Florida strikes me as a contradiction of sorts - it’s a beautiful state with incredible parks, but also rampant development along the coasts that will be burdened with increasing insurance costs. Clearly climate change will affect the state, and yet its political leaders aren’t interested in talking about it. Arizona is also like that, except with water resources.
Florida strikes me as a contradiction of sorts - it’s a beautiful state with incredible parks, but also rampant development along the coasts that will be burdened with increasing insurance costs. Clearly climate change will affect the state, and yet its political leaders aren’t interested in talking about it. Arizona is also like that, except with water resources.
Climate change is already affecting the state, and Ron DeSantis’ & the state legislature’s reactions are to pass laws forbidding mention of “climate change;” and to develop its state park wetlands further so that next time the state encounters a tropical storm or hurricane, the flooding is exponentially worse (see Sarasota and ‘Debby’).
I went to high school in Florida. So did Ron DeSantis. The single most salient fact we were supposed to learn in 9th grade environmental science is that the wetlands work as a huge sponge absorbing and filtering the storm water dumped on the state during hurricane season. The runoff is supposed to return to the underground aquifer. But as the state is developed and paved over, the wetlands can’t absorb the excess, which floods the surface and the aquifer isn’t replenished, so we get flooding outside the flood planes & inconvenient and large sink holes. Instead of figuring out a way to deal with the physical realities of the state, its leaders would rather stick their fingers in the ears and close their eyes and pretend it isn’t happening as insurers flee the state. What happens to growth in Florida when you can’t get housing insurance?
Florida strikes me as a contradiction of sorts - it’s a beautiful state with incredible parks, but also rampant development along the coasts that will be burdened with increasing insurance costs. Clearly climate change will affect the state, and yet its political leaders aren’t interested in talking about it. Arizona is also like that, except with water resources.
Climate change is already affecting the state, and Ron DeSantis’ & the state legislature’s reactions are to pass laws forbidding mention of “climate change;” and to develop its state park wetlands further so that next time the state encounters a tropical storm or hurricane, the flooding is exponentially worse (see Sarasota and ‘Debby’).
I went to high school in Florida. So did Ron DeSantis. The single most salient fact we were supposed to learn in 9th grade environmental science is that the wetlands work as a huge sponge absorbing and filtering the storm water dumped on the state during hurricane season. The runoff is supposed to return to the underground aquifer. But as the state is developed and paved over, the wetlands can’t absorb the excess, which floods the surface and the aquifer isn’t replenished, so we get flooding outside the flood planes & inconvenient and large sink holes. Instead of figuring out a way to deal with the physical realities of the state, its leaders would rather stick their fingers in the ears and close their eyes and pretend it isn’t happening as insurers flee the state. What happens to growth in Florida when you can’t get housing insurance?