How or why it happens, when a simple news story catches the wave and rides around and around the 24/7 international news cycle is something of a mystery. But, when it happens it is a fearsome phenomenon to behold.
That it happened in Florida is no surprise. Tristram Korten, for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, caught the wave with his disclosure -- picked up by newspapers and commentators and media around the world -- that the Gov. Rick Scott administration has throttled and suppressed any official use of the terms "global warming" or "climate change". (The Miami Herald belatedly picked up the story, after even the UK Guardian.)
It turns out that Florida isn't the only Republican red state where banning the term "climate change" and "global warming" is the unofficial policy. (For more on this, read "Florida's not the only state where officials censored the term, 'climate change".We know who the anti-environmentalists are in our democracy-run-in-the-shadows: internationally, the fossil fuel industries and in Florida, our own Koch Brothers, the Fanjuls who control sugarcane production north of the Everglades.
The strange and weird are so prevalent in Florida they consume entire books. In this, we are the most exceptional of states.
Still, that doesn't answer the question: why has the recent disclosure of Florida's latest indignity caught fire across the internet?
Probably, because the weight of science and facts supportive of threats to Florida's low lying coastal economies have penetrated far and deep enough to elicit mass recognition. Probably, because people everywhere are seeing the impacts of climate change in their communities and landscapes right now, and that the only phenomenon more absurd than ignoring what is happening in their own backyards is what is happening in ours: the most vulnerable to sea level rise in the world. Probably because Miami's skyline continues to be filled with cranes and condos and real estate boondoggles so that no one can ignore that rising sea levels will have the last word on them all.
Here is the latest from Science Daily; worth your time to read.
From, "Earth's climate is starting to warm faster" : "... the world is just now starting to enter into a new place, where rates of temperature change are consistently larger than historical values over 40-year time spans," said Smith. "We need to better understand what the effects of this will be and how to prepare for them."
And if you still have the stomach -- especially you deniers out there -- take a look at this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-hottest-year-on-record/
That it happened in Florida is no surprise. Tristram Korten, for the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, caught the wave with his disclosure -- picked up by newspapers and commentators and media around the world -- that the Gov. Rick Scott administration has throttled and suppressed any official use of the terms "global warming" or "climate change". (The Miami Herald belatedly picked up the story, after even the UK Guardian.)
It turns out that Florida isn't the only Republican red state where banning the term "climate change" and "global warming" is the unofficial policy. (For more on this, read "Florida's not the only state where officials censored the term, 'climate change".We know who the anti-environmentalists are in our democracy-run-in-the-shadows: internationally, the fossil fuel industries and in Florida, our own Koch Brothers, the Fanjuls who control sugarcane production north of the Everglades.
The strange and weird are so prevalent in Florida they consume entire books. In this, we are the most exceptional of states.
Still, that doesn't answer the question: why has the recent disclosure of Florida's latest indignity caught fire across the internet?
Probably, because the weight of science and facts supportive of threats to Florida's low lying coastal economies have penetrated far and deep enough to elicit mass recognition. Probably, because people everywhere are seeing the impacts of climate change in their communities and landscapes right now, and that the only phenomenon more absurd than ignoring what is happening in their own backyards is what is happening in ours: the most vulnerable to sea level rise in the world. Probably because Miami's skyline continues to be filled with cranes and condos and real estate boondoggles so that no one can ignore that rising sea levels will have the last word on them all.
Here is the latest from Science Daily; worth your time to read.
From, "Earth's climate is starting to warm faster" : "... the world is just now starting to enter into a new place, where rates of temperature change are consistently larger than historical values over 40-year time spans," said Smith. "We need to better understand what the effects of this will be and how to prepare for them."
And if you still have the stomach -- especially you deniers out there -- take a look at this:
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-hottest-year-on-record/
4 comments:
Let the world know that Miami Dade county did not vote for Scott, it was the other counties in Florida who did this dirty deed!
True, anonymous, however the problem wasn't how many voted for Scott, it was how many didn't vote.
Agreed Skip. You are so right. It is absolutely a disgrace. I know for a fact that in Miami Dade County this past election was one of the lowest turnouts in those areas that run up west of I-95 from Mid town north to the Broward County line. The percentage was around 4% in those areas. These areas are the most needy and unfortunately Dems did not mobilize this past election. So so so sad.
Catch the last episode of VICE on HBO. West Antartic ice sheet in full retreat. Eye-popping stuff.
We're looking at a 3-5 foot rise by end of century or sooner.
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