On June 23, 1988, James Hansen — former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies — warned the U.S. of the dangers of climate change on national television. At the same time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was established and has since put out six Assessment Reports — the most comprehensive scientific reports in the world about global climate change. It is fair to say that climate change has been recognized as a dire issue, not just nationally but globally for decades. However, the Sunshine State, home of the infamous Florida man, thinks not.
If Florida were a person, it would be an insolent child that plugs its ears and yells, “La la la! I can’t hear you,” when someone mentions climate change. The advancement of a certain bill through the Florida legislature is beautifully reminiscent of that. House Bill 1645, if passed, would delete any mentions of the phrase “climate change” in current Florida law.
Paul Renner, the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives who has backed the bill in the name of “reliable and affordable” energy for Floridians, has indirectly received over $100,000 from various companies in the fossil fuel industry in the 2020 general election alone.
While Renner has been struggling to bear the weight of all that fossil-fuel-funding, Florida residents have faced tens of billions of dollars in extreme weather damage. They have endured heat waves, incessant flooding, devastating hurricanes, rising sea levels, receding shorelines, compromised freshwater supplies and insurance companies leaving them high and dry. But green energy is what they really should be concerned about, huh, Renner?
Time and time again, politicians advocate not for the good of the people they govern but for the profits of the companies that fund their Political Action Committees. They use that money to make propaganda to convince the masses that what is good for corporations is good for the people too, and that anyone who says otherwise is pushing a wicked ideology.
Florida politicians can pass all the bills in the world or throw every last penny of taxpayer money at building more resistant infrastructure, but still, the effects of climate change will only intensify if they continue on the path they are currently on. Deregulating the fossil fuel industry, disregarding greenhouse gas emissions and denying the existence of climate change in legislation is the quickest way to turn the great state of Florida into an uninhabitable hellhole.
