The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, blamed the media for “politicizing the weather” on Sunday.
Hurricane Idalia struck Florida, and the media and the White House immediately blamed inaction on “climate change.”
After seeing the damage caused by the storms in Florida on Saturday, President Joe Biden said, “Nobody intelligent can question the influence of the climate crisis anymore.”
Biden, who has long been considered among the least intelligent politicians, took a bold swipe with his statement.
On Sunday, a reporter asked DeSantis about Biden’s comments and those of other media talking heads who have blamed recent weather events on climate change; DeSantis acknowledged that he was aware of both sets of statements.
Florida’s governor wasted no time shutting down the left’s version of events, saying it’s false that modern storms differ from historical ones. The weather and natural disasters, he said, should not be used as political footballs.
The governor mentioned two devastating hurricanes that made landfall in Florida: one in 1896, which followed a path similar to Idalia and was estimated to have had an intensity identical to Idalia’s, and another on Labor Day in 1935, which was one of the deadliest and most destructive storms ever to make landfall in the United States. DeSantis claims these two tragedies disprove, at first glance, that global warming is leading to more intense storms.
DeSantis also responded to the progressives’ claims that lousy policy contributes to climate change. DeSantis has said that the idea that storms can be prevented by adopting “radical left-wing policies” at the federal level is “a fallacy.” It’s not going to work like that. He said people are trying to leverage the disasters caused by different storms to further their agenda at the expense of others already struggling.
He said it is wrong, and “we are not going to do that in Florida.”
It was reported over the weekend that the governor “snubbed” President Joe Biden. The president claimed that DeSantis was engaged in arranging for Biden’s visit, but the governor’s administration said that he had no plans to meet with Biden since his visit would have disrupted current recovery efforts.
