Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumThe Current Governor Of Florida Describes Himself As "Not A Global Warming Person" - Well, Good Luck With That
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Across Florida, communities are grappling with the biggest environmental threat facing the state: climate change. Gov. Ron DeSantis has invested more than $1.6 billion toward hardening the infrastructure against rising seas and flooding, the first time in about a decade top leaders of this uniquely vulnerable state have taken action on virtually any aspect of the global problem. But the governor, who has described himself as not a global warming person, has done little to address the main cause behind warming temperatures and wean the state off fossil fuels. As a presidential candidate DeSantis shifted more sharply right, and now that he has bowed out of the New Hampshire primary and shut down his presidential campaign, his climate change record shifts from a seldom-mentioned talking point on the campaign trail to front-and-center fact of life back home in Florida, as communities here face intensifying impacts like record heat and more destructive hurricanes.
Nicole was part of a historic season best remembered for Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in southwest Florida as a Category 4 storm, causing nearly $112.9 billion in damage and at least 156 deaths. Ian ranks as the costliest hurricane in state history and third-costliest in U.S. history, after Katrina in 2005 and Harvey in 2017. In 2023, Hurricane Idalia, powered by record warm water temperatures, came ashore in northwest Florida as a Category 3 storm. It was the strongest hurricane to make landfall in that part of the state since 1896.
A few weeks after Idalia, DeSantis stood in front of an oil rig in Midland, Texas, where the economy is based in large part on oil and natural gas production, and unveiled an energy plan as part of his presidential campaign. The plan involves, among other things, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the international treaty aimed at limiting warming to, at most, 2 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels, a threshold where scientists say climate impacts become more severe.
DeSantis said that as president he would end consumer subsidies for electric cars and commitments to net-zero emissions. Standing at a podium adorned with the words Fueling American Freedom, he pledged to expand American dominance in oil and gas, going so far as to promise he would replace the words climate change with energy dominance in national security and foreign policy guidance. He went further this month during a debate with rival Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, when asked what he might do about carbon emissions if elected. So on day one as president we take Bidens Green New Deal. We tear it up, and we throw it in the trash can. It is bad for the country. We have to have reliable energy, he said. China is the problem here, and so hold them accountable.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22012024/desantis-energy-dominance-still-relevant-to-floridians/
Ocelot II
(120,827 posts)Believe what you want, Ron, but keep those spiffy white boots around for when all of Florida is under water.
SarahD
(1,732 posts)will help for a little while, but the water is still rising.
tanyev
(44,503 posts)Just a bunch of woke lib'rul cowards??
Botany
(72,476 posts)Be it vaccines, virology, epidemiology, or climate change but he denies those facts
for political ends.
Global warming is based in a large parton the 200 + year old universal gas law that shows
that the more CO 2 you have in a body of gas the more heat that body of gas will hold and
that law has never been proven wrong.
Deep State Witch
(11,251 posts)Miami and Miami Beach are flooding on a regular basis. No need for hurricanes, just high tides.
orthoclad
(4,728 posts)They're gentrifying areas away from the beaches that used to be servants' quarters. They know - they just think they can buy their way out.