Florida's Republican Governor, Ron DeSantis, has criticized the media for what he perceives as the politicization of weather events, particularly in relation to Hurricane Idalia and the broader issue of climate change.
His comments came in response to a question about remarks made by President Joe Biden during a recent visit to assess hurricane damage in the state.
President Biden, after witnessing the devastation caused by the hurricane, stated, "nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore." This assertion, along with similar sentiments expressed by media commentators attributing weather events to climate change, was met with swift dismissal by Governor DeSantis.
"The notion that somehow hurricanes are something new, that's just false. And we've got to stop politicizing the weather and stop politicizing natural disasters," DeSantis retorted. He referred to two significant hurricanes that have previously hit Florida, a storm in 1896 and the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, as evidence against the argument that climate change is intensifying such events.
The governor also addressed the political implications of the climate change discourse, particularly the progressive stance on policy. "The notion that somehow if we just adopt very left-wing policies at the federal level, that somehow we will not have hurricanes, that is a lie," DeSantis declared. He further accused those who use storm events as a pretext to advance their political agenda of exploiting the suffering of affected individuals.
"And that is people trying to take whats happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people who are suffering," he added. "And that's wrong, and we're not going to do that in the state of Florida."
In a separate incident, Governor DeSantis was accused of snubbing President Biden during his visit. While the President claimed that DeSantis had assisted in planning his visit, the governor's office refuted this, stating that DeSantis had no plans to meet with Biden as the logistical operations of presidential travel would interfere with recovery efforts.
Login