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Governor DeSantis: Cut the Harmful Rhetoric and Focus on What’s Important
Governor Ron DeSantis had the opportunity to be Florida’s own modern version of Teddy Roosevelt, a lawmaker who didn’t shy away from love of conservation. Instead, he has chosen to be using our at-risk state as a battleground for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The governor was a breath of fresh air when he first came into office. Gone were the days when just mentioning climate change as a state employee was forbidden. (Though sadly, the issuer of those orders now works for us in the U.S. Senate.) Early in his term, DeSantis showed his leadership by hiring the state’s first Chief Resilience Officer, our first Chief Science Officer, and seemed to recognize that the Sunshine State can ill-afford to make climate change the polarizing, partisan issue that it can be at the national level of politics.
Frankly, we have too much at stake, with the risks posed not only to our environment, but to the Florida economy by sea level rise, harmful algae blooms, King Tides, and flooding. DeSantis knows these climate impacts are real, which is why he’s committing so much fiscal power into adaptation.
But the state needs more than to adapt to a changing climate; we need to do our part to reduce emissions and because carbon dioxide emissions can’t be controlled by just one state, our lawmakers…
