Climate change is already impacting Florida, both onshore and off (pdf). With Bootsie DeSantis and his fellow Republican coin- operated fossil fuel industry shills in charge, Floridians will be getting even more of the dystopian governance they keep voting for:
Florida
will eliminate climate change as a priority in making energy policy
decisions, despite the threats it faces from powerful hurricanes,
extreme heat and worsening toxic algae blooms.
On Wednesday, the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis,
signed the legislation, which is set to go into effect on July 1. The
measure also removes most references to climate change in state law,
bans offshore wind turbines in state waters and weakens regulations on
natural gas pipelines. [snip]
Supporters
say the new law helps the state prioritize a concern of Floridians —
energy affordability, which they say is threatened by excessive
regulation. But some climate advocates said the measure is largely
symbolic and would have little effect on Florida’s shift toward
renewable energy. Solar power is booming in the state and, despite
Republican lawmakers’ desire to curb construction of wind turbines,
Florida isn’t windy enough to have piqued the wind industry’s interest.
Rather,
environmentalists said the new law is the latest example of DeSantis’s
eagerness to use climate change as a culture war issue such as abortion and transgender rights to bring national attention to himself and hit the right notes with right-wing voters. [snip]
In
addition to removing the term climate change, the new law would make
affordability and reliability the focus of the state’s energy policy —
an echo of conservative talking points that seek to portray renewable
power as too expensive and untrustworthy.
“It
feels like we’ve taken a major step backward and are no longer
recognizing the dangers of greenhouse gases," said Raymer Maguire,
director of campaigns and policy for the Miami-based CLEO Institute, a
climate activism nonprofit that supports clean energy.
The
measure also removes language giving state officials the authority to
set goals for increasing renewable energy in Florida. It ends
requirements that government agencies consult a “climate-friendly”
products list before making purchases, hold meetings in hotels that meet
the state’s “green lodging” requirements or that agencies prioritize
fuel efficiency when buying new vehicles... (our emphasis)
How out of sync with Floridians is this?
... The latest survey by Florida Atlantic University
found that 90 percent of Floridians accept that climate change is
happening and 69 percent support state action to address it. Many of the
survey’s respondents also reported negative experiences with flooding
and high winds from tornadoes and hurricanes, which may explain why
Floridians report being more concerned than Americans nationally... (our emphasis)
But, because a majority of Florida voters seem to be more concerned with voting against all those scary "woke" bugaboos that Republicans have ginned up over the past many decades, you get a governor like Bootsie and a legislature that would rather perform tricks for its frothing MAGAt base than to do something positive and potentially life- saving for the people they were elected to serve (though with these corrupt nihilists, they are serving their constituencies --the fossil fuel industry, gun lobby, forced- birth crackpots, etc.).
BONUS: Bootsie may need higher boots in the future --
(Photos: top, Bootsie sends his thoughts and prayers -- "Sorry about your houses!"/ 30AETS, Flickr; bottom two, via Twitter/X)
