Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
Governor DeSantis delivered a spectacular example of political leadership while demonstrating his climate science knowledge and credibility when he spoke at a press conference about the state's situation and status in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton (see below).
His important remarks on Florida's hurricane history and impacts, as well as the measures being taken to address the aftermath of Hurricane Milton Merit of being displayed in print to deliver as best he could and to be heard on several websites where his extremely competent press conference remarks were published.
To that end, I have attempted to summarize and summarize his key remarks and capture the many perspectives on hurricane climate science raised by Governor DeSantis as an example of competent political leadership and knowledge in climate science.
In response to a reporter's question who attempted to link “man-made global warming” to the increasing number and impact of hurricanes and tornadoes, Governor DeSantis noted:
“Tornadoes – I think you can safely go back and find tornadoes for all of human history, particularly in Florida.
How does this storm shape the history of storms, so to speak?
I believe this storm was at – what was it – about 950 millibars of air pressure when it hit.”
“If you go back to 1851, there were probably 27 lower pressure hurricanes. The lower the air pressure, the stronger it is.”
“I think there were about 27 hurricanes that had lower air pressure at landfall than Milton, and of those, I think 17 occurred before 1960.”
“The strongest hurricane to hit the state of Florida since the 1850s occurred in the 1930s, the Labor Day Hurricane, with a pressure of 892 millibars.”
“It completely wiped out the Keys. We have never seen anything like this, and this far exceeds any strong hurricane we have ever experienced in the state of Florida.”
“The deadliest hurricane the state has ever faced was the Okeechobee hurricane in 1928, which killed more than 4,000 people.”
“Luckily something like that won’t happen to us this time.”
“So I just think people need to put this in perspective.”
“They try to take different things that happen in tropical weather and act like there's nothing new under the sun.”
You know, this is something that the state has dealt with throughout its history and it's something that it will continue to deal with.”
“I think what has changed is that we have 23 million people. A storm that hits is likely to affect more people and property than it did 100 years ago, and so the potential for damage has increased, but what has also changed affects us.” Ability to prevent, to pre-position assets,”
“I mean, we never did pre-provisioning of energy assets until I became governor. Well, people expect that, but that hasn’t been done in the past.”
“That’s why during hurricanes, people would be without power for three weeks. We thought it wasn't good. Now we have to pay to get these people in, but in my opinion the quicker you get everyone online, the better off the economy will be anyway.”
In response to another reporter's question regarding the claim that human-caused global warming has caused storms to become more intense, Governor DeSantis noted:
“Oh, I think most people remember 2004 when it seemed like we had storms every two weeks.”
“You know from 2006 to 2016 we had no hurricanes at all.”
“There was a time when there were a lot of hurricanes in the 1940s.”
“So this situation has a lot of similarities to what happened in 2004.”
What a breath of fresh air from a competent political leader who is dealing with the reality of climate science rather than politically contrived climate alarmist speculation and hype.
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