Una conversación con Frances Figarella García, de CoopERA

 

Creando una economía desde la cotidianidad

Por Mónica Pérez Nevárez

Durante una conversación reciente, Frances Figarella García me habló de cómo la Economía Social y Solidaria podría transformar la economía en la que vivimos, una economía que nos ha enseñado a confundir la conveniencia con el bienestar, el abuso con la disciplina, y el precio de las cosas con su verdadero costo.

Frances fue maestra de ciencias, profesora en la Universidad de Puerto Rico y líder en la implantación del Aprendizaje Basado en Problemas. En 2011 fundó, junto con otras profesionales, la cooperativa de trabajo CoopERA, nacida de una convicción sencilla: la cooperación es la manera más sabia de educar, aprender, trabajar y vivir. Llegó a este tema organizando, enseñando y trabajando en comunidad con otras personas. Frances también forma parte integral del grupo coordinador de la Red de Economía Social y Solidaria del Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana.

Cuando le pedí que explicara qué es la Economía Social y Solidaria, su respuesta colocó la conversación en un terreno distinto al de las definiciones económicas habituales. Habló de una forma justa y humana de organizar la actividad económica, comprometida con las personas y con el planeta. Habló de la calidad de vida antes que de la cantidad de posesiones, y de gobernanza democrática, autogestión, confianza, cuidado mutuo y responsabilidad compartida.

El dinero sigue siendo una herramienta de intercambio y el capital continúa cumpliendo una función, pero deja de ocupar el lugar de mando. Al organizarse mediante gobernanza democrática y responsabilidad compartida, la ESS crea mecanismos para limitar los atropellos y las injusticias que el capitalismo ha permitido y normalizado.

La diferencia es importante porque lo que solemos llamar “la economía” no es una ley natural. Es una forma histórica de decidir qué se produce, quién controla los recursos, cómo se reparte el beneficio y quién absorbe los daños. La industrialización concentró los medios productivos, el capital y los recursos naturales en pocas manos. También ayudó a formar el tipo de consumidor que ese sistema necesita: individualista, ensimismado, competitivo, y siempre insatisfecho.

Frente a las crisis creadas por ese modelo surgieron cooperativas, asociaciones y otras respuestas colectivas. La ESS pertenece a esa historia y está viva en muchos países, donde adopta formas locales de solucionar problemas según las necesidades de cada lugar.

Le pregunté cómo se podía ver la necesidad de la ESS en Puerto Rico, y Frances escogió el sistema alimentario como el ejemplo más claro y urgente. “El sistema alimentario permite ver la ESS completa: no sólo qué compramos, sino quién produce, cómo se remunera el trabajo, quién organiza la distribución, quién toma las decisiones y dónde permanece el valor generado”.

“Importamos alrededor del 85 por ciento de lo que comemos. Esa cifra describe cómo estamos expuestos a interrupciones de abastecimiento, aumentos en los costos de transportación, decisiones tomadas fuera del archipiélago y alimentos cuya calidad no controlamos”.

“Cuando agricultores y agricultoras de Puerto Rico siembran agroecológicamente, cuidan el suelo y crean mercados que acercan alimentos sanos a la gente, no sólo producen comida. También reducen nuestra dependencia y fortalecen nuestra capacidad de alimentarnos. Al hacerlo, cambian la relación que existe entre quienes producen, quienes consumen y el lugar que ambas partes habitan. Esa es una de las maneras más revolucionarias de “hackear el sistema”.

El ejemplo agrícola muestra que la ESS entra en la vida cotidiana mediante decisiones concretas que hacemos a diario: relacionarnos con nuestros vecinos, agricultores, y nuestras comunidades y comercios locales, cooperativos y solidarios que mantienen una mayor parte de la riqueza dentro de la comunidad.

Ojo, comprar localmente puede ser una puerta de entrada a la ESS, pero la proximidad geográfica, por sí sola, no convierte una actividad en solidaria. Un negocio puede ser local y continuar explotando a sus trabajadores, dañando los recursos naturales o concentrando sus ganancias en pocas manos.

Franes hizo hincapié en que lo importante no es solamente dónde se encuentra un negocio o de dónde viene un producto, sino cómo se produce, cómo se trata y remunera a quienes allí trabajan, quién toma las decisiones, dónde queda la riqueza generada y qué consecuencias tiene esa actividad para la comunidad y el ambiente.

“Lo mismo puede ocurrir al comprar en una farmacia de la comunidad en vez de acudir automáticamente a una gran cadena. Cuando estas transacciones apoyan empresas responsables, cooperativas o negocios comprometidos con su comunidad, el dinero no sale hacia cuentas corporativas externas. Circula entre personas que viven y trabajan aquí, sostiene empleos y producción local y, en el caso de los alimentos, reduce parte de la distancia y de la energía que exige una cadena larga de distribución”.

Si vamos a ver, la compra local resuelve una necesidad personal, pero también deja una huella económica que nos ayuda a todos. Sin embargo, el ejemplo agrícola plantea una dificultad: los alimentos producidos aquí pueden costar más que los importados y, por tanto, resultar menos asequibles para muchas personas.

Le pregunté a Frances por esa diferencia. Me respondió que “es cierto que los bienes agrícolas producidos aquí pueden costar más, pero que ese precio refleja el trabajo y el esfuerzo dedicados a su producción, en vez de depender de la baja compensación y de las largas jornadas laborales que suelen hacer posibles los precios más bajos.”

“Pero eso”, agregó rápidamente, “no convierte cada compra en un examen de moralidad. Los productos locales pueden costar más. Los horarios pueden ser menos cómodos. No todo está disponible en todo momento. La vida diaria de mucha gente ya está demasiado cargada y nadie es perfecto. Pero siempre existe la oportunidad de decidir qué uno quiere hacer y por qué”.

Frances no idealiza la situación y entiende las realidades. Las grandes corporaciones han construido su dominio alrededor de precios bajos, una escala masiva y la conveniencia que ofrecen a personas ya sobrecargadas de responsabilidades. Pedirle a cada individuo que investigue productores, compare alternativas, coordine recogidos y resuelva cada obstáculo reproduce el mismo individualismo que la solidaridad intenta superar.

En el caso de los alimentos, esas dificultades pueden resolverse colectivamente. Ahí cobra sentido una de las frases más prácticas de nuestra conversación. Frances recordó a una vecina que no había podido ir a la plaza del mercado a hacer su compra. “Dime lo que quieres y yo te lo busco”, le dijo. La vecina le entregó su lista y el dinero, y Frances hizo la compra por ella porque sabía dónde ir a conseguir los productos.

De la misma manera, una red comunitaria puede localizar productos, reunir pedidos, compartir transportación y distribuir el trabajo necesario para encontrar alternativas. Las compras colectivas no sólo abaratan o facilitan una transacción. Cambian quién carga con el esfuerzo. La solidaridad deja de ser una intención privada y se convierte en infraestructura para resolver problemas.

Sin embargo, Frances señaló que la barrera más difícil no siempre es el acceso. Es la manera de pensar. “Conocemos personas informadas, preocupadas por el ambiente y conscientes de la desigualdad que, aun así, no cambian sus hábitos.” Muchas creen que una decisión de consumo no puede afectar las políticas, los comercios ni la economía.

En Puerto Rico se le puede añadir a esa lista una desmoralización profunda. Hemos visto repetirse durante décadas políticas que benefician a unos pocos y hemos aprendido a desconfiar de nuestra propia capacidad para intervenir.

Frances respondió a esa desmoralización con un planteamiento más humano: “Hay que identificar a quienes ya han comenzado la transición y acercarse a ellos, pedirles ayuda” dijo. “Hacer un cambio acompañado es distinto a tratar de cambiar solo. Una persona le muestra dónde compra. Otra conoce a quien produce. Otra persona organiza un pedido o  coordina un viaje para un grupo a los mercados o a las fincas cercanas. Alguien comparte una receta, una herramienta o una idea. La capacidad personal aumenta cuando entra en una práctica colectiva y repetible.”

Lo que vemos en la producción y distribución de alimentos permite reconocer un patrón económico mucho más amplio. Puerto Rico no tiene que inventar desde cero esa nueva economía. Un porcentaje considerable de la población ya participa en cooperativas de ahorro y crédito. Existen proyectos agroecológicos, empresas propiedad de sus trabajadores, organizaciones sin fines de lucro, tiendas con productos solidarios, redes de productores y grupos comunitarios que manejan recursos y servicios con criterios de justicia.

Algo que quiere cambiar Frances es que se rconozca cuando uno esta actuando de manera solidaria. “Muchas personas participan en estas iniciativas sin reconocerse como parte de un movimiento económico más amplio. El problema es también de visibilidad: las piezas existen, pero no siempre se reconocen unas a las otras”.

“Por eso es importante conversar sobre mapas, directorios y herramientas que permitan encontrar organizaciones solidarias. Hay plataformas que pueden ser útil precisamente en ese punto: puede hacer visible lo que ya está ocurriendo, conectar a una persona con la comunidad que necesita y reducir la distancia entre una convicción y una acción concreta”.

Pero entiende que la tecnología tendría que permanecer en su lugar correcto: servir de puente, no sustituir las relaciones humanas; facilitar el acceso a información veraz, no difundir propaganda.

Ademas, abrió el panorama a otras posibilidades. “El mismo razonamiento que aplicamos a los alimentos locales puede aplicarse a la energía, el empleo, las finanzas y los servicios comunitarios. En su esencia, la ESS es una manera de reconstruir el país”.

Y añadió que “la soberanía alimentaria, las comunidades energéticas, el empleo digno, las finanzas solidarias y la gestión comunitaria de servicios parecen asuntos separados hasta que hacemos las mismas preguntas en cada uno: ¿quién decide?, ¿quién recibe el beneficio?, ¿qué ocurre con la riqueza creada?, ¿quién se hace cargo del daño?”

¿Esas preguntas cambian la conversación y nos brindan un poder que ahora no tenemos, verdad? le pregunte. “Si, permiten evaluar una empresa o una política no sólo por cuánto dinero produce, sino por la vida que hace posible, las capacidades que fortalece y las dependencias que deja atrás”.

“Vivir de acuerdo con esa visión exigirá aceptar límites y renunciar a ciertas comodidades. Habrá productos que no podamos conseguir de inmediato y decisiones que resulten más caras al principio”.

“También habrá que reconocer que el precio marcado en una góndola nunca contiene el costo completo. No incluye el suelo degradado, el salario insuficiente, el negocio local que cerró, la distancia recorrida ni la fragilidad de depender de cadenas de distribución que no controlamos”.

“Pero, si no perdemos de vista la meta, todos estos cambios valen la pelea” dijo Frances.

Al terminar nuestra conversación, cambiar la economía ya no me parecía una meta lejana. Frances trazó una descripción precisa de cómo comienza una transformación real. “Ocurre cuando dejamos de entregar automáticamente nuestra mente, nuestro dinero, nuestro trabajo y nuestro tiempo a sistemas que debilitan el lugar donde vivimos y comenzamos a dirigirlos hacia relaciones que lo sostienen”.

La economía se reproduce todos los días. Y si participamos en la economía social y solidaria cada día, cada día existe una oportunidad de crear la vida que queremos y necesitamos, en la cotidianidad de nuestras vidas. No hace falta esperar a que el país entero cambie de una vez. Podemos empezar por dar el primer paso, y buscar a gente como Frances, que nos enseñe el camino.  

Pueden ver el video aquí: https://youtu.be/Z8rR3xvuSf4

Patrocinado por PlanetWise.app/home 

 

Preparing for climate migrants

By Alexander Nazaryan, NYT Climate Forward 7/30/2026

By the end of the century, as many as 13 million American climate migrants could move inland from coastal areas because of sea level rise, according to research.

If those figures come anywhere close to being realized, it’ll be bigger a demographic shift in absolute terms than the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South and the Dust Bowl flight from the Great Plains.

Leaders in one city want to take in some of those migrants to help revitalize their area.

That city is Cincinnati. It recently came up with a Climate Migration Readiness Plan that lays out a blueprint for the metropolitan region to absorb as many as 525,000 newcomers by 2050. (That figure includes possible climate migrants and also accounts for “broader domestic relocation trends.”) It calls for building much denser housing, expanding public transit and decreasing the city’s reliance on fossil fuels. It also involves systematic monitoring of metrics that could presage population shifts, like distress in the housing insurance market.

Experts say the plan is a good opening bid in what could turn out to be a spirited competition for Americans displaced by increasingly common, and increasingly intense, bursts of catastrophic weather, including floods, wildfires and hurricanes.

“I think this is an important step forward, and it’s kind of a big one that probably a lot of cities could build on,” said Hannah M. Teicher, an assistant professor of urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design who writes about climate migration and adaptation. She was not involved in preparing Cincinnati’s plan.

Cincinnati’s mayor, Aftab Pureval, said he was partly motivated by watching New York and Chicago struggle to accommodate migrants bused in from Texas after they crossed the border from Mexico in search of asylum during the second half of the Biden presidency.

“When you have tens of thousands of people show up overnight, it creates a crisis,” Mr. Pureval, 43, said in an interview.

An especially vivid preview of domestic climate migration came in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. An estimated 100,000 to 300,000 people fled to Houston. The city welcomed the newcomers but, over time, tensions emerged. After winning re-election last year, Mr. Pureval, a Democrat, assigned Oliver Kroner, the director of the city’s Office of Environment and Sustainability, to come up with a plan, which was made public in May.

Part of the strategy, a sweeping zoning overhaul, makes it much easier to build multifamily housing in a city that was, until recently, zoned mostly for single-family homes. A solar array is being built on the site of a former landfill. And, after years of planning, rapid bus transit will get started in 2027.

The zoning changes did not go through unopposed. Some community groups feared that allowing taller buildings and denser housing would dilute the character of neighborhoods, especially the residential Hyde Park Square area on the city’s east side, and lower the value of surrounding properties.

And Mr. Pureval and Mr. Kroner acknowledge that a climate migrant influx may never come to Cincinnati. As in the case of New Orleans residents after Katrina, research shows that displaced people tend to stick as close as possible to their former homes, for reasons that include financial restraints and social ties. Cincinnati may ultimately prove too far for people fleeing floods in Florida or fires in California.

In that case, they hope current residents will benefit from Cincinnati’s climate readiness plan, especially those who have already been dealing with heat islands, parks in disrepair and other vulnerabilities that wealthier residents have generally avoided.

Take the zoning overhaul, which could accommodate thousands of newcomers in multifamily apartment buildings. An increase in housing supply would also drive down prices for Cincinnatians, 29 percent of whom are rent-burdened, meaning that 30 percent or more of their income goes to housing costs.

If migrants do come to Cincinnati in large numbers, they would be less likely to exacerbate a process known as “climate gentrification” by displacing the people already living there.

Money from the sale of the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which yielded $1.6 billion for an infrastructure fund, is also going to projects like park rehabilitation, storm water management and traffic abatement. “Climate migration enables us to double down,” Mr. Pureval said. “This is the right thing long-term.”

That argument may politically insulate him if a migrant wave never materializes in Cincinnati. But whether it does or not, one thing is certain: Climate change is going to reshape the country. America’s aging infrastructure is bound to feel the pressure. Economic disparities could widen. And cities need to be prepared.

“We feel a lot of urgency,” Mr. Pureval said.

August 2026 PlanetWise Newsletter

 

Why Do the Economic Numbers Feel So Small?

A household accounting of what really matters

By Mónica Pérez Nevárez | August 2026 PlanetWise Newsletter

I have been going through my things lately, deciding what has value and what I can let go of. A camera I have not used in years. Books I loved once and will not read again. Furniture too big for the small living room I have now. Every item a question: does this still serve the life I am living now, or is it a relic from a life I am no longer living in? That is the accounting I am actually doing this month, and it has very little to do with the accounting splashed in the news.

The latest national reports say the American economy grew at an annual rate of 1.5 percent during the second quarter, while inflation-adjusted consumer spending increased at an annual rate of 3.2 percent. Consumer prices were 3.5 percent higher than a year earlier. Food was up 3 percent, electricity 4 percent, gasoline 26.7 percent and energy overall 15.7 percent. The numbers are official. I do not think they are invented. But lately, economic numbers feel too small beside what I encounter in the produce aisle.

Perhaps that is because I live in Puerto Rico, where economic growth has felt suspended in the same uncomfortable limbo for most of the past two decades. Perhaps it is because averages tend to flatten the experience of particular people in particular places. A national inflation rate cannot tell me why foods I remember buying for ten dollars now cost fifteen. It cannot distinguish between an increase in the electric rate and a mini-split working overtime to keep one room medically tolerable during a heat wave. It does not know that my electric bill has moved from roughly $150 to $200 a month, or that gasoline I once bought for seventy-five cents a liter now costs around $1.10.

The numbers may be accurate. But they have been averaged until they mean nothing to my daily life.

I feel economic change at the checkout counter long before any news report averages it out. I see it as smaller meals, postponed errands, a higher electric bill, buying less gas at the pump, and the quiet removal of things that no longer fit within this month's budget. It changes what I cook, when I cook, and whether cooking a full meal is even sensible. During this heat, I make snacks into meals, eat one beautifully seasoned vegetable, or buy a deli sandwich, because adding more heat to the house would have just created another problem. And it is the same instinct that has me going room to room deciding what I still need, what someone else might want to buy, and what simply needs to go. The heat has done what nostalgia couldn't; I am not being sentimental about any of it anymore. My yard sale is not a eulogy for my past. It is an inventory for my possible futures.

I know perfectly well that I am not following a graceful plan. I am improvising, adapting and being careful with every bit of time and money while still getting what I need. My goal is very clear: get through this rough patch, and if it turns into a longer situation, fit my life to the new conditions. Some days that means feeding myself simply. Some days it means photographing and pricing my possessions for a virtual yard sale. Either way, it is economic activity in its most honest form. I assess what remains, decide what has value, buy and use things carefully, and try to waste as little as possible.

This heat has also taught me that cool air is sometimes a medical necessity, because heat triggers my asthma. I conserve electricity in the morning by opening the windows for cross-ventilation, and I close myself into my air-conditioned room when the midday heat becomes unbearable. Distinguishing between the actions I can reconsider and the ones that keep me alive is where my resilience begins. It is the same kind of sorting I am doing with my belongings this month. I am learning to distinguish between the things I can live without and the things I cannot.

That sorting is changing how I think about simplicity, too. Making “less” into “enough” is not about romanticizing deprivation, nor is it about enduring a situation that better planning could have prevented. It means removing unnecessary difficulty so my limited money, time, strength and attention go toward what actually matters. A simple meal can still nourish me. A small appliance can cook a meal without heating the entire kitchen. A clothesline can replace the dryer for my weekly wash, just as it did for two years during Covid, when I had no washer or dryer. That was adapting and learning something I still use.

I ask the same question of my house that I have been asking of my closets: what needs to keep working, no matter what happens? One cool room. One working refrigerator. Water storage. Light. Communications. I keep a propane camp stove, repurposed from the years I used to go camping, that lets me cook without depending on the grid. I have a cooler that keeps medications safe and keeps face and neck cloths cold. I have handheld fans and a spray bottle of water. I have some skills that let me earn a little money, legs that let me reach my neighbors on foot, and enough standing in the community to help organize a mutual aid brigade if one is needed. I protect the essentials first and build whatever else I need in stages, the same way I am letting go of my things in stages.

Those are the beginnings of an Energy List. What I still need to build toward is a larger household battery for the refrigerator, some solar capacity, a cistern and a way to filter water, and a pantry built around canned foods I actually eat. The list also includes knowledge of which part of the house stays coolest and which gets hottest, when to use which appliance, how to break a hard task into manageable pieces, and which neighbor has which tool or skill so I am not duplicating what already exists two doors down. None of this gives me certainty. It gives me some peace of mind, and it probably spares me some of the worst consequences of the next heat wave, prolonged outage or interruption in the things I normally depend upon.

This household accounting is also changing how I look at the things I buy. The price tag has never contained the whole cost of getting something to my supermarket. Cheap food may depend on exhausted soil, badly paid labor, long transportation routes and refrigeration from one end of the chain to the other. Convenient electricity may depend on a grid I cannot rely on and fuel whose price I cannot control. A low price can conceal damage done to some forgotten stream and every town downstream from it. A high price can conceal fragility. What matters is not what something costs today, but what I will need, every day after that, to remain fed and healthy.

Perhaps the economic numbers are not too small after all. Perhaps they were never designed to describe a life this closely. They can show broad movements in a national economy. They cannot tell me what to keep, what to sell, what to protect or how to get through August. So I choose to begin somewhere else: with the economy as I find it in my house, one room and one shelf at a time.

I am looking at what should remain. I am deciding what has to be protected. And I am adapting as fast as I can, one clean drawer, one energy bill, one breath of cooler air at a time.

El Futuro no Exige Perfección; Exige Preparación.

Durante años pensé que estar preparado significaba tener la despensa llena, los gabeteros ordenados y una lista pegada al refrigerador con nombres y números importantes, como pequeñas anclas frente a lo desconocido. Imaginaba la preparación como una especie de armadura: un plan sobre adónde ir y qué hacer si los vientos del cambio se volvían demasiado amenazadores.

Pero he aprendido que al futuro no le impresiona la armadura que yo tenga. El futuro favorece una mente serena, atenta tanto a las oportunidades como a los obstáculos. La preparación no consiste en acumular provisiones. Es la habilidad y la práctica de convertirse en alguien capaz de afrontar el mañana con inteligencia en lugar de miedo. Alguien que sepa mantener la calma ante la incertidumbre, hablar con claridad, actuar con determinación y regresar, una y otra vez, a su centro de serenidad cuando el mundo empieza a tirar de los bordes.

El mundo que construimos tras la industrialización nos enseñó a depender de sistemas que escapan a nuestro control: cadenas de suministro globales, fuentes de energía lejanas, mercados volátiles e instituciones cuyas prioridades parecen cada vez más desconectadas de la vida cotidiana. Esos sistemas nos han aportado una comodidad extraordinaria, pero también una desigualdad creciente, daños ecológicos y nuevas formas de vulnerabilidad.

Es posible que estemos entrando en una etapa en la que algunos de los recursos de los que dependemos se vuelvan más costosos, menos fiables o de acceso más interrumpido. Por ejemplo: comida, agua, energía, vivienda, atención sanitaria o lugares seguros donde vivir. Estas posibilidades son reales. La escasez puede derivar en desplazamientos o migración. La presión ecológica puede convertirse en malestar político. La competencia por alimentos, agua, tierras y energía puede desembocar en conflictos belicos. Fingir que esto no es así no es optimismo. Pero la catástrofe tampoco es inevitable. Lo que importa es el margen de maniobra que tengamos.

Cuanto más dependemos de un único sistema, proveedor, fuente de ingresos o método para obtener lo que necesitamos, más vulnerables nos volvemos cuando cambian las condiciones. La alternativa no es abandonar la vida moderna, retirarse del mundo o convertirnos en pequeñas islas autosuficientes. Se trata de ganar capacidad en nuestras propias vidas y fortalecer los vínculos con nuestras comunidades.

Ese cambio nos exigirá más: más responsabilidad, más conocimientos prácticos, más participación activa y más cooperación. Es una mentalidad muy distinta a la que nos enseñó que la comodidad era sinónimo de progreso y que la independencia significaba no necesitar a nadie.

Para prosperar en un futuro incierto, necesitaremos conocer más de una forma de satisfacer nuestras necesidades. Tendremos que crear varias alternativas viables antes de que dichas alternativas se conviertan en necesidades. Deberemos ser capaces de contribuir al bienestar de nuestra comunidad y estar lo suficientemente conectados como para no afrontar todo en solitario.

Resiliencia e Interdependencia.

Esta es la lección principal: la resiliencia no es un camino único. Es una constelación de senderos, cada uno moldeado por dónde vivimos, a quiénes amamos y qué llevamos con nosotros. Una familia en Chicago se prepara de manera distinta a un agricultor en Costa Rica; una persona que alquila su vivienda, de forma diferente a un jubilado. No existen respuestas perfectas, solo tus propias preferencias. Tú eliges lo que es mejor para ti tras investigar las opciones y conversar con amigos, familiares y tu comunidad.

En los próximos meses, recorreremos juntos cuestiones que no tienen soluciones sencillas:

¿Debería quedarme aquí? ¿Debería mudarme? ¿Qué ventajas y desventajas conlleva cada opción? ¿Qué tan local deben ser mis alimentos? ¿Cuánta tecnología es suficiente? ¿Qué habilidades son importantes hoy en día? ¿De qué dependo realmente y qué posibilidades aún no he considerado en mi búsqueda de respuestas?

Si recorremos este camino juntos, tendremos más probabilidades de ver con claridad, planificar con sabiduría y observar mejor nuestras vidas, nuestro entorno, nuestras comunidades y nuestra propia mente. Nos convertiremos en mejores personas, mejores vecinos y mejores guardianes del pequeño rincón de la Tierra que se nos ha confiado. Y, poco a poco, en mejores antepasados ​​para quienes nos sucedan.

No tenemos que ser perfectos. Solo debemos estar preparados y avanzar con disciplina y asombro, abiertos a todas las posibilidades.

Capaces. Conectados. Resilientes.

Bienvenidos a *Walking with Monica*.

Patrocinado por PlanetWise.app

PlanetWise.app/home

The Future Doesn’t Ask for Perfect. It Asks for Prepared.

 For years I thought preparation meant stocked shelves, tidy drawers, a list taped to the refrigerator with important names and numbers, like small anchors against the unknown. I imagined readiness as a kind of armor: a plan for where to go and what to do if the winds of change grew too menacing.

But the future, I’ve learned, is not impressed by armor. It favors a steady mind, attuned to opportunities as well as pitfalls. Preparation is not a pile of supplies. It is the skill and practice of becoming someone who can meet tomorrow with smarts instead of fear. Someone who can breathe through uncertainty, speak with clarity, act with intention, and return, again and again, to their quiet center when the world starts pulling at the edges.

The world we built after industrialization taught us to depend on systems far beyond our control: global supply chains, distant energy sources, volatile markets, and institutions whose priorities increasingly seem disconnected from ordinary life. Those systems have brought extraordinary convenience, but also growing inequality, ecological damage, and new kinds of fragility.

We may be entering a period in which some of the things we depend on become more expensive, less reliable, or more unevenly available. For example, food, water, energy, housing, health care, safe places to live. These possibilities are real. Shortages can become displacement. Ecological stress can become political unrest. Competition for food, water, land, and energy can become conflict. Pretending otherwise is not optimism. But neither is catastrophe inevitable. What matters is how much room we have to move.

The more completely we depend on one system, one supplier, one source of income, one way of getting what we need, the more vulnerable we become when conditions change. The alternative is not to abandon modern life, retreat from the world, or become self-sufficient little islands. It is to become more capable within our own lives and more connected within our communities.

That shift will ask more of us. More responsibility, more practical knowledge, more physical participation, more cooperation. That is a very different mindset from the one that taught us that convenience was progress and independence meant needing no one.

To thrive through uncertain futures, we will need to know more than one way to satisfy a need. We will need to create several viable alternatives before those alternatives become necessities. We will need to be capable of contributing to our community’s well-being, and connected enough not to face everything alone.

Resilience and Interdependence.

This is the biggest takeaway: resilience is not a single road. It is a constellation of paths, each shaped by where we live, who we love, and what we carry. A family in Chicago prepares differently than a farmer in Costa Rica. A renter differently than a retiree. There are no perfect answers. Just your preferences. You choose what is best for you after researching your options and talking with friends, family, and community.

In the months ahead, we’ll walk together through questions without easy solutions:

Should I stay here? Should I move? What are the tradeoffs? How local should my food be? How much technology is enough? Which skills matter now? What do I truly depend on, and what possibilities have I not yet included in my search for answers?

If we walk this path together, we will have a better chance of seeing clearly, planning wisely, and becoming better observers of our lives, our surroundings, our communities, and our own minds. We’ll become better people, better neighbors, and better stewards of whatever small corner of earth has been entrusted to us. And slowly, better ancestors for all that follow us.

We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to be prepared; and walk forward with both discipline and wonder, open to the possibilities. 

Capable. Connected. Resilient.

Welcome to Walking with Monica.

Sponsored by PlanetWise.app
PlanetWise.app/home

More Than Food

More Than Food

Looking over my collection of glass jars I smile. They used to hold store-bought sauces, dips, and pickled everything. Once they were empty, I never quite knew what to do with them.

Now they hold cooked beans, rice, herbs, homemade stock, sauces, salads, and whatever I've meal-prepped that week.

I stopped buying things in jars. I started buying more fresh food. I began cooking from scratch.

Every one of those jars reminds me that a second life often brings unexpected gifts... and possibilities.

I don't have to depend on imported food. I can build my own freedom.

The Healing Blueprint

How PlanetWise.app connects your daily life to the largest repair project in human history. 

The 2025 update to the Planetary boundaries. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Credit: "Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on analysis in Sakschewski and Caesar et al. 2025".

A PlanetWise.app Blog

by Monica Perez Nevarez

PlanetWise.app is built on the premise that just as humans created a planet that has become toxic to our survival, we can also create a planet that is healthier and more balanced. I also believe that through small daily actions we make our personal life more meaningful and resilient. Putting both ideas together in this app, we can build a world we want to live in, on a time scale that is doable, through daily actions that reorient humans and habitats into better spaces ecologically, socially, and economically.

Researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre have identified nine planetary boundaries - the biological and chemical thresholds that define Earth's safe operating space (for humans). Seven of the nine have now been crossed. All seven show worsening trends. The other two - Ozone Depletion and Aerosol Loading - remain within safe limits, and they carry the most important message in this entire post:

We had a hole in the sky, and we healed it.

In the 1980s, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - chemicals in refrigerants and aerosol cans - were destroying the stratospheric ozone layer that shields life on Earth from ultraviolet radiation. The world responded with the Montreal Protocol, universally ratified, swiftly implemented, and successfully attained. The ozone layer is healing. It is expected to recover to 1980 values globally by 2040.

The takeaway? Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, put it plainly: "Failure is not inevitable. Failure is a choice."

This is why PlanetWise.app exists. Not to catalog catastrophe, but to make the alternatives visible, actionable, and shared. Everything our members do - every meal, every garden, every kilowatt - connects to one of the seven planetary boundaries. Most of you have already begun to heal them. PlanetWise.app is just the roadmap, the scorecard, and the community to share it with. So you have the full picture, and know the full weight of what you are doing, when you get there.

BOUNDARY 1: CLIMATE CHANGE

I was born at 314 parts per million of Atmospheric CO₂. That number reached 431 parts per million today. This is quickly approaching the high-risk threshold of 450 ppm, under which life will become exponentially harder, and which we are slated to hit by mid-2030. We have approximately one decade to change things. So we better get moving. 

Climate change is the boundary that touches everything else - it amplifies every other breach and compresses every timeline. But we have broken all of the processes down into actionable daily steps, so members will see their progress and how the changes affect their life, their family, and their community. This is PlanetWise’s blueprint for the world we want to live in. 

Your kitchen is a carbon capture system. Your daily compass is a climate action plan.

Every PlanetWise.app member who composts, eats less meat, installs LED bulbs, uses clean energy, and buys local food is actively addressing the most dangerous boundary on the planet. And that is your life purpose made tangible.

Let me explain how weget there. We have a Tier System, from Tier 1 to Tier 5. This makes breaking down the actions we need to take much easier, for every boundary crossed. In this Climate Change Chapter, our suggestions are:

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Shift toward a plant-rich diet. Take public transit or a bicycle when you can. Compost religiously. Reduce food waste - our forthcoming Zero Waste Cookery cookbook will show you exactly how. Cut back on air travel; this is the single highest-carbon reduction individual decision most of us will make.

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Support local composting centers - bring scraps, volunteer, donate. Advocate for renewable energy transitions and community energy policy. Organize tree-planting and urban canopy campaigns in your neighborhood.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Push for electric fleet conversions in the stores you buy from, and advocate for supplier emissions commitments. Ask farmers you buy from  about cover crops and fertilizer management - and regenerative agriculture processes in general. Those are nitrous oxide reductions hiding in plain sight.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Put direct pressure on local banks and cooperatives to move capital toward the $2.8 trillion climate solutions market and away from investments in oil and methane.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: Project Drawdown names two emergency brakes that are especially relevant - stopping methane emissions and halting deforestation. PlanetWise.app is actively seeking partnerships with organizations working on regenerative land management, clean energy advocacy, and strategic climate litigation.

BOUNDARY 2: BIOSPHERE INTEGRITY — BIODIVERSITY LOSS

Extinction rates remain catastrophically high. This boundary measures two things: how many species we are losing, and whether the genetic diversity that makes ecosystems resilient is being maintained. Both are failing.

Your yard is a habitat. Every native plant you put in the ground, every birdbath you include, every bee- or butterfly-friendly flower you grow, is a welcome intervention. Every toxic substance you eliminate is a win for all living things.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Detoxify your home - read ingredient labels on cleaning products and replace toxic cleaners with homemade ones. Stop using pesticides and herbicides. Plant native species. Source your food from small local farms. Feed birds. Build pollinator gardens. Make an insect hotel with your kids or grandkids. In addition, individual members who plant native species and register their yards on our mapping platform earn a special PlanetWise badge!

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Support training programs for young people entering regenerative farming, agroforestry, and reforestation. Organize corridor-planting projects - connected habitat fragments do exponentially more ecological work than isolated ones. Start a native plant or seed exchange in your neighborhood. Join local citizen science programs to document what is living around you.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Rewilding-inspired forestry - letting natural processes back into production landscapes - creates more biodiverse, resilient, and socially valuable land than conventional management at nearly every scale. For everyone that wants to use locally grown materials as a base for their products or services.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures is pushing investors to account for what they owe to living systems, not just what living systems owe them. Biodiversity credit markets and habitat restoration bonds are emerging investment categories. PlanetWise.app is in conversation with cooperatives about what this looks like locally.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: PlanetWise is looking to local conservation groups, land trusts, and restoration organizations as partners. In Puerto Rico, this connects directly to the nascent GuardaBosques campaign and the MVC Ecology Network. But in the near future we will also have Coordinators and Stewards in the lower 48, Alaska, Hawaii, and Latin America managing their geographical communities throughout this hemisphere.

BOUNDARY 3: LAND SYSTEM CHANGE — DEFORESTATION AND SOIL DEGRADATION

Puerto Rico has lost agricultural land at a scale that should stop anyone cold, particularly if you think of not only the loss of capacity and the loss of actual farmland, but also of consumers being forced to depend 85% of what they consume on being shipped from abroad. The island once had 1.6 million cuerdas (1 cuerda is just under 1 acre) in active agricultural production. Today, fewer than 500,000 cuerdas remain - on an island of 2 million total cuerdas, and a prehistoric Carrying Capacity of ~200,000 people. Agricultural land is being converted to housing, coastal and protected land is being sold illegally for luxury hotel developments, and undeveloped town lands are being sold to big-box shipping centers. Every conversion drives biodiversity loss, strains freshwater supply, and increases greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously.

Every meal is a vote for what this island looks like.

A member who shifts from industrial beef to locally grown protein or plant-based protein has just rerouted demand away from deforestation, and toward soil repair and the local economy. That is not just a lifestyle choice. That is a land use decision with consequences that reach all the way to our fragile underground aquifers.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Reduce consumption of beef and dairy. Avoid products linked to deforestation - conventional soy, palm oil, industrial meat. Grow food wherever you have space - a windowsill counts. Compost to return carbon to the soil.

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Organize community gardens and urban food forests on vacant land (ask the municipality for abandoned plots). Advocate for urban tree canopy protection. Support and help create local land trusts. Get involved in soil restoration projects.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Advocate at the legislative level for agroforestry incentives - integrating trees into farming systems increases soil fertility, reduces erosion, improves water retention, and raises yields without clearing additional land. Regenerative land management could significantly increase crop production while sequestering carbon.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Local cooperatives can participate in voluntary carbon market projects that incorporate agroforestry, helping farmers sequester carbon through sustainable soil management and improved crop rotation.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: PlanetWise.app is actively seeking partnerships with agroforestry organizations, food systems advocates, and conservation groups working on land and food sovereignty.

BOUNDARY 4: FRESHWATER USE

When the San Juan metro area lost running water for days last week - caused by ruptures in the primary superaqueduct and power grid failures - it was not a fluke. More than 60% of the island's treated drinking water leaks out in transit before it reaches anyone's tap, through aging, corroded infrastructure that has suffered decades of deferred maintenance. The reservoirs have water, even if they do need to be dredged. But the pipes that deliver the water are failing. This is an infrastructure loss happening right now.

You are the watershed. Every water decision you make at home impacts the source - being a good steward is the only answer.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Install low-flow fixtures and a rainwater catchment and filter system. Fix leaks the moment you find them — a single dripping faucet wastes thousands of gallons a year. Eat less water-intensive food: beef requires roughly 1,800 gallons per pound to produce; lentils require about 700. Weather-sensitive irrigation and high-efficiency appliances have demonstrated measurable water reductions wherever they have been implemented.

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Support community-led watershed monitoring — citizen science programs that track water quality have demonstrably improved restoration prioritization. PlanetWise.app is in active conversation with local organizations about creek cleanups and watershed stewardship initiatives. We advocate for riparian buffer zone protection.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Water-smart landscaping and closed-loop local manufacturing processes are viable green business opportunities for our members. Leak detection in multi-unit buildings alone can save millions of gallons annually.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Water efficiency retrofits generate measurable return on investment. Watershed restoration and sustainable irrigation technology are growing categories for capital that wants both financial and ecological returns.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: Watershed coalitions, municipal water authorities, and agricultural extension services. Water security in Puerto Rico is existential - the partnership potential here is enormous and largely untapped.

BOUNDARY 5: BIOGEOCHEMICAL FLOWS — NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS

The Puerto Rico Story. 

This is the boundary with the most complicated story - and one of the most hopeful ones. When large-scale agricultural abandonment happened over the past two decades, forests regenerated and nitrogen and phosphorus loads in local rivers dropped significantly. The land healed itself, faster than most people expected, once the pressure was removed. The lesson here is that the land responds well when we work with it instead of against it.

The problem today is coastal. Surface ocean pH is declining globally at about 0.002 units per year. In Puerto Rico's coastal zones, reduced aragonite saturation is straining coral ecosystems and marine life. Dissolved oxygen in Caribbean shelf waters has dropped 2% since 1960, increasing stress on every organism that breathes underwater. 

What runs off the land - building and development sediment, synthetic fertilizers, sewage, industrial runoff - it all ends up in the sea.

Don't use fertilizers. Your compost pile is the perfect cleanup crew. What is used to regenerate the soil does not damage the reef. Think of it this way: composting is not a chore. It is a biological meditation - the act of returning what the earth gifted us, back to where it can keep on giving.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Stop using synthetic lawn fertilizers entirely. Compost food scraps to build natural soil fertility. Protect and restore any coastal habitat you have access to. I've said this before, but eat less meat and dairy - industrial livestock production is one of the largest sources of reactive nitrogen on the planet.

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Advocate for organic farming legislation. Organize community composting programs that return nutrients to soil rather than waterways. Push for nutrient management regulations for local farms, golf courses, and large landscaped properties. PlanetWise.app is currently exploring a composting partnership with local restaurants and a local Mom and Pop composting business.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Pursue organic and regenerative certification — these create market incentives that reward what we need more of.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Invest in soil health companies and organic input manufacturers. Support green infrastructure bonds that fund nutrient capture from agricultural runoff and regenerative farm transitions.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: Agricultural extension agencies, watershed protection groups, and organic farming networks are all natural partners for this work.

BOUNDARY 6: NOVEL ENTITIES — PLASTICS, PFAS, AND SYNTHETIC CHEMICALS

PFAS chemicals (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) - called "forever chemicals" because they essentially do not break down - are in the waterproof jacket you wear hiking, the stain-resistant carpet under your feet, your cosmetics, and even your dental floss. Long-term exposure is linked to thyroid disease, liver damage, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer. Microplastics are now routinely found in human blood, breast milk, and placentas. 

These are not edge cases. They are the baseline condition of a body living in the modern world.

Think of your kitchen as a detox lab. Every swap you make - glass for plastic, cast iron for non-stick, cloth for synthetic - is a boundary repair.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Eliminate single-use plastic, one swap at a time. Replace with paper or waxed paper, glass, stainless steel, cast iron, and food-grade silicone and natural fibers. For everyday disposables, choose alternatives made of bamboo, wood, paper, or natural fibers like jute.  Filter your tap water instead of buying bottles. Stop buying non-stick cookware, stain-treated textiles, and fast food packaging - they are the primary PFAS delivery systems in most households. 

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Organize plastic reduction challenges. Advocate for plastic bag bans and polystyrene ordinances at the local level. Support community water testing programs. Build shared resource libraries - glass containers, reusable bags, bulk buying cooperatives - that reduce the need for plastic packaging in your neighborhood.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Lobby for legislation that phases out PFAS and single-use plastic. Invest in refillable and returnable packaging systems - these are not just ethical choices, they are increasingly competitive ones.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Invest in materials innovation companies producing bio-based and compostable packaging alternatives. The circular economy is not a concept - it is an emerging market.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: Environmental health organizations, UN global plastics treaty advocacy groups, and community right-to-know campaigns. This boundary is where public health and environmental action are most visibly the same fight.

Our cookbook, Zero Waste Cookery - coming soon - lives entirely in this boundary: the kitchen as a sanctuary, not a laboratory of synthetic convenience.

BOUNDARY 7: OCEAN ACIDIFICATION — NEWLY BREACHED IN 2025

Since pre-industrial times, the ocean has absorbed roughly a third of all CO₂ humans have ever emitted. That absorption has avoided significantly worse warming. The cost is that the ocean's chemistry has shifted - surface pH has dropped by about 0.1 units, a 30% to 40% increase in acidity. Coral reefs and shellfish populations are the most immediately vulnerable. Their shells dissolve in more acidic water. The ripple effects on global food chains are only beginning to be understood.

Besides being the ocean’s nursery, coral reefs are our sentinels. They warn us of what the ocean already knows, in clear and unequivocal terms. And their message is written with their own bleached bodies. And their demise takes with it all future generations of living things that grew within the habitat they architected.

What does that mean to you? Every car trip, every lawn chemical, every kilowatt from fossil fuel - reaches the ocean eventually, and the reef most poignantly. So read our suggestions carefully.

Tier 1 — Personal Tier: Walk, bike, or take public transit. Eat local food — transport emissions are a surprisingly large part of the food system's carbon footprint. Reduce meat and dairy. Compost. Make your home more energy efficient. Stop using synthetic fertilizers, which drive nitrogen runoff into coastal waters.

Tier 2 — Community Tier: Participate in seagrass and mangrove restoration efforts — these are among the most powerful carbon sinks on the planet, absorbing CO₂ from the water column at rates far exceeding terrestrial forests per acre. Talk with local fishermen about what they are observing and help them find complementary livelihoods on land when fishing becomes insufficient. Organize coastal cleanups and advocate for riparian buffers that filter runoff before it reaches the sea.

Tier 3 — Green Business Tier: Sustainable aquaculture businesses that work with, rather than against, ocean chemistry are a real opportunity. Algae and seagrass farming are not just carbon sequestration tools — they are the emerging coastal economy.

Tier 4 — Investment Tier: Blue carbon — seagrass restoration, mangrove restoration, algae and kelp farming — is an emerging asset class with both ecological and financial returns. Kelp cultivation shows strong potential to buffer local seawater chemistry and shelter sensitive shellfish species. This is frontier investment territory in the Caribbean.

Tier 5 — Partnerships Tier: Coral nurseries, mangrove and seagrass restoration projects, marine education programs, and community fishing diversification initiatives are all active categories. In Puerto Rico, every one of these is a potential PlanetWise partner.

THE PICTURE IS BIGGER THAN ANY ONE BOUNDARY

None of the seven boundaries exists in isolation. A member who composts is addressing Climate Change, Biogeochemical Flows, and Land System Change simultaneously. A member who stops buying plastic is addressing Novel Entities and Ocean Acidification in the same gesture. A member who plants native species is working on Biosphere Integrity and Freshwater Use at once. The pillars of PlanetWise.app were not designed as boundary-by-boundary interventions - they are designed around human life. The fact the actions map so precisely onto more than one boundary confirms that Earth is truly a Web of Life. And nature loves redundancy and opportunity. So I designed PlanetWise.app with that in mind.

If you are reading this as a new member, or as someone considering whether to join, the Bloom Index waiting for you at PlanetWise.app will show you exactly where you currently stand on this map - and what your next step is. 

Walk this path with us. PlanetWise.app