Recent editorials from Florida newspapers:
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April 12
Miami Herald says the state needs to heed recommendations to combat rising sea levels:
When it comes to sea-level rise, it has long been known that Miami Beach is Ground Zero for whatever dystopian scenario the inundating waters could bring. And that Miami is not far behind.
Leaders for both municipalities have made confronting this challenge a priority. And so have students at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.
Last week, a group of Harvard graduate students and their professor unveiled in a presentation to Miami Beach leaders both conventional - and unconventional - solutions to our rising waters.
The basis of their recommendations rests on these core questions: If Miami and Miami Beach are going to be living with water, what form will that take day to day and how will it look?
Professor Charles Waldheim and 50 students, speaking in front of Miami Beach commissioners, said they spent almost three years envisioning ways to prevent our most famous cities from being engulfed by water - pretty much bringing an end to life as we know it.
The Harvard group also revealed some inconvenient truths. Most troubling: The state-of-the-art pumps Miami Beach installed to drain flood waters and construction to raise the street level - to the tune of $500 million in taxpayer money - will become inadequate to hold back the water.
Given what the science says about sea-level rise, the students’ prognosis is clear-eyed and sobering - and cannot be ignored.
The Harvard group had some outside-the-box ideas Miami Beach and Miami could consider to adapt to rising seas:
? Large, concrete water-holding cisterns that can double as art strategically placed on roofs throughout the city and in public parks. The idea is for them to capture rainwater.
? Constructing buildings with “sacrificial floors” on top of a layer of limestone that would serve as a “sponge pad” to absorb excess water that seeps in.
? Deepening Collins Canal and using the excavated rock, muck and sand to elevate nearby properties.
The students suggested the city focus on using more trees, grasses and other nature-based solutions to drain floodwater and create pleasant public spaces.
The university project looking at how we’re dealing with sea-level rise and climate change comes at an important time for Miami, too.
Mayor Francis Suarez recently decided to expand the goals of the city’s Sea-Level Rise Committee, following a brouhaha at a meeting where the cause of sea-level rise, assumed to be climate change, was declared off limits by committee member Reinaldo Borges pushing back against a climate-change activist. The disagreement prompted Suarez to suggest that the committee expand its scope to include climate change - and to ask Borges to resign.
Miami is fortunate to have a mayor who has long been a voice of concern and wisdom as to the city’s vulnerability. However, we’re disappointed that Suarez sought to remove a dissenting voice, however rude and hostile that day, from the committee.
The mayor could follow U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo’s example. The lawmaker took the lead in assembling a bipartisan task force in Congress where members put aside their differences about the existence or sources of climate change to focus on the undeniable reality of rising seas.
If we’re going to keep our heads above water, we need to rise above this enduring disagreement and get to work.
Online: http://www.miamiherald.com
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April 16
The Daytona Beach News-Journal on the constitution revision commission:
You like veterans, right? Sure, everybody does.
And terrorism is bad. Floridians want their homeland to be secure.
So … let’s trample the express will of voters in eight Florida counties, including Volusia County! For the veterans! And security!
Wait.
What?
If you’re confused, you’re not the only one.
The deliberations of Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission have been one long roller-coaster ride of controversy, which could go right off the rails this week if the commission approves a move to “bundle” 24 ballot questions down to 12, with the fairly transparent goal of wrapping several inflammatory measures in coats of feel-good puffery. The veterans/anti-terrorism/demolition of local control proposal is just one example - the core proposal would, if approved by voters, undo local voter decisions that have been in place for decades, such as Volusia County’s charter provision abolishing the elected office of tax collector. That proposal also opens the door for the Legislature to award control over county jails to the elected sheriff.
In most cases, contested elements are bundled with “sweeteners” that really have no place in the state constitution, because it’s something the Legislature easily could do on its own. Florida already has a Department of Veterans’ Affairs, for example - and nobody has ever seriously suggested abolishing it, because people love veterans. Meanwhile, there’s been no outcry for another (constitutionally mandated) layer of “homeland security” bureaucracy. Finally, giving lawmakers permission to shift their annual session forward a few months is just silly, given that they did exactly that in 2018, and did not burst into flames.
Other “bundles” include:
(asterisk)A measure that gives the state the ability to override local school boards’ authority over charter-school applications, bundled with eight-year term limits for local school board members and mandatory civics education in high schools.
(asterisk)A higher bar for any increase in fees in the university system, tied to free tuition for the survivors of first responders and military who die in the line of duty (seriously, who could vote against that?), and constitutional recognition of the state college system - the 28 institutions once known as “community colleges.” There is a slight glimmer of logic to that last measure, in light of the sharp cuts inflicted on state colleges in recent sessions, but the solution is to elect smarter legislators, not carve new language into the bedrock of state government.
(asterisk)An odd proposal that would apparently give judges more leeway in interpreting state laws, bundled with expanded victims’ rights in criminal trials and a bump up in Florida’s mandatory retirement age for judges.
(asterisk)And a pairing of two utterly unrelated issues: One that bans oil and gas drilling in state-controlled waters, and another that would extend Florida’s indoor smoking ban to the practice known as “vaping.”
There’s only one “bundled” proposal that merits consideration, and it’s one most constitutional revision commissions adopt: A cleanup amendment that would remove obsolete references and old projects from the Constitution.
The commission also has six stand-alone provisions under consideration this week, including an ethics proposal that could be a welcome move for Florida, a provision granting school districts the same kind of flexibility enjoyed by charter schools and a ban on greyhound racing. They aren’t bad ideas - which is why the Legislature should be encouraged to act on them. Most don’t belong in the state constitution.
The commission’s proposed amendments go straight to the ballot with no court review, which gives it a big responsibility - and commissioners are blowing it. This week’s meetings may be the last chance for the commission to come to its senses. Voters don’t need this mess, and they shouldn’t be asked to wade through it.
Online: http://www.news-journalonline.com/
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April 16
Sun Sentinel says Florid Gov. Rick Scott needs to listen to students about climate change:
Florida’s children are tired of waiting for grown-ups to take action on climate change, and that includes Gov. Rick Scott.
Just after the governor announced his bid for the U.S. Senate, eight students filed suit to force him and legislative leaders to take action on climate change.
Good. The courts - including the court of public opinion - should hold climate-change-deniers, like Scott, accountable for failing to address the epic threat facing those of us at Ground Zero.
South Floridians know the floodwaters that more frequently overtake our roads and threaten our homes are a bipartisan problem that cannot be ignored.
Yet during his two terms in Tallahassee, Gov. Scott has done nothing to address the problem. Instead, he looked the other way as incentives to use alternative energies, like solar, were eliminated. And he reportedly prohibited his staff from using the words “climate change,” ’’global warming” and “sustainability.”
The lawsuit seeks to reduce Florida’s use of fossil fuels, which contribute to air pollution and worsen climate change threats, such as sea level rise.
Scott quickly dismissed the lawsuit as “political theater.” Perhaps it is. But if it raises the curtain on Tallahassee politicians who’ve refused to protect our state’s assets and future, it deserves a standing O.
The students, from elementary school to college, are teaming with Our Children’s Trust, an Oregon-based advocacy group that has filed lawsuits in multiple states - and one against the federal government - to force reluctant politicians to enact climate recovery policies.
In Florida, they want the courts to require the state to reduce its output of greenhouse gases by using alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind power.
It’s fitting that students, who will face the consequences of climate change, are the faces of this legal fight.
“Without a stable climate system, everything we care about is at risk,” said Oscar Psychas, a college student from Gainesville.
The lawsuit targets Scott and other state leaders, including Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who’s running to be our next governor.
Scott’s office responded by questioning the motives of those who filed the lawsuit and highlighting the $4 billion in environmental spending in the state budget. He failed to mention, however, that a 2014 constitutional amendment - approved by 75 percent of Florida voters - forces the state to dedicate a share of real-estate sales taxes to acquiring and restoring conservation and recreation lands.
In truth, it took a constitutional amendment to force Scott and legislative leaders to restore funding for water and land conservation. Even then, their first response was to spend the money on salaries and expenses at state agencies like the Forestry Service. It took a lawsuit to get them to uphold the Florida Constitution and spend the money as intended.
While Tallahassee ignores the reality, South Florida communities are adding pumps, raising roads and boosting sea walls. Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties for years have been working on regional plans to adapt to sea level rise and other effects of climate change. Those plans, by the way, expect the sea will be two feet higher by 2060.
But this isn’t just a South Florida problem. A state with more than 1,300 miles of shoreline can’t afford to ignore the threat of sea level rise, which is caused by a warming climate.
Neither should Florida leaders pretend the pollution we pump into the air by burning fossil fuels isn’t making matters worse by adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
“Those affect everyone . people from the Panhandle to Miami,” said Tampa attorney Guy Burns, part of the legal team behind the lawsuit.
Lawsuits are the only recourse when politicians fail to uphold their oath to protect our state. In the 1990s, it took a court fight to force them to get serious about saving the Everglades.
Parkland’s survivors have shown the power of student advocacy. Just a few weeks after a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, pressure from student activists helped pass Florida’s first new gun regulations in decades. A month later, those same students helped lead hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in a march on Washington for sensible gun laws.
When casting their ballots in November, voters will be asked to remember the Parkland students’ call for gun control.
Let them also remember the call of these eight students, who seek to protect Florida not only for themselves, but for the students of tomorrow.
Online: http://www.sun-sentinel.com
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