Image courtesy of Hernaliz Vazquez Torres
Climate chaos is reshaping life in Puerto Rico every day. In the last five years, our island has faced numerous storms, a months-long drought and two category 5 hurricanes. During Hurricane Maria we were without communication and power for eleven months in some areas. We mourned 4,624 people killed by the hurricane. It’s tough to find someone on the island today whose life has not been touched by the loss of livelihood, of homes, and the interruption of daily life caused by climate chaos.
In the summer of 2019, Puerto Ricans rose up against a corrupt local government that failed to represent the interests of the people. In recent years massive corruption scandals have come to light and the economic and social safety net has deteriorated due to the mismanagement of the government, which ignores the injustices and inequalities in the country. Now, we face the COVID-19 pandemic in conditions of precariousness and impoverishment.
After the 2019 uprising, the people of Puerto Rico are reimagining and shaping our reality. It is necessary to put the climate crisis that impacts everything in our lives at the center of the conversation.
This is why organizations and individuals in Puerto Rico have come together to demand urgent action from the government to address the impact of the climate crisis. We have ten demands for the “Declaration for the Climate Crisis” including:
- A comprehensive public policy on climate change;
- Appointments of people committed to climate justice and update of laws to mitigate this crisis;
- Adoption of a Coastal Law;
- Supervision of contracts to avoid conflicts with environmental goals;
- Transformation toward a sustainable economy;
- Job creation to restore natural assets;
- Land planning with the climate crisis in mind;
- Citizen participation;
- Commitment to renewable energy;
- Protection of coasts, estuarine systems, agricultural land and an end to logging.
To face the climate crisis, we must make a holistic analysis of the social inequities that are driving climate chaos and exacerbating the impacts of climate and environmental injustice. Justice and equity must be essential pillars of our climate crisis agenda. We will not have environmental, economic, social and climate justice if we do not stop environmental devastation, eradicate poverty and economic inequity, and build a new economy that sustains life.
Our vision is for the "Climate Action Now" initiative to create dialogue, to unite our proposals, actions and initiatives on the climate crisis, and to advance the transition to a more just and sustainable Puerto Rico. We understand it is necessary to unite in the effort to make the climate emergency visible, after the passage of hurricanes Irma and María, vulnerability to earthquakes and pandemics.
We must focus our agenda on the transformation of the systems that cause climate chaos, particularly for the most vulnerable populations, beings and spaces of our archipelago and country. The initiative seeks to achieve a shared work agenda that ensures our ecosystems and lives to make our communities safe and inclusive spaces in the face of the reality of climate chaos.
The scientific community is in consensus that we only have ten years to act on the climate crisis. It is one of our greatest challenges and failing to attend to it would put everyone's lives at risk. It is urgent to address its increasingly exacerbating consequences.
Our Climate Action Now campaign is already bearing fruit. Recently we launched with a phone bank and social media pressure campaign. We had over 1200 people join our Facebook Live, and over ten thousand people engaged on social media. After our mobilization, the minority spokesperson with the New Progressive Party, Johnny Méndez, created a team to present legislation on climate change.
We call on you to join our movement. We demand action and climate justice, now! We are building a Puerto Rico where everyone in our community lives with dignity.