Summer gonna be lit in Florida. But it won’t be from Climate Change, right?
As Florida copes with rising seas and record temperatures, lawmakers are going to exceptional lengths to delete many mentions of climate change from state laws in a new bill that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on Wednesday, according to his official X account.
The wide-ranging law makes several changes to the state’s energy policy – in some cases deleting entire sections of state law that talk about the importance of cutting planet-warming pollution. The bill would also give preferential treatment to natural gas and ban offshore wind energy, even though there are no wind farms planned off Florida’s coast.
The bill deletes the phrase ‘climate’ eight times – often in reference to reducing the impacts of global climate change through its energy policy or directing state agencies to buy ‘climate friendly’ products when they are cost-effective and available. The bill also gets rid of a requirement that state-purchased vehicles should be fuel efficient.
Folks are asking how we can say a weather event is evidence of climate change? We now have the ability to diagnose if climate change influenced a given event. Climate change made yesterday’s Key West event at least 5X more likely. Climate Shift Index from @ClimateCentral
Now the Florida conversation should switch to a new not-yet-illegal term, like ocean heating.
Don’t forget that along with banning offshore wind, this paragon of the free-market, low-regulation party recently banned plant-based meat substitutes to showily claim to be protecting the Florida cattle industry. It would be interesting to hear what he would call the event if the increasing risk of record wet-bulb temperatures exceeded the tolerance for such large mammals there.
The Florida heat-index map in the following shows large parts of the interior with “extreme risk” level wet-bulb temperatures.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2024/05/16/how-hot-is-it-in-south-florida-let-us-count-the-ways/
And the following paper in Geophysical Research Letters predicts high chance of record-breaking heat indexes in the tropics this coming northern hemisphere summer – and a blurb at berkeley.edu specifically mentions that the risk zone includes at least part of Florida and Texas.
“Forecasting Tropical Annual Maximum Wet-Bulb Temperatures Months in Advance From the Current State of ENSO”
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106990
And it’s worth pointing out that the governors in Texas and Florida have happily passed state laws barring their cities or counties from mandating periodic water breaks for outdoor workers in warm temperatures.
Banning specific foods, barring common-sense workplace safety. Can’t inconvenience the donors, I guess.
https://images.app.goo.gl/3EdbnocvgyfNZuD57
Just a little editing and this Theodore zgeisel cartoon would be perfect.