Sarah Molinari, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Integrative and Global Studies, co-wrote a public essay titled “Puerto Rico’s Water Crisis is also a Debt Crisis” which was published in Jacobin Magazine.
The essay explores research co-led by Molinari about the connections between Puerto Rico’s summer 2026 water emergency, public debt, and the climate crisis. The authors argue that the water crisis is a lens to re-examine infrastructural neglect, development, and patterns of re-militarization shaping the archipelago and their implications for Caribbean waterway stewardship. Co-authors include professors Marisol LeBrón (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Isabel Guzzardo Tamargo (Seton Hall University), both of whom collaborate with Molinari on the Puerto Rico Syllabus, a digital resource for teaching and learning about Puerto Rico’s debt crisis.
Molinari is one of several Worcester Polytechnic Institute faculty members who are part of the Caribbean Collaborative Action Network. The network, funded by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, works to build regional knowledge, connections, and capacity to adapt climate threats.
photo by Ricardo Arduengo / AFP via Getty Images
