As discussed above, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September of 2017, just 2 weeks later the island was hit with the category 5 storm, Hurricane Irma (US Department of Commerce, 2017). A continued rise in the number and intensity of hurricanes should be expected with global warming. Lower economic areas are not as resilient and are not being able to bounce back from disasters as quickly as more affluent areas. Extreme storms have the ability to widen the gap between the wealthy and the poor in Puerto Rico. Moreover, anthropogenic climate change is to blame for the intensity of the storms hitting Puerto Rico and other islands in the Caribbean (IPCC, 2014). 97% of published climate scientists agree that humans are to blame for the warming that has taken place on our planet over the past half-century (Cook, 2016). ![]() The United States is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere due to its burning of fossil fuels (Environmental Protection Agency, 2017).
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