Governor DeSantis: Cut the Harmful Rhetoric and Focus on What’s Important

Governor Ron DeSantis had the opportunity to be Florida’s own modern version of Teddy Roosevelt, a lawmaker who didn’t shy away from love of conservation. Instead, he has chosen to be using our at-risk state as a battleground for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The governor was a breath of fresh air when he first came into office. Gone were the days when just mentioning climate change as a state employee was forbidden. (Though sadly, the issuer of those orders now works for us in the U.S. Senate.) Early in his term, DeSantis showed his leadership by hiring the state’s first Chief Resilience Officer, our first Chief Science Officer, and seemed to recognize that the Sunshine State can ill-afford to make climate change the polarizing, partisan issue that it can be at the national level of politics.

Frankly, we have too much at stake, with the risks posed not only to our environment, but to the Florida economy by sea level rise, harmful algae blooms, King Tides, and flooding. DeSantis knows these climate impacts are real, which is why he’s committing so much fiscal power into adaptation.

But the state needs more than to adapt to a changing climate; we need to do our part to reduce emissions and because carbon dioxide emissions can’t be controlled by just one state, our lawmakers at the federal level need to pick up the slack too.

What we don’t need, however, is more talk like harmful rhetoric, like that which DeSantis recently engaged in: “What I’ve found is, people when they start talking about things like global warming, they typically use that as a pretext to do a bunch of left-wing things that they would want to do anyways. We’re not doing any left-wing stuff,” DeSantis said at an event highlighting a $270 million commitment to 76 local grants that will help communities battle sea level rise and inland flooding.

Governor, I, along with my fellow Floridians, expected better of you.

It’s fine to disagree with the climate proposals put forth by Democrats, but to call those policy ideas “left-wing stuff” fans the flames of partisanship. This isn’t who or what Florida is. According to a recent survey conducted by Florida Atlantic University, 88 percent of Floridians think climate change is real, a number that has doubled in less than two years. “The climate change issue may therefore no longer be an effective campaign trail theme for the state’s party leaders as both parties gear up for the midterm elections,” the survey read. Given Florida’s firm bipartisan position on climate change, the “left-wing stuff” comment leaves me wondering what DeSantis is trying to do: represent Florida or position himself for a run at the White House?

Florida deserves a governor who is going to transcend the partisanship shown in federal politics to put his head down and do what is right for the state. Tossing out inflammatory language for political point scoring won’t ease sea level rise or protect us from the 2022 hurricane season.

“Be very careful of people trying to smuggle in their ideology,” DeSantis warned at the adaptation announcement.

Point taken, Governor, point taken.

Originally written for and published on The Invading Sea