The babble of voices opposing science, reason and effective climate action will doubtless never be silenced, but last week those voices were called to account in no uncertain terms.
The turnaround was centred on Florida, “the sunshine state”, a corner of America especially vulnerable to impacts from growing climate instability, and also to malicious conspiracy theories.
In Florida’s coastal cities, including parts of Miami, high tides on the back of rising sea levels have often made life confronting when seawater filtering through the peninsula’s porous limestone has carried sewage into the streets.
Jutting into the ocean at an average elevation of just 30 metres, Florida is uniquely exposed to storms from the east (Atlantic Ocean), the south (Caribbean Sea) and the west (Gulf of Mexico). Its record speaks for itself: it has around double the number of hurricanes experienced by the states next in line, Texas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
Current sea-surface temperatures around Florida – still around 30C well into autumn – are causing storms to form at record pace. Before it hit last week, Milton grew from a small low into a massive Category 5 hurricane, with winds gusting to over 300 km/h, in just two days – a rate described by one hurricane specialist as “insane”.
But Milton was just another chapter in weeks of chaos. Late last month Helene, among America’s most damaging and deadly hurricanes on record, tore through Florida’s north-east before wreaking even more havoc in states to the north.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, running to succeed Biden, did what you would expect elected leaders to do. They dropped everything for long enough to get familiar with things on the ground and to ensure first responders had what they needed to rescue people, provide shelter and food, and generally minimise suffering.
But the twin hurricanes didn’t stop Republican campaigning for the US presidential election, the most controversial and consequential in anyone’s lifetime. It was once normal for opposing candidates – in this case former president Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance – to drop their political point-scoring and do what was needed to support recovery. Not any more.
A fortnight ago, Florida resident Trump falsely told a rally in the coastal city of Fort Myers that “Kamala spent all of her FEMA [federal emergency agency] money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants”. Despite repeated rebuttals by the Biden Administration, the lie was amplified by Vance at another rally and spread by other climate change deniers including Representatives Matt Gaetz and Steve Scalise and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
Even wilder claims were made on social media. One said that Hurricane Helene was created by the Democrats to seize North Carolina lithium deposits. Trump congressional ally Marjorie Taylor-Greene offered this ludicrous tidbit: “Yes they can control weather. It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”
The Helene falsehoods were put to bed by a Republican congressman from North Carolina, Chuck Edwards, in words that could not be misunderstood. He listed a string of lies and conspiracy theories, including Trump’s funding falsehoods, under the heading “Debunking Helene Response Myths”, and went on to do just that, one lie at a time.
Another wild claim said that FEMA was planning to seize property while owners were away sheltering in evacuation centres. Faced with the prospect of people fleeing Milton returning home into danger, a staffer for climate-denying Florida governor Ron DeSantis was forced to put out a counter-tweet that “spreading LIES like this could have serious consequences.” Indeed.
Last weekend a North Carolina man called a talkback radio show in despair to tell them that his father-in-law, “a hardcore Trumper” badly affected by Helene, was refusing FEMA relief money because Trump had said that if he accepted it FEMA would “take his house”.
Television host Chris Hayes of MSNBC put it this way:“Republicans who suddenly see a conflict between the welfare of their constituents and the toxic effect of their party’s propaganda – and also who don’t want to fly back to Washington for an emergency session to fund FEMA when FEMA has money – are now struggling to explain to their audiences that, well, up is up, and down is down, and water is wet, and two plus two equals four.”
As for DeSantis, he has some serious questions to answer. Of all people, Floridians need to know about climate change. Yet it was DeSantis who refused federal money for energy efficiency, banned clean energy goals and expunged climate change from school curricula (“woke”, he called it).
While having to contend with living in the eye of the global warming storm, and with an anti-science zealot as governor and a resident denier-in-chief campaigning ferociously to become their nation’s dictator (“but only on day one”), the people of Florida have a lot to think about.