There’s a lot of scary stuff going on around the world: the Ebola virus, ISIS, Ukraine. But environmental activists warn that we shouldn’t forget about one of the scariest prospects of all: the deleterious effects of climate change.
The scientists who gathered earlier this month at Eckerd College for a public discussion about the issue were unanimous about the cause of global warming.
“There’s no debate among climate scientists that it’s 100 percent due to human activities. It’s settled science,” declared Ben Kirtman, speaking at the Climate Science & Solutions Summit. Kirtman, a professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami, went on to list the impacts: sea ice melting, sea level rise, extreme weather events, both rainfall and droughts increasing.
The Pentagon agrees, saying all of these factors will affect the military. A report released last week said it was time to consider the possible effects of global warming on the military’s more than 7,000 bases and facilities, and to start putting plans in place to deal with them.
Addressing a conference of military leaders, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, “Our militaries’ readiness could be tested, and our capabilities could be stressed.”
But while most climate scientists and some of our political leaders believe it’s a problem that needs solving, that conclusion is hardly a consensus. Fears persist that regulations to combat climate change “will do nothing but reduce economic growth and resources available for either humanitarian efforts or to grow international economies,” wrote economist Nicolas Loris, a fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Another noted skeptic is Governor Rick Scott, who, like fellow Republican Marco Rubio, answers questions about man-made climate change by saying he’s not a scientist. So, after saying this summer that he was “focused on solutions we can implement to protect our land, water, and families,” he met on August 19 with Kirtman and four other scientists, ostensibly to hear about the science.
But it did not go well.
It was a “very frustrating experience,” said David Hastings, an Eckerd College professor of marine science and chemistry. A third of the scientists’ allotted 30 minutes was devoted to talking about their backgrounds. “It was disappointing,” Kirtman agrees. He says the first mistake was agreeing to just a half-hour.
“I’ve done these briefings before and you really need a couple of hours,” Kirtman said last week. He said it was a mistake allowing the media in the room, since Scott didn’t want to run the risk of appearing not to know what he was talking about while cameras rolled. “He can’t ask probing questions which might show he’s confused about something,” surmises Kirtman.
But even if the Rick Scott summit was a bust, Kirtman says that the only way to get the public and especially policymakers to buy into climate change is to engage in dialogue.
Gary Mitchum agrees. An associate dean and professor of physical oceanography at the USF College of Marine Science, he says a major problem for the public is that there’s no clear way to distinguish between the rhetoric of climate scientists and that of climate skeptics. “I think it’s pretty natural for human beings that if you’re worried about what it might cost you… and you’re getting different information, you kind of tend to listen to who or what you want to believe.”
This past May a federal report on climate change listed three areas in Florida — Miami, Apalachicola, and Tampa Bay — as being the most vulnerable to rising sea levels. A few months later, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine gave his constituents an update on how he plans to deal with these vulnerabilities.
“As mayor, I do not have the liberty to debate the causes of sea level rise, tidal surge, or climate change. But I am charged with ensuring that Miami Beach, its residents, and its businesses are equipped to handle the effects.”
Those actions include raising standards on stormwater planning and installing three new pump stations to drain water out of flood-prone neighborhoods. The city has set aside $300 to $400 million to install up to 50 pumps in the coming years. Miami Beach commissioners and the mayor also agreed to raise stormwater rates for residents by an average of $7 per month to deal with heavy floods.
What about St. Petersburg?
A report published last year by the Urban Land Institute on St. Petersburg’s downtown waterfront made it clear that “even modest sea-rise projections” posed a formidable challenge for the city’s future, “absent an appropriate long-term climate adaptation and coastal resiliency strategy.”
City Councilwoman Darden Rice agrees. She says she’s had some initial discussions with Mayor Rick Kriseman about creating a task force that would be charged with creating a climate action plan, which would also look at policies to reduce carbon emissions — transportation, energy, buildings and solid waste.
“Surrounded by water on three sides, no community is more aware of the catastrophic impacts of sea level rise than we are,” Mayor Kriseman said during a conference call in May in reaction to President Obama’s Climate Action Plan. “Job one for me is public safety, and sea level rise is about public safety and public health.”
USF professor Gary Mitchum recently met with the group working on the waterfront master plan. “My role is to inform and to act as a resource, and everything I see is they [Mayor Kriseman and the city] are trying to address this.”
Councilwoman Rice says reducing city-based carbon emissions isn’t as hard as reducing them on a per capita basis, but Duke Energy’s reluctance to combat climate change remains a “huge obstacle.” But she says leadership requires working around such obstacles. “The charter allows Council to create any kind of committee, but I want to do this with the mayor’s strong backing, and it looks like we’ll have that.”
In order to make St. Pete more energy-efficient, Councilman Karl Nurse has been working for the past few years to bring LED streetlights to the ’Burg. He says that Duke Energy agrees that such lights use half the power and provide a 50 percent reduction in maintenance costs (Nurse thinks it can save 80 percent).
Duke spokesperson Suzanne Grant says that due to competitive vendor contracts, Duke cannot disclose who has provided a proposal to convert two thirds of the city’s lights, at a savings of $93,000 annually. She says the utility wants to wait before converting the remaining streetlights, because LED lights require higher wattage and “prices for fixtures may come down in the next year as LED technology continues to advance.”
Energy efficiency is often presented as cost-prohibitive, but advocates insist the claim is propaganda. Take, for example, Doug Coward’s Solar and Energy Loan Fund (SELF) based in Port St. Lucie County.
SELF is a nonprofit community development financial institution, or CDFI. CDFIs are designed to provide capital to under-served and “under-banked communities.” They were introduced in the 1960s, but in 1994 President Clinton and Congress created a government agency known as the CDFI Fund. Among its requirements are that such institutions offer a minimum of 60 percent of their lending to low or moderate-income families.
Though there are 1,000 CDFIs in the country, SELF is the only one of its kind in Florida and one of only a handful in the country that offer home energy retrofits.
“In a nutshell, we provide energy expertise to help property owners identify the most cost-effective ways to cut their energy use and potentially incorporate renewable energy alternatives,” says Coward, who previously served as a county commissioner in Port St. Lucie. SELF also provides favorable financing so people can overcome the expensive costs of energy retrofits.
A typical loan to a client goes for around $8,000-$10,000 and includes a basic weatherization package. That involves inspecting the current energy efficiency of air conditioners and the insulation of a home. The 24 different types of products that SELF finances include window tinting, solar water heating, solar PV systems, reflective paint, windows, doors, and roofs.
SELF is also providing a boost to the economy in doing so, utilizing 48 different contractors to do the work. Coward says “mission-driven finance” from private investors and faith-based institutions is how his company is funded. And now that SELF has a track record, it’s able to work with banks.
Susan Glickman of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which helped facilitate the Scott meeting and organized this month’s Climate Science and Solutions Summit, has had discussions with Coward about bringing a similar financing model to St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.
“We’ve been talking to leaders about how do we bring these investment dollars, and Doug’s got investors… it’s all about the financing now.”
But will our investor-owned utilities do their part?
Earlier this summer, Duke, FP&L, TECO and four other power companies asked the Public Service Commission to lower energy conservation goals. They contend that energy efficiency is already occurring, through stricter building codes and higher efficiency standards for appliances. FPL and Duke also propose an end to the solar power programs that give homeowners a rebate when they install the systems.
The PSC won’t make its decision until after the election.
And come January that board will welcome its newest member, former Panama City House Republican Jimmy Patronis. Along with his seersucker suits, Patronis is best known for supporting legislation that favored developers and industry and is no friend of the environment. He’s also served a stint as Florida’s “Public Sector Chair” for ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which for decades has pushed “model legislation” at conferences where state legislators are presented with corporate wish lists.
Jimmy Patronis is Rick Scott’s choice at the PSC.
Some environmental activists say that, in contrast, this is one issue where Charlie Crist hasn’t flip-flopped. They point to his consistent support of the public over the utilities during his term as governor, and note that two of his selections to the PSC in 2009 — David Clement and Steve Stevens — were ejected by the Florida Senate in 2010, shortly after they voted against record rate increases proposed by FP&L and Progress Energy (which later merged with Duke).
Last Friday the climate scientists who met with Governor Scott composed a letter to him.
“Although you couldn’t make it to the summit, you have asked for ‘solutions,’” they wrote, and then submitted some ideas for limiting carbon pollution.
If there’s a change at the top in Tallahassee, they might just get a response.