Deron Burkepile, University of California, Santa Barbara and Mark C. Ladd, University of California, Santa Barbara
With coral reefs in crisis around the world, many organizations are working to restore them by growing and transplanting healthy corals. A new study spotlights techniques that help restored reefs thrive.
Miguel Díaz-Canel, a 57-year-old engineer and Communist Party loyalist, is expected to succeed Raúl Castro as president of Cuba. Will change bring prosperity or instability to the Cuban people?
Sea snakes spend their lives in the water, giving birth to live young at sea, so why are they only found in some of the world’s oceans? The answer lies in a combination of climate and geography.
New research suggests politics and risk perception may explain why the US and Caribbean see climate change so differently, though both places are ever more vulnerable to powerful hurricanes.
Lotto scamming — a criminal enterprise largely targeting elderly Americans — is lucrative in western Jamaica, where it is thought to be behind 50 percent of all area murders last year.
Trump’s anti-Haitian rhetoric ignores a long pattern of migration from Haiti to the U.S., often driven by American meddling in Haitian affairs. Today, the two nations are irrevocably bound by history.
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
Tesla, China and Richard Branson are among those offering to help Caribbean nations rebuild – and do so in a greener, more resilient way – after the devastating 2017 hurricane season.
Anthony T. Bryan, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus
Guyana is on the verge of an oil bonanza that could bring in US$1 million a day. But if it’s not careful, this poor nation – population 750,000 – could fall prey to the dreaded ‘resource curse.’
A Puerto Rican librarian with a personal relationship to hurricanes describes the brutal reality of life on this Caribbean island more than a month after Maria and Irma left their mark.
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.
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 and 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.