Crist, political courage and climate change, by gimleteye

With his Climate Change Summit in Miami, Governor Crist made a significant break with Florida's past performance on state energy policy.

To see a governor of Florida—the sunniest state when it comes to accommodating the needs of utilities and big business—turn the ship of state in a new direction is surprising.

In comparison, two terms of Governor Bush achieved mainly the fortification of the ship, putting special interests in fast speed boats to patrol the perimeter and disperse objecting citizens and the public interest wherever it might crop up.

Crist is saying, if Florida doesn’t do something, quickly, by way of addressing greenhouse gas emissions, the entire state could find itself coping with unimaginable threats: like sea-level rise.

By executive order, the first steps will be to drastically reduce the carbon footprint of the state, itself—the largest consumer of energy in comparison to other industries.

But aligning Florida more closely with the progressive energy policies of the most forward-acting states in the nation will require further acts of political courage—a commodity in tight supply.

Yesterday, according to the Miami Herald, Robert Kennedy Jr. addressed the convocation. Inviting a Kennedy was an act of political courage, too; a step of uniting, not dividing, that seems disorienting in the recent history of the Bush White House and past terms of Governor Jeb Bush.

At massive costs to the nation and to the state, the first principle of governance under the Bush terms was no dissent, no disloyalty, no criticism of predetermined outcomes.

The mainstream press –including the Miami Herald—utterly failed to identify the parallels between the national and state political agendas, as they related to environmental policies.

Kennedy, yesterday, criticized a “lazy and indolent press” for under-reporting climate change.

Good for the Miami Herald for printing it, and bad for the Miami Herald writing, “Considerable debate remains, however, about the magnitude of (that) human contribution, with some experts noting that the planet always has experienced warm and cool cycles.”

If ever there was a lazy sentence about global warming, there you have it.

It doesn’t take an expert to note the earth has always experienced warm and cool cycles. But it is of little value to waste ink in fruitless compression: there is no point in raising, ad infinitum, the questionable subject of quantifying debate about the contribution of human activity to global warming.

In point of fact, there is NOT “considerable” debate on this subject. Industry-funded groups, like coal and oil, whose paid-for scientists and PR flacks are still throwing sand into the eyes of the mainstream press. Why not include a sentence about them?

If the Miami Herald wants to be a leader in reporting and editorializing on global warming, it would take a much closer look now at climate change scientists who are questioning, "considerably", the consensus approach and compromises incorporated by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Recent data and reports on climate in the polar regions and glaciers particularly, are ‘off the charts’ in respect to scientific models. Right here in Miami, authoritative experts like Dr. Harold Wanless—chair of the geology department of the University of Miami—have been saying, for years, that the historical record is full of evidence that shifts in climate can be dramatic and sharp.

For years, The Miami Herald and other mainstream media have failed to foster sensible discussion, the case of the Everglades--the plan whose costs are skyrocketing toward tens of billions and predicated on engineered solutions that are fiction, in terms of benefits conferred to taxpayers and the environment.

Governor Crist deserves our thanks and appreciation for taking his stand on global warming, but he should also cast a very wary glance at what passes for Everglades restoration which Joe Podgor, of Friends of the Everglades once said is a test: “If we pass it, we get to keep the planet.” Ten years ago, we didn't have ten years to act to save the Everglades.

Last week, the US Government Accountability Office states that Everglades restoration is significantly behind, and especially in the matter of providing clear coordination of science review. This week, state agencies announced that funding of science review was being cut.

The Miami Herald and mainstream media would do well to start telling this story, too.