A.G. Gancarski
Florida’s Governor isn’t giving an inch when it comes to indulging local media’s questions about whether or not the climate is changing, even in the wake of two major hurricanes that ravaged his state.
During a press conference, Ron DeSantis unceremoniously rejected a reporter’s question about when Floridians will hear the words “climate change,” fiddling with the nylon sleeve on his Florida State Guard jacket as the former baseball star settled into the box to tee off on the hanging curve.
“The chance of me virtue signaling for people in the media is zero. So do not count on that. I don’t subscribe to your religion,” DeSantis said to applause as he denounced the “tired refrain and song and dance.”
“I get you have an agenda. I understand that. I think you should be more honest about what that would mean for people taxing them to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy. We would collapse as a country so this whole idea of climate ideology driving policy, it just factually can’t work,” DeSantis added.
DeSantis, who signed legislation stripping the term “climate change” from state law just this year, has dismissed the phenomenon as a catalyst for hurricane consequences, including when discussing tornadoes well away from the center of Milton’s murderous gyre last week.
“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 of going after 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.”
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.
Yet just as his critics say the climate changes, the Governor also seems capable of shifts depending on audience and situation.
29 comments
A day without Libturds
October 17, 2024 at 12:03 pm
The climate has been changing for millions of years. Now suddenly cow farts are destroying the environment. They just want everyone to eat bugs while the elite dine on real food.
Troll Farmer
October 17, 2024 at 1:16 pm
Troll Alert Hung like Wiil
Troll farmer takes it up the butt
October 17, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Word salad. Must be a limp wrist Kamala cuck boi.
mike
October 17, 2024 at 1:32 pm
Where do you live?
Frankie M.
October 17, 2024 at 8:56 pm
When in doubt blame the media. At least he’s consistent that way.
rbruce
October 17, 2024 at 1:02 pm
Climate always changes. Has 200yrs of industrial growth alter climate? Yes, but it’s insignificant. There is zero evidence that the dire consequences implied by “climate change” activists. Sea levels are not rising. “Extreme” weather is not happening. Ice cap is not melting. Atmosphere is not disappearing. Humanizing the planet we live on is ridiculous. The Earth doesn’t care if people are on it or not. It’s just a big rock.
TJC
October 17, 2024 at 1:38 pm
You can talk to yourself and reassure yourself all you want, but it’s still bullshit. You want to believe bullshit, you go right ahead.
Harold Finch
October 18, 2024 at 10:47 am
It appears you have been hiding under a rok for the last ten years!
Arguing with Dip Ships
October 17, 2024 at 1:14 pm
Are you deniers Nucking Futs?
Sea levels are absolutely rising, ice shelfs are melting, and water temperature levels are increased.
You’ve not been in Florida the last 2 years?
Ozone hole was fixed, because peopel believed and did something about it. Acid rain, likewise. And what’s it going to hurt to do some of the things proposed or acknowledge it?
A day without Libturds
October 17, 2024 at 1:26 pm
Save the planet. Abort yourself.
TJC
October 17, 2024 at 1:40 pm
Man, that third grade education we taxpayers paid for really worked out for you. Not one misspelled word.
TJC
October 17, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Ah, Ron DeSantis, self-proclaimed “family man.”
Ron DeSantis, holier-than-thou “Christian.”
Ron DeSantis, military veteran.
He never lets you forget all these wonderful things about him, never misses a chance to remind you,
and yet he accuses others of “virtue signaling.”
Ironically amusing, and just plain hypocritical.
Sal Strange
October 17, 2024 at 2:01 pm
just gotta LOL at the troll who wants people to think that fossil fuel companies and the bankers who love to finance them somehow aren’t part of the elites
MHDuuuval
October 17, 2024 at 3:09 pm
If the shale oilmen give DJT a billion dollars in campaign donations, Trump has promised to make it up to them and more.
(No mention of how much will be skimmed off for Trump’s mounting legal bills and fines.)
ScienceBLVR
October 17, 2024 at 2:01 pm
..about what that would mean for people taxing them to smithereens, stopping oil and gas, making people pay dramatically more for energy…
Don’t have to worry about the price of gas when your car is flooded, your house contents are on the curb, and the winds have cut your above ground antiquated power grid for days..Sure, we’ve had storms in the past, but not this many, not this intense, not this frequently, nor as far reaching in the country.
Michael K
October 17, 2024 at 9:19 pm
Germany now produces more than 60% of its energy via renewables – wind, hydro, and solar – and they achieved this quickly. And guess who is leading the world, on a per capita basis? China. The US could lead the world if only we had the political leadership and the will.
Climate scientists have been warning us for years about rising sea levels and depletion of the ozone layer. Climate change based on carbon emissions is real and threatens our fragile existence. We need leaders who think beyond their next election cycle and campaign contributions, willing to lay the foundation for future generations.
Tom Palmer
October 18, 2024 at 9:21 am
Whether DeSantis allows the mention of climate change or not is irrelevant. It was a throwaway question.
MHDuuuval
October 18, 2024 at 8:45 pm
From Patrick Greenfield, The Guardian, for LexT::
“In 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, preliminary findings by an international team of researchers show the amount of carbon absorbed by land has temporarily collapsed. The final result was that forest, plants and soil—as a net category—absorbed almost no carbon.”
My Take
October 22, 2024 at 5:38 pm
They still absorb carbon but release about the same amount.
Mature forests have little net uptake of C.
They are living but not much growing bigger.
Young forests do have net uptake, turning it into wood.
LexT
October 18, 2024 at 9:31 am
CO2 is food for plants. Plants exhale Oxygen. People need to breathe in oxygen. CO2 is not a pollutant. Does CO2 make a difference in the atmosphere? Sure. Has the planet been both far warmer and far colder? Yes. The Earth’s temperatures will change a lot over time. Warmer may be better than ice age; farming was harder during the ice age. Should we try to reduce emissions? Yes. Should we be concerned about the issues of mining “rare earth metals” for batteries? Also yes. I’m okay with it if you want to make an Apollo-like program to find better batteries for energy. But we are not in an emergency position that requires tyrannical government control.
Michael K
October 18, 2024 at 12:22 pm
Fun fact: electric vehicle batteries are 100% recyclable and can be reused. Internal combustion engines – not at all.
The changes you describe took place over thousands and millions of years. We’re talking about decades here. Not the same by any stretch.
I remember when LA and other large metro areas were choked by smog, which posed environmental and public health hazards. With scientific innovation and government regulation, the air is now cleaner. All it takes is political will and scientific innovation to make the shift – which can spur new economic gains. for exa ple, in areas with high adoption rates of solar panels, roofers have created new jobs.
My Take
October 22, 2024 at 5:40 pm
Forests take up oxygen at night.
yew oweme
October 22, 2024 at 5:44 pm
LEXT, to keep from looking dumb please refraign from thinking you know enough about science to have an educated opinion about climate change. you are making yourself look like a biased fool.
waking up Hot
October 18, 2024 at 10:38 am
“I studied history.” I am rolling on the floor laughing at this idiot so-called Governor. What a farce. I will grant him that Florida didn’t have hurricanes when the State was submerged. Oops, he didn’t say that. So what, it’s hotter than Hell and we now experience “rapid intensification” – what, me worry? Come to the “free state of Florida” and instead of orange juice we will give you a gallon of gas if the generator is available. Gosh, how cute are those white rubber boots? How is that presidential run going, Dumbo?
yew oweme
October 22, 2024 at 5:47 pm
the gop is obsessed with disproving facts with lies, WHY, to make money, that’s why. how sad for our country.
Cindy
October 20, 2024 at 5:51 pm
Tar tar tar ..it’s like frack frack frack. …. Pavement heat to water on fire.
Jason
October 22, 2024 at 2:19 pm
There’s a song called how do we sleep if our beds are burning.
The man predictions are in the year 2525
October 28, 2024 at 8:46 am
The prediction is on the year 2525
Billy Nash
October 31, 2024 at 10:09 am
The human population and its activity has influenced our eco-systems. Yes, the climate has always been changing and the planet has been through ice ages and extreme weather changes before but we are exacerbating them. DeSantis can wish it away as much as he’d like but Mother Nature and science doesn’t care. He has kids – what kind of world does he want them to live in!?! He’s a short sighted nasty little man with a huge ego. At least some of America could see though him and sent him back to FL. No, America does not want to be Florida – at least his version of it!
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