A.G. Gancarski
Hurricane Milton’s wreckage extended far beyond the eye of the storm, as record tornado activity south of Interstate 4 showed Wednesday night.
And first responders weren’t spared.
Addressing media at the wind-wrecked St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, Gov. Ron DeSantis noted “major tornadoes” in Fort Pierce, including one nearby with five fatalities.
“We’re surveying some of the damage done on the east coast of Florida,” DeSantis said, with the Governor adding St. Lucie had “the most tornado damage” he saw during this storm.
Despite the massive onslaught of tornadoes from this late-season storm, DeSantis noted that it is “kind of normal” with each storm and “to be expected” that with “every hurricane we have a lot of tornadoes spun off,” as “things churn off with these weather systems.”
And climate change or global warming?
Nothing to do with it, said DeSantis, who signed legislation stripping the term climate change from state law just this year.
“I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all of human history, for sure,” DeSantis contended. He then reviewed historically bad storms to suggest there’s no discernible trend and that critics are reductive and alarmist, yet said this season reminds him most of the 2004 hurricane season that saw four storms criss-cross the state.
“I just think people should put this in perspective. They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something. There’s nothing new under the sun. You know, this is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history and it’s something that we will continue to deal with,” the Governor counseled.
As a presidential candidate, DeSantis flirted with acknowledging a more nuanced reality at times.
The Des Moines Register reported that DeSantis admitted human activity is one of a “variety of factors” driving the earth’s warming — a fact reporter Katie Akin notes that he’s been reluctant to admit.
“DeSantis’ own stance has changed: During the first GOP presidential debate, he did not raise his hand when candidates were asked if human activities are warming the planet. But in the Dec. 9 interview with the Register, DeSantis said he does believe human activities are a factor in the changing climate,” Akin observed.
That said, as DeSantis completed his doomed Iowa campaign, he made sport after that interview ran of hecklers concerned with climate change, suggesting that belief was transitory and intended for a certain audience.
Indeed, one needs a scorecard to track DeSantis’ positions, which shift like Florida’s coastline during storm surge events.
During a presidential debate back in August 2023, co-host Martha MacCallum of Fox News called for a show of hands from candidates who think Earth’s rising tides and record heat waves are human-made.
DeSantis rejected MacCallum’s request before any candidate hoisted their arm, explaining that he and his candidates are “not schoolchildren” and should “have the debate” on the subject before pivoting to an attack on President Joe Biden’s response to the deadly fires in Maui and touting his own action following Hurricane Ian’s devastation of Southwest Florida in 2022.
DeSantis’ position in that debate came weeks after Florida recorded record levels of heat, resulting in a “100% coral mortality” off the coast of the Florida Keys.
DeSantis stuck to his guns in the wake of Biden claiming that Hurricane Idalia’s impacts in 2023 were exacerbated by climate change as well.
“I studied history and they act like this is somehow unprecedented,” DeSantis said during a Fox News interview. “It’s not.”
“This area, the Big Bend, got hit by a storm, almost the exact same track in 1896 that had 125-mile-per-hour winds. So the idea that we’ve not had powerful storms until recently, that’s just not factually true. And so when they, that’s the first thing they want to say, you have to ask, why are they trying to politicize the weather?”
DeSantis also groused about “politicizing the weather” during a state press conference shortly before the TV hit. He condemned “people trying to take what’s happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people that are suffering and that’s wrong and we’re not going to do that in the state of Florida.”
Back in 2019, the newly inaugurated DeSantis dodged a question about whether he agreed with many scientists “that humans cause climate change.”
“Next question,” he said, calling on another reporter.
Months later, he seemingly ameliorated that position. His administration posted an opening for a Florida Chief Resilience Officer, someone whose job will be to coordinate Florida’s preparations for “environmental, physical and economic impacts of climate change, especially sea level rise,” according to a job posting. He followed that up with budget proposals to address climate change.
Moving back into 2024, DeSantis also rejected on Thursday the idea that people can “control the weather,” saying “he would do 78 and sunny year round” before saying that “precedent throughout history,” rather than human activity like carbon emissions, determines storm activity.
“This is on both sides. You kind of have some people think government can do this and then others think it’s all because of fossil fuels. The reality is, is what we see. There’s precedent for all this in history like it is hurricane season. You are going to have tropical weather,” DeSantis said.
11 comments
My Take
October 10, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Atmospheric geophysicist moRon DeScamus expertly settles the climate question.
Common Sense
October 10, 2024 at 2:18 pm
You’re SmArt…
Manuel
October 10, 2024 at 2:17 pm
How exactly is bringing up global warming or climate change helping victims of recent hurricanes? Is it going to bring their homes back? Is it going to bring their cars back? Their lives?
Let’s say he came out and blamed everything on climate change… Would he wave a magic wand and fix it? Desantis is shining right now, and Democrat elitists can’t stand it.
My Take
October 10, 2024 at 2:28 pm
DeScamus has to appeal to the MAGA morons for 2008.
They love this anti-intellectual anti-science stuff.
They love their 4×4 F250s that have never seen even a dirt road.
My Take
October 10, 2024 at 4:05 pm
2028
Unfortunately, I think Ford no longer offers the V-10
FJB and FU2
October 10, 2024 at 2:38 pm
We’d had sumfin an munee butt FEMUS gave muh tax dolla two dem illegal imogrants. Go Ron! Eww gots muh vote and Trump!
Frankie M.
October 10, 2024 at 2:36 pm
All is well!
Michael K
October 10, 2024 at 2:59 pm
Just like the response after a mass murder: “Now is not the time to talk about it.” It’s never a good time to talk about this “inconvenient truth” according to “leaders” like DeSantis and Trump. Banning the words does not make the reality disappear: Climate change is real and it poses an existential threat to life on this planet. Even the Department of Defense recognizes the seriousness of climate change to national security.
Scientists have been warning us for decades. Some leaders, in some parts of the world and some parts of the US, are taking action to build resilience and invest in sustainable, renewable energy. Others are too addicted to the campaign cash from the fossil fuel oligarchs to act.
We somehow expect the federal government to step in and clean up the messes over and over again. Maybe it’s time to put strings on disaster aid?
Climate change
October 10, 2024 at 3:08 pm
Absolutely DELUSIONAL. If this GOVERNOR doesn’t understand climate change he should NOT be in a leadership position. He also makes no effort to put in place policies to help save the environment. Another Fossil Idiot. Quit sending FEMA dollars to clean up his messes. Stop rebuilding
Dont Say FLA
October 10, 2024 at 3:18 pm
Whether or not Rhonda agrees with the global scientific consensus regarding the cause(s) of climate change, that doesn’t matter.
What matters is whether we humans can change our behavior in some way(s) that can mitigate the effect.
Arguing about causation is for hucksters and fraudsters. If changes in human behavior can help address the situation, we should by all means change our behavior.
What kind fool would even argue against that? Oh right – the most special kind of fool, the typical MAGA. Jewish space lasers control the weather.
How did we get here with such dummies holding such power over all our futures? Are fairly tales and white nationalism really worth it? Maybe just learn to get along, ya’ MAGAs.
Ron Forrest Ron
October 10, 2024 at 3:38 pm
But did Rhonda deny the public the repeated vision of wearing those white boots again?
Man up, Rhonda. Don the boots. We could all use a laugh!