Bruce RitchieNEW ORLEANS — Kristin Jacobs is carrying a message to Tallahassee and the rest of the nation that South Florida residents are concerned about climate change and sea-level rise and local governments are taking action.
Jacobs is a Broward county commissioner who in August won the Democratic primary for Florida House District 96 and faces only a write-in candidate. She replaces state Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek, who is leaving the House because of term limits.
On Sept. 6, Jacobs told the Society of Environmental Journalists’ national conference in New Orleans that sea-level rise due to climate change is causing flooding in South Florida even on days when it hasn’t rained.
She said the issue has been taken seriously by Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties, which formed the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact in 2009 to deal with the issue as a region.
Despite the unwillingness of state leaders in Tallahassee to tackle climate change, Jacobs noted that the Florida Legislature in 2011 approved the creation of “Adaptation Action Areas” in local land-use policies to deal with coastal flooding and sea-level rise.
And Jacobs said South Florida residents understand that environmental issues are important even if that doesn’t go along with some political thinking.
She said her campaign consultants in Tallahassee this year told her she couldn’t talk about the environment in her campaign.
“(They said) ‘We polled it and no one cares.’ ” Jacobs said. “I challenged them on that. I said, ‘In South Florida people are paying attention.’ ”
As a result, she said, her campaign’s polling found that 86 percent of voters in South Florida said climate change was a big issue.
Jacobs spoke in New Orleans during a conference panel discussion entitled “Real Risk and Resilience in a Climate-Changed World.” Mark Davis of the Tulane University Law School said during the discussion that responsibility for responding to climate change is being handed over to agencies that are not equipped to deal with the issue.
“We’re seeing that, when an issue is being held hostage, it can’t be managed,” he said. “Right now, climate change is viewed as a political or philosophical issue, not as a management issue. As long as that’s the case, we are not going to minimize risk, we are going to magnify it.”
Edward Belk, director of programs for the Mississippi Valley Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said climate change is a divisive issue in states along the Mississippi River and he said that prevents agencies from taking action.
But Jacobs countered that the public response to the issue depends on where you are — and that it’s different in South Florida.
“Because in South Florida we have a community of believers that crosses party lines,” she said. “It is no longer a question ‘Is it real?’ as people are seeing sewer backups in their bathtubs.”
“When you’re on the phone, you don’t care what party is answering. You want answers,” she added. “So (in South Florida) you have a different approach, you have a first-responder approach in South Florida that is different — and more pragmatic.”
Bruce Ritchie is an independent journalist covering environment and growth management issues in Tallahassee. He also is editor of Floridaenvironments.com. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
