Sunshine State finds rainy days laden with biblical irony The Irish Times

A convenient aspect of living in Florida for the cabal of billionaire golfers who live there is that they were able to throw their clubs in the back of the private jet for the short trip to Pinehurst, North Carolina, for the US Open this week. And they chose the right time to leave the Sunshine State.

Once again, the weather gods displayed breathtaking wrath with a breathtaking flash flood that swept through Miami and created a big question mark over the future of Florida itself- even, even as its legislators gave a one-finger salute. the concept of climate change.

Volume and dynamism have always been Florida's calling card, benefiting from its reputation as America's sunny resort town throughout the 20th century. This is where Papa Hemingway spent a few happy years, fishing for marlin off the coast of Key West; where John Updike sent Rabbit Angstrom along with hordes of other prosperous, aging Americans to enjoy their golden years. For many international visitors, Florida was America, with its Keys, the Everglades, Disney World and endless sunshine.

This year, Florida cities recorded their hottest May temperatures on record. This came just weeks after Ron DeSantis, the state's governor and brief alternative to Donald Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, signed a bill that deliberately reduced the emphasis on fighting against global warming and actively removes the word climate in nine different sections, according to opponents of his bill. who passed. He bans offshore wind power and leans favorably toward the fossil fuel industry, causing widespread alarm, inspiring a local television weatherman to break down on air as he vents his frustration.

We are restoring common sense to our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of radical green fanatics, DeSantis said on social media.

Local sea levels have risen about 30 cm over the past 80 years, including 20 cm over the past 30 years. The second leg will only take 30 years, the next leg only 20 years

Miami Herald Editorial

But fanatics are the least of his worries. Last year, Florida was the warmest since 1895, a statistic that gives climate skeptics reason to point their fingers: See, it was just as hot in the 1800s. Coastal water temperatures have reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius): a joy for divers until they descend into these azure waters to find Florida's magnificent coral reefs bleached and succumbing to diseases that the National Ocean Service has been warning about ever since a decade. Last August, Idalia, one of several summer hurricanes in the United States, struck Keaton Beach in Florida, causing an estimated $3 billion in damage.

In 2022, Hurricane Ian caused, directly or indirectly, around 140 deaths and colossal damage of $109 billion. This year's hurricane season has already begun and is expected to be the most active ever. None of this is good news for Florida homeowners, who have been dismayed as insurance costs have risen with water levels, putting the Sunshine State first in national premium costs. Homeowners in areas considered to be prone to severe weather find it difficult to convince an insurer to cover their home.

This week, flooding in downtown Miami prompted a grim editorial in the Herald, which warned readers that local sea levels had risen about a foot in the past 80 years, 8 inches of that total over the past 30 years. The second leg will only take 30 years, the next leg only 20 years.

On Wednesday, DeSantis declared a state of emergency in five counties around Miami as rivers of rain poured down residential streets and suburban thoroughfares: cars destroyed, lives threatened. In a moment of biblical irony, the rain came on the same day, June 12, that DeSantis signed, according to the Tampa Bay Times, the state budget after cuts amounting to $1 billion ($935 million). in stormwater, sewer and waste projects.

In the summer of 2016, comedian Dave Barry, a longtime Florida resident, published a book intended to vigorously defend his home, titled Best. State. Never.

On the one hand, he wrote, the national consensus is that Florida is a dysfunctional, stupid, strange, insane hellhole that is also, I forgot to mention earlier, a hurricane zone that will be soon to be largely submerged when global climate change causes seas to melt. reaching the point where vast herds of lobsters roam what is now Interstate 95. On the other hand, people still come here. And most of them, even the least stupid, decide to stay here.

Maybe that was true at the time. But in 2022, 500,000 Florida residents decided they'd had enough, and data suggests they sought out the less volatile weather events in the Carolinas or Great Lakes states.

Barry believes the 2000 election farce made Florida America's joke state: the swampy boot heel full of old men and insolent eccentrics, easy pickings for the more arrogant northern states, including inhabitants have always secretly wanted to settle there anyway.

But the laughter dries up.