Leprosy could become endemic to Florida. Here is what to know.
Brandon Girod and Kinsey Crowley – July 31, 2023
Rising cases of leprosy in the Southeast U.S. point to the possibility of the disease becoming endemic to the region, and a high concentration of those cases were reported in central Florida.
In a recently published research letter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Florida is witnessing an increase in leprosy cases lacking traditional risk factors and recommending that travel to Florida be considered when conducting leprosy contact tracing in any state.
The number of reported leprosy cases across the country has doubled over the past decade, according to the CDC. Citing data from the National Hansen’s Disease Program, the CDC says there were 159 new cases reported in the U.S. in 2020. Nearly 70% of these new cases were reported in Florida, California, Louisiana, Hawaii, New York and Texas.
Leprosy, scientifically known as Hansen’s disease, has never been common in the U.S., with most cases previously involving people who immigrated from leprosy-endemic areas. But the new report shows that about 34% of the reported cases between 2015 and 2020 were locally acquired.
A 54-year-old man in central Florida was diagnosed with lepromatous leprosy in 2022.
About the Florida leprosy outbreak
According to the report, Florida may represent an endemic location for leprosy and recommends that physicians consider leprosy in the appropriate clinical context in patients who have traveled to the area, even in the absence of other risk factors. Here is why:
Florida is among the top reporting states for cases of leprosy.
80% of cases in Florida were in central Florida.
Central Florida alone accounted for nearly 20% of the total number of cases reported nationally.
Several new-case patients in central Florida demonstrated no clear evidence of zoonotic exposure or traditionally known risk factors.
What is leprosy and where did it come from?
Leprosy is a chronic infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae that primarily affects the skin and peripheral nervous system. It can sometimes infect other parts of the body like the lining in the airway passages of the nose, according to the Florida Department of Health. It has been around for thousands of years, with the earliest known records appearing in China and India around 600 B.C.
Despite its biblical description, the disease is not easily spread and about 95% of people have natural protective immunity, according to the FDOH. Leprosy can be easy to treat, especially if it’s addressed early. However, going without treatment can result in permanent nerve damage.
The Mycobacterium leprae bacteria is slow growing and it can often take years for signs and symptoms to develop following exposure to the bacteria. Once the first sign of infection appears, it can take anywhere between two weeks to months for it to progress.
Can leprosy be cured?
Yes, leprosy is a curable disease. Doctors prescribe antibiotics to patients with leprosy. Patients are typically no longer infectious after a few days of antibiotics, but the treatment lasts between one to two years due to the bacteria’s slow growth.
What are the signs and symptoms of leprosy?
Early signs of leprosy include pale or slightly red areas or rash on the body that is often associated with a loss of sensation in the affected area, according to the FDOH.
Other symptoms include:
Loss of feeling in hands and feet
Dry, stiff and sometimes painful skin in the affected area
Thinning of the eyebrows and eyelashes (if the face is involved)
Nasal congestion is sometimes reported
If the disease goes untreated, weakness in the muscles of the hands and feet can also occur.
Leprosy is contagious and can be transmitted by untreated people infected with the disease, however, most people have natural protective immunity. Exposure to people infected with leprosy should still be avoided, especially among family members as protective immunity is genetic.
How leprosy is transmitted isn’t fully known due to how uncommon it is. Scientists do know it’s not spread through casual contact, sexual transmission or from mother to fetus. The prevailing theory is that high levels of the bacteria are developed in a person’s nose and are spread to others not immune through prolonged contact.
The CDC hopes that local physicians can help identify and reduce the spread of the disease through their efforts to report cases and their support in further research to assess routes of transmission.
Can you get leprosy from armadillos?
Yes. A genetic study conducted at the National Hansen’s Disease Program found that armadillos in the southern U.S. develop a high number of M. leprae, that bacteria that causes leprosy. Transmission between animals to humans is low, but the program advises that people still take proper precautions around armadillos.
Is the Atlantic Ocean current system nearing collapse? Scientists weigh in
Li Cohen – July 31, 2023
A study out this week raised a dire warning about the future of the planet and humanity, suggesting a system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean could totally collapse as early as 2025 — a frightening scenario that was the premise for the 2004 film “The Day After Tomorrow.”
But some scientists say that while a collapse is possible, it’s just one of many potential scenarios that could unfold and is unlikely to occur this century.
The study, published in Nature Communications, focuses on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic Ocean. This system is part of a global conveyor belt as it circulates water from north to south in the Atlantic, helping disperse warm waters. This system, along with other ocean currents, is crucial to helping maintain the Earth’s climate — and scientists believe it is being affected by climate change, as melting ice alters the balance in northern waters.
The AMOC “is a major tipping element in the climate system and a future collapse would have severe impacts on the climate in the North Atlantic region,” the study says, adding that there has been other research in recent years indicating that its circulation is weakening.
“We estimate a collapse of the AMOC to occur around mid-century under the current scenario of future [carbon] emissions,” it says.
Peter Ditlevsen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute and the lead author of the study, told CBS News he believes it’s “most likely” the system could collapse in about 30 years, around 2057. In the study, the range for a collapse was estimated to be anywhere between 2025 and 2095.
But, he says, there’s an “uncertainty”: “You cannot be completely sure.”
That’s because measurements of the AMOC only go back 20 years, providing a small amount of data to work into configurations. So his team looked at records of sea surface temperatures and climate model simulations to try to predict the fate of the current system.
The global conveyor belt, shown in part here, circulates cool subsurface water and warm surface water throughout the world / Credit: NOAA
“We know that there’s a tipping point out there in the future. And that when you approach that tipping point, they start to be unstable in a very specific way,” Ditlevsen said.
But Marlos Goes, a scientist at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, said the likelihood of this study’s results coming to fruition within this century “is very small.” Such a timeframe, he said, is just “one scenario … out of hundreds.”
According to state-of-the-art climate models and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group that works to assess the science behind climate change, “it’s not going to collapse in the 21st century at all,” Goes said.
“It may in the following century. It depends on the [emissions] pathways,” he told CBS News. “If the emissions go unabated the way they are going right now … that could be a potential force for this collapse. But the probability of that single scenario that they analyzed in that study is very unlikely.”
What is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation?
The AMOC is a long current cycle in the Atlantic Ocean that transports warm water across the globe. It’s an incredibly slow-moving system that takes roughly 1,000 years to move any given cubic meter of water through its entirety, according to NOAA.
It is part of the global conveyor belt, a system of deep ocean currents driven by temperature, salinity and the wind on the ocean surface. The belt begins where warm water from the Gulf is thrust into a cold atmosphere of the Norwegian Sea. From there, the now much cooler water sinks lower into the ocean and is carried south. The conveyor belt takes that cold water all the way down to Antarctica.
/ Credit: USGS
Is the Gulf Stream going to collapse?
The Gulf Stream is a warm ocean current that runs from the coast of Florida and up to North Carolina, where it then diverts and goes across the Atlantic. It’s also part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. The latest study makes no mention of the Gulf Stream, specifically, but because it is part of this system, it would be impacted by such a collapse.
However, Goes told CBS News that wouldn’t disappear. The Gulf Stream is primarily driven by wind rather than temperature and salinity, as the AMOC as a whole is, meaning it would still function.
This image by NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center shows the temperature of the Gulf Stream along the U.S. East Coast. / Credit: NOAA Ocean Prediction Center
“We would have a Gulf Stream just if we had the wind, if we didn’t have this formation in the North Atlantic,” Goes said. “…So even if the AMOC collapses, we’ll still have a Gulf Stream, but it would be much weaker.”
What would happen if the AMOC shut down?
A collapse of the system was the inspiration for the 2004 disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow.” In the movie, ocean current systems stopped because of global warming, triggering another Ice Age.
But Ditlevsen said, “That’s not gonna happen.” The principle of it, however, is the same, he said.
“You get colder Europe, northern Atlantic region, which is maybe not nice for us living in Scandinavia because it will be more similar to what’s going on in Alaska,” he said.
“But worse is that, the heat that’s not coming here stays in the tropics, heating them even more,” he continued. “The livelihood of people in the tropics can be severely threatened by this. … These are climate changes that are going to happen very fast.”
The AMOC won’t collapse just yet, some say — but it is slowing
Even though Goes says the chances of the AMOC collapsing within the next few decades are low, the current system is at risk. In 2021, another study found that the system is the weakest it’s been in at least 1,600 years. Researchers found that the current has slowed down an “unprecedented” amount — 15% since 1950.
Other research has found that it could be reduced up to 45% within the next 70 years or so.
Goes said that even just a slowdown of the currents, and not a total collapse, could impact people around the world.
“Generally, when the AMOC weakens or collapses, you have a cooling of the North Atlantic because this heat wouldn’t be carried further north, and there’s a warming of the South Atlantic. This would shift the precipitation patterns further south,” he said. “And that could influence all the sub-Sahara, the African and South American continents in the tropical bands. It would have influence on the storms in the North Atlantic, in Europe.”
But it would also release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The ocean absorbs 90% of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and without the current, the ocean won’t be able to absorb as much, Goes said, a situation that would only add to the already rampant global warming the planet is facing. It would also increase sea levels along the U.S. coast.
Urgent action could stop a slowdown
A drastic change or shutdown of the AMOC wouldn’t necessarily be detectable right away, Goes said. In fact, it could take 40 to 50 years to emerge.
“By the time we detect that, it will be too late,” he said. “We really need to act now. This is one of the tipping points of the world.”
Once a tipping point such as a slowdown or shutdown of the AMOC is passed, it could cause a cascade of impacts that could cause “irreversible and severe changes in the climate system,” according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Even though a full collapse of the AMOC within the next few decades isn’t probable, it is possible, Goes said, and it could come with high risk.
Scientists are continuing to monitor the system to learn what they can about its current state. But to help prevent a continued slowdown or a potential full shutdown, both Goes and Ditlevsen agreed that global emissions must be reduced drastically. Those emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, are trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing sea ice to melt. When that ice melts, it adds fresh water to the AMOC, disrupting the salinity and temperature it relies on to move.
“If we stop our emissions, it will not collapse,” Ditlevsen said. “The disturbing part about this study is that we have to react much faster than we perhaps would like to do. … It’s yet another wake-up call or warning sign that we have to react faster than we do.”
Scientists Say Atlantic Current Collapse Could Lead to Extreme Cold in Europe and North America
Victor Tangermann – July 31, 2023
Researchers are warning that the crucial ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could collapse as soon as 2025 — an impending, climate change-fueled disaster that could usher in a new era of extreme temperature fluctuations.
It’s important to note that not every scientist is convinced by this assessment. And though the researchers say the collapse could take place as soon 2025, they also say it could take another 70 years.
That said, a team of researchers led by Peter Ditlevsen, professor and climate researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark anticipate in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications that the currents could collapse anywhere between 2025 and 2095 — if we don’t cut global carbon emissions, that is.
If it were to collapse, much of the Western world could be plunged into an extended period of extreme cold — a counterintuitive result of climate change. Previous collapses, which have predominantly occurred during ice ages many thousands of years ago, have indeed led to temperatures going haywire.
“I think we should be very worried,” Ditlevsen told The Guardian. “This would be a very, very large change. The AMOC has not been shut off for 12,000 years.”
Back in 2021, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany warned in a separate paper that the AMOC is being driven to the brink of collapse due to climate change. In the short term, this collapse could cause temperatures to plunge in Europe and North America, resulting in prolonged periods of extreme cold.
And if the planet’s past history is anything to go by, the stakes are significant. 12,000 years ago, the melting of a massive glacial lake plunged Europe into an extreme cold spell for almost a millennium.
Now, by analyzing statistics from the last 150 years, Ditlevsen and his team say they’ve calculated with a 95 percent certainty that the AMOC will collapse between 2025 and 2095.
“Shutting down the AMOC can have very serious consequences for Earth’s climate, for example, by changing how heat and precipitation are distributed globally,” Ditlevsen said in a statement.
“While a cooling of Europe may seem less severe as the globe as a whole becomes warmer and heat waves occur more frequently, this shutdown will contribute to increased warming of the tropics, where rising temperatures have already given rise to challenging living conditions,” he added.
This change could be far more rapid than the incremental 1.5 degrees Celsius rise caused by climate change over a century. With a collapsed AMOC, we’d be looking at far more extreme changes in the ten to 15 degrees Celsius range over just a decade.
“Our result underscores the importance of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” Ditlevsen said.
But while researchers generally agree with this final conclusion, not everybody is convinced the AMOC is about to, well, run amok.
For one, the conclusion contradicts the latest findings of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found in its most recent report that the current was unlikely to just collapse within this century.
“The work provides no reason to change the assessment of the [IPCC],” Jochem Marotzke of the Max-Planck-Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, told Politico.
“We just don’t have the evidence to state that it has declined,” Penny Holliday, researcher at the UK’s National Oceanography Center, told the BBC. “We know that there is a possibility that AMOC could stop what it’s doing now at some point, but it’s really hard to have certainty about that.”
At the same time, while we may never get a 100 percent accurate prediction — after all, our planet’s climate systems are incredibly complex — we should still heed Ditlevsen and his colleagues’ warning.
“We do still have to take the idea seriously that there could be abrupt changes in the North Atlantic climate system,” University of Reading atmospheric scientist Jon Robson told the BBC. “But the exact predictions that it will happen — and within this time frame — you have to take that with some skepticism.”
The Mojave Desert is burning in California’s biggest fire of year, torching Joshua trees
Grace Toohey, Alex Wigglesworth – July 31, 2023
An air tanker drops fire retardant over the York fire in the Mojave National Preserve on Saturday. (R. Almendinger / National Park Service)
California’s biggest wildfire of the year — burning through delicate Joshua Tree forests along the California-Nevada border — is an unusual desert blaze being fueled in part by the rapid growth of underbrush from this winter’s record rains.
The York fire had scorched 77,000 acres as of Monday, with no containment. After first being observed Friday, the blaze has spread mainly across the Mojave National Preserve in eastern San Bernardino County, but recently jumped into western Nevada. No evacuations have been issued as a result of the fire, which is burning in mostly remote areas.
“It’s a public misconception that the desert doesn’t burn, but we’re seeing right here that that’s not case,” said Sierra Willoughby, a supervisory park ranger at Mojave National Preserve. “They’re not as rare as we would hope them to be.”
Just 10 days before this wildfire was spotted in the New York Mountains area of the Mojave National Preserve, park officials warned of extreme fire risk for the federally protected desert, banning all open flames.
“Even though we had a good moisture year with the [winter] season, the very high temperatures that came in July were a concern for our fire folks,” Willoughby said.
Southern California’s wet winter and cool spring helped foster increasing levels of invasive grasses and underbrush in the Mojave and Colorado deserts, federal officials said, which has made the region exceptionally susceptible to brush fires this summer as those plants dry out.
This year’s climate patterns have provided a “more continuous fuel bed” than is typical for desert ecosystems, UCLA climatologist Daniel Swain said on Twitter.
“Big fires in the desert are entirely consistent with the fire season outlook for 2023,” Swain wrote, noting that poses a major concern for ecologists and desert conservationists.
Fire regimes tend to vary on a gradient from climate-limited, in which there is an abundance of fuel but conditions are often too wet to carry fire, to fuel-limited, in which the climate is generally conducive to fire but there is usually not enough vegetation to carry it.
For this reason, forecasters had called for a less active fire season in California’s higher-elevation forests, which are dense but remain moist from the wet winter. But at lower elevations, the rains helped more grasses grow, and then several weeks of high temperatures caused the vegetation to dry out — or cure — priming it to become wildfire fuel.
Already, a June 10 wildfire burned more than 1,000 acres in the Pleasant Valley area of Joshua Tree National Park. Invasive grasses played a role in stoking that fire, known as the Geology fire, which burned in an area populated by Joshua trees, Mojave yucca, creosote and senna, park officials said.
“Most of the deserts in the southwestern U.S. are fairly fuel-limited in dry years, so there was that kind of natural fire break between plants or keeping it confined to relatively small areas,” said Christopher McDonald, a natural resources advisor at UC Cooperative Extension.
But after a year of above-average rainfall, there’s more fuel connecting perennial shrubs and Joshua trees, which enables fire to spread among the plants, he said. Hot, windy conditions further primed vegetation to burn.
Joshua trees and other desert plants have limited natural defenses to fires, officials said, and would struggle to recover from such blazes.
The extent of the plants and animals at risk in the York fire are still under investigation, Willoughby said, noting that the blaze has already burned through Joshua tree, juniper and pinyon pine groves. Stephanie Bishop, a National Park Service public information officer and a spokesperson for the York fire, said endangered tortoises that live in the region also could be harmed.
“What we’ve seen is fires go through these areas and take out quite a bit,” Willoughby said. The York fire is burning in some of the areas that last saw flames in 2005 from the Hackberry Complex fire, which eventually burned more than 70,000 acres. Willoughby said many of the forests harmed in that blaze 18 years ago still have not recovered.
The 2020 Dome fire, which burned more than 40,000 acres across the southwestern California desert — including in the national preserve, but in a different area from the York fire — destroyed an estimated 1 million Joshua trees. Crews and volunteers are trying to replant and revitalize those groves.
In the Eastern Mojave, the heavy winter rains stoked the growth of native grasses, including big galleta, said ecologist Laura Cunningham, California’s director at the Western Watersheds Project and co-founder of conservation group Basin and Range Watch. The area doesn’t have as many invasive grasses, such as red brome and cheatgrass, which are more common in low-creosote deserts, but it does have a big Sahara mustard problem, which could be adding to the fuel, she said.
Some models suggest that increased global temperatures as a result of climate change are bringing more rain to the Mojave desert, fueling grass growth and the risk of lightning strikes, Cunningham said. On top of that, more humans traveling into desert areas increases the risk of sparks — from a bullet glancing off a rock while someone is target shooting or a chain dragging on the pavement while someone is hauling a trailer, she said.
The New York Mountains in the Mojave National Preserve have an enormous density of rare plants, including blue blossom, manzanita and uncommon chaparral shrubs, that could be devastated by fire, she said.
“In those desert areas, the mountains are like sky islands, they call them,” she said — they rise from the “sea” of the hot desert floor that surrounds them and host dramatically different populations of plants and animals.
She thinks the vegetation and plants will recover from the fire, but probably very slowly — too slowly for one person to witness in their lifetime, she said.
“It’s kind of sad because it won’t be when we can see it,” she said. “We can watch it recover slowly, but those old-growth Joshua tree woodlands and shrublands, we won’t see those again in our lifetimes.”
California’s other big fire of the year — the Bonny fire, which has charred 2,300 acres in Riverside County — is also burning across some arid landscapes as well as through the mountains. It has forced 122 people to evacuate their homes, with almost 800 structures threatened, according to officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The Bonny fire, burning south of Anza, was 20% contained as of Monday morning. One structure has been destroyed, and at least one firefighter was injured in the effort to control the flames. Almost 2,000 personnel are working that blaze, which began Thursday. Its cause is under investigation.
Winds remain a major concern for both fires, officials have said.
A challenging weekend of high winds up to 30 mph sparked dangerous fire whirls that pushed the York fire across the Mojave National Preserve, said Bishop, a spokesperson for the York fire and a National Park Service public information officer. The weather overnight into Monday had improved slightly, with winds that were not as strong and some precipitation, which allowed for some groundwork and minimal fire growth, she said.
A monsoonal influence in the area could produce more of that helpful precipitation, but that pattern typically comes with heavy winds, officials said, and the test of the hot desert heat remains.
“The biggest challenge today that they’re going to be dealing with is limited visibility due to thick smoke,” Bishop said, noting that visibility has dropped to one mile in some areas.
Federal, state and local firefighting teams are battling the York fire, with more than 260 personnel assigned, officials said. The fire has also moved into the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument, which is Bureau of Land Management land, Willoughby said.
What ignited the fire remains under investigation, but Bishop said it was determined to have started on private land within the preserve.
Cunningham expressed concern for area residents — as people live in Fourth of July Canyon, right next to Caruthers Canyon, where there are inholdings within the preserve. The fire is also spreading toward Nipton and Searchlight, she said.
“Today is going to be a windy monsoonal stormy day, so we’ll see,” she said. “This ain’t over till it’s over.”
Big fires in the Mojave Desert are “unfortunately becoming a greater concern,” McDonald said.
“Historically, in general, deserts tended to burn fairly infrequently,” he said. “And that’s one of the reasons why you have a lot of these long-lived plants that can grow into big giant Joshua trees, or saguaros in the Sonoran Desert. But as more and more invasive plants, especially invasive grasses, have grown in desert areas, they’re able to carry fire and burn those long-lived plants and cause a change in the fire regime.”
An increase in fire can also lead to a shifting of habitats into something new, Cunningham said.
“If there are too many fires that happen in the same place over and over again, that can eliminate Joshua trees and other plants and turn it into some other type of vegetation,” she said. “So that’s definitely a concern. And again, if temperatures get hotter, that can cause vegetation to sort of migrate upward in elevation or more northerly.
“We know climate change is impacting the earth, so we have to really protect these special places now — really try to maintain them in a resilient way,” she added. “If there’s going to be a fire, we have to help them recover. They will restore themselves, but we can maybe speed up the process by preventing other fires in those same locations, maybe actively planting some seeds out there to help the plants regrow.”
Why Republicans can’t get out of their climate bind, even as extreme heat overwhelms the US
Analysis by Ella Nilsen, CNN – July 30, 2023
Deadly heatwaves are baking the US. Scientists just reported that July will be the hottest month on record. And now, after years of skepticism and denial in the GOP ranks, a small number of Republicans are urging their party to get proactive on the climate crisis.
But the GOP is stuck in a climate bind – and likely will be for the next four years, in large part because they’re still living in the shadow of former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Even as more Republican politicians are joining the consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has driven the party to the right on climate and extreme weather. Trump has called the extremely settled science of climate change a “hoax” and more recently suggested that the impacts of it “may affect us in 300 years.”
Scientists this week reported that this summer’s unrelenting heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” were it not for the planet-warming pollution from burning fossil fuels. They also confirmed that July will go down as the hottest month on record – and almost certainly that the planet’s temperature is hotter now than it has been in around 120,000 years.
Yet for being one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, climate is rarely mentioned on the 2024 campaign trail.
“As Donald Trump is the near presumptive nominee of our party in 2024, it’s going to be very hard for a party to adopt a climate-sensitive policy,” Sen. Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, told CNN. “But Donald Trump’s not going to be around forever.”
When Republicans do weigh in on climate change – and what we should do about it – they tend to support the idea of capturing planet-warming pollution rather than cutting fossil fuels. But many are reticent to talk about how to solve the problem, and worry Trump is having a chilling effect on policies to combat climate within the party.
“We need to be talking about this,” Rep. John Curtis, a Republican from Utah and chair of the House’s Conservative Climate Caucus, told CNN. “And part of it for Republicans is when you don’t talk about it, you have no ideas at the table; all you’re doing is saying what you don’t like. We need to be saying what we like.”
Extreme weather changes GOP minds
With a few exceptions, Republicans largely are no longer the party of full-on climate change denial. But even as temperatures rise to deadly highs, the GOP is also not actively addressing it. There is still no “robust discussion about how to solve it” within the party, said former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who now runs the conservative climate group RepublicEn, save for criticism of Democrats’ clean-energy initiatives.
“The good news is Republicans are stopping arguing with thermometers,” Inglis told CNN. Still, he said, “when the experience is multiplied over and over of multiple days of three-digit temperatures in Arizona and record ocean temperatures, people start to say, ‘this is sort of goofy we’re not doing something about this.’”
Meanwhile, the impacts of a dramatically warming atmosphere are becoming more and more apparent each year. Romney and Curtis, two of the loudest climate voices in the party, both represent Utah – a state that’s no stranger to extreme heat and drought, which scientists say is being fueled by rising global temperatures.
“There are a number of states, like mine, that are concerned about wildfires and water,” Romney said, adding he believes Republican governors of impacted states have been vocal about these issues.
Sen. Mitt Romney is one of a handful of Republicans who wants the party to get proactive on climate solutions. – Francis Chung/POLITICO/AP
Utah and other Western states are looking for ways to cut water use to save the West’s shrinking two largest reservoirs, Lakes Powell and Mead. And even closer to home, Utah’s Great Salt Lake has already disappeared by two-thirds, and scientists are sounding alarms about a rapid continued decline that could kill delicate ecosystems and expose one of fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the nation to toxic dust.
“I think the evidence so far is that the West is getting drier and hotter,” Romney told CNN. “That means that we’re going to have more difficulty with our crops, we’re going to have a harder time keeping the rivers full of water. The Great Salt Lake is probably going to continue to shrink. And unfortunately, we’re going to see more catastrophic fires. If the trends continue, we need to act.”
An issue ‘held hostage’
While Republicans blast Democrats’ clean energy policies ahead of the 2024 elections, it’s less clear what the GOP itself would prefer to do about the climate crisis.
As Curtis tells it, there’s a lot that Republicans and Democrats in Congress agree on. They both want to further reform the permitting process for major energy projects, and they largely agree on the need for more renewable and nuclear energy.
As the head of the largest GOP climate caucus on the Hill, Curtis’ Utah home is “full solar,” he told CNN, and is heated using geothermal energy.
While at a recent event at a natural gas drilling site in Ohio, as smoke from Canada’s devastating wildfire season hung thick in the air, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked how he would solve the climate crisis. He suggested planting a trillion trees to help offset the pollution created by burning fossil fuels – a bill House Republicans introduced in 2020. The measure has not yet passed the House and has an uncertain future in the Senate.
Rep. John Curtis, a Utah Republican, said his home is decked out in solar panels and geothermal energy. – Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg/Getty Images
But the biggest and most enduring difference between the two parties is that Republicans want fossil fuels – which are fueling climate change with their heat-trapping pollution – to be in the energy mix for years to come.
Democrats, meanwhile, have passed legislation to dramatically speed up the clean energy transition and prioritize the development of wind, solar and electrical transmission to get renewables sending electricity into homes faster.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Democrats want to pass more climate legislation if they take back a full majority in Congress. He later told CNN the GOP is “way behind” on climate and there’s been “too little” progress on the party’s stances.
“I think we’d get a lot more done with a Democratic House, a Democratic president and continuing to have a Democratic Senate,” Schumer told CNN. “Unfortunately, if you look at some of the Republican House and Senate Super PACs, huge amounts of money come from gas, oil and coal.”
Even though Curtis and Romney are aligned on the party needing to talk about climate change, they differ on how to fix it. While Curtis primarily supports carbon capture and increased research and development into new technologies, Romney is one of the few Republicans speaking in favor of a carbon tax – taxing companies for their pollution.
“It’s very unlikely that a price on carbon would be acceptable in the House of Representatives,” Romney said. “I think you might find a few Republican senators that would be supportive, but that’s not enough.”
The idea certainly doesn’t have the support of Trump, or other 2024 candidates for president, and experts predict climate policy will get little to no airtime during the upcoming presidential race.
“Regrettably, the issue of climate change is currently being held hostage to the culture wars in America,” Edward Maibach, a professor of climate communication at George Mason University and a co-founder of a nationwide climate polling project conducted with Yale University, told CNN in an email. “Donald Trump’s climate denial stance will have a chilling effect on the climate positions of his rivals on the right — even those who know better.”
Even if climate-conscious Republicans say Trump won’t be in the party forever, Inglis said even a few more years may not be enough time to counteract the rapid changes already happening.
“That’s still a long way away,” Inglis said. “The scientists are saying we can’t wait, get moving, get moving.”
Just what does home insurance cost in Florida? Estimates vary widely, and new state data might surprise you
Ron Hurtibise – July 30, 2023
Just what does the average Florida homeowner pay for property insurance? Good luck figuring that out based on wildly varying estimates quoted across the media.
About the only thing everyone agrees on is that the state’s insurance rates have been rising sharply. Insurers say they need higher premiums to offset mounting losses from hurricane claims, severe weather events, high rates of litigation, and resulting increases in the cost of reinsurance — insurance that insurers must buy to make sure they can pay all claims after a disaster.
Reforms enacted in 2022 to curtail costs from litigation are expected to eventually stabilize premium costs, but that hasn’t happened yet.
Meanwhile, online insurance aggregators publish estimates that are all over the map.
Policygenius says average Florida homeowners pay $2,442 for home insurance.
Bankrate says $1,981 — but that’s just to insure the dwelling and doesn’t include other vital elements like liability coverage, loss of use, or personal property.
Insurify crunched numbers from 10 Florida ZIP codes and estimated average homeowners are paying a whopping $7,788 this year.
For a report comparing insurance costs across the nation, USA Today estimated that Floridians pay an average of $2,389.
And Insurance Information Institute, an industry-funded nonprofit organization, estimated Florida’s average home insurance premium was $4,321 last October and $6,000 currently.
Which number is closest to what Florida homeowners are actually paying? It’s impossible to say because the estimates are calculated based on “proprietary methods,” said Mark Friedlander, corporate communications director for the Insurance Information Institute.
Insurance agents in South Florida say their clients are paying on the high side of the estimated range of average premiums.
Yet, recently released data by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation include figures that some might find surprisingly low in comparison to the higher estimates.
The state’s most recent data comes from insurers themselves — sent to OIR each quarter under a law enacted in May 2022.
The data sent by insurers was used to create county-by-county estimates of premiums paid to insure single-family homes, Those estimates were included in the office’s twice-yearly Property Insurance Stability Report released in early July.
State data shows average rates are lower
The report found that on March 31:
Homeowners in 48 of Florida’s 67 counties paid estimated average premiums between $2,000 and $2,999. Averages were below $2,000 in four counties — Sumter, Marion, Baker and Hernando.
Average premiums were in the $3,000s in seven counties: Lee, Okeechobee, Escambia, Okaloosa, Gulf, Pinellas, and Indian River.
Residents of three counties — Walton, Franklin, and Collier — paid average premiums in the $4,000s.
And homeowners in the five southernmost counties — Martin, Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe — paid average premiums of more than $5,000.
In fact, average premiums in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade exceeded $5,500 while homeowners in Monroe, which includes the Florida Keys, paid an average $7,584.
Premium amounts calculated by the Office of Insurance Regulation preceded rate hikes tied to higher reinsurance rates that insurers secured as hurricane season began on June 1. Renewal prices charged after companies secured their reinsurance rates will reflect the higher costs. That means the next six-month report will likely reflect significant rate increases.
Missing from the twice-yearly report is a statewide average premium.
The Sun Sentinel tallied data in a separate release by the office of company-level data that includes numbers of policyholders per coverage category and corresponding direct written premium totals. Direct written premiums are the total dollar amount of all premiums paid to the company by its policyholders. Dividing the number of policyholders into the direct written premium data reveals the average premium charged by the company.
Dividing the total number of policyholders into the total direct written premium total for all Florida-regulated insurance companies reveals Florida’s average homeowner insurance premium on March 31 was $3,134.
How many homeowners in Florida’s five southernmost counties would like to be paying that right now?
Probably all clients of Fort Lauderdale-based insurance agent Phil Portnoy, who works at Donna Carrara Insurance Agency.
“The average I’ve seen from private insurers is anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 for, say, $350,000 in coverage,” Portnoy said last week. “I’ve seen renewals down in Pinecrest for as much as $17,000 for a million in coverage and as much as $27,000 for a Palm Beach County intracoastal renewal of $1 million in coverage.”
Al Mendez, partner in Mendez & Associates Insurance in Pembroke Pines, says his average policies range from $4,200 to $6,000 to insure homes in the tri-county region with replacement costs of $300,000 to $500,000.
Mendez calls the current state of the insurance market — with rate increases of 25% to 70% over each of the past three years — “the worst I’ve experienced” in 30 years in the industry.
Some of his clients have seen increases of 100% to 200%, he said. “Florida is now the most expensive state to live in,” he said.
South Florida insurance costs are higher
Mark Friedlander of the Insurance Information Institute said he stands by his organization’s estimates that statewide average premiums increased from $4,231 last fall to $6,000 this year as “verified as accurate by numerous third parties, including insurers and insurance agents.”
As Friedlander is a popular source of insurance information, the $6,000-a-year estimate has shown up in stories by numerous national publications about Florida’s insurance crisis.
Two weeks ago, Friedlander said, “a Barron’s reporter verified our premium data with numerous industry analysts and confirmed its accuracy.”
Insurify, Policygenius and USA Today each used insurance data from a single source — Quadrant Information Services — to produce different estimates.
Chase Gardner of Insurify, which calculated an average estimate of $7,788 for Florida, said the company developed its estimates by using average costs in 10 zip codes “representative of each state’s population distribution.” Zip codes with larger populations were weighted more heavily in calculating the average, he said, which may explain why his company’s estimates were so much higher that Insurify’s and Bankrate’s numbers.
“Even though we both collected Florida data from Quadrant Information Services, prices vary a lot depending on where you live in the state,” Gardner said. “For example, we found that average prices were closer to $2,000 to $3,000 per year or less in northern, inland parts of the state, whereas prices could skyrocket to more than $10,000 per year in southern coastal cities like Miami.”
Friedlander said that the Insurance Information Institute’s estimates looked only at private sector policies and excluded policies sold by the insurer of last resort, state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp.
Citizens insured 719,347 single-family homes for an average premium of $3,254 in the first quarter of 2023, the state data shows.
That’s high from a statewide perspective but low for South Florida.
In March 2022, Citizens produced a chart that showed its average premium in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, where 52% of its policyholders are located, was $4,196 — 28% less than the $5,856 combined average of 13 competitors selected for the comparison.
Ultimately, the only home insurance cost estimates that matter are the ones offered to you to cover your home for the upcoming year. And at least for the near future, they’re continuing to increase, agents say.
Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Watch Moment Amazon Driver Dives Fully Clothed Into Customer’s Swimming Pool to Cool Off
Kirsty Hatcher – July 26, 2023
Watch Moment Amazon Driver Dives Fully Clothed Into Customer’s Swimming Pool to Cool Off
The moment was captured on the Californian homeowner’s CCTV amid the soaring temperatures in the U.S.
Well, that’s one way to cool off!
After making a delivery, an Amazon driver dived fully clothed into a customer’s swimming pool to beat the soaring temperatures.
The driver, who even kept his shoes and cap on, used the customer’s diving board to dive head-first into the pool of the home in Gardena, California.
The moment, which occurred on June 30, was captured on one of the home’s security cameras and has since gone viral.
According to ViralHog, the customer left a note in the delivery instructions that read, “If you want to go for a swim, you are welcome to.”
Mario Fermin via ViralHogAmazon driver dives fully-clothed into customer’s pool
In the video, the driver is seen leaving the customer’s parcel outside a door in the backyard. He then walks over to the diving board and takes a dip.
Parts of the U.S. have been experiencing a heatwave over the last few weeks. According to Reuters, Death Valley, Phoenix and Las Vegas were among some of the hottest places in the U.S. earlier this month.
And Fourth of July was reported to have been the hottest day ever recorded on Earth — and it broke the record set just one day before.
Mario Fermin via ViralHogAmazon driver dives fully-clothed into customer’s pool
On that day, the global average temperature hit 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine. It was the hottest day recorded since temperatures began to be documented in 1979 with satellite stock recording — and it’s believed to have been one of the hottest days in at least 125,000 years, according to The Washington Post.
The day before, the global temperature average was 62.62 degrees Fahrenheit, making it until then the hottest day on record. Before that, the last highest recorded temperature average was 62.46 degrees in August 2016, per the Post.
Rising temperatures amid global climate change are “a death sentence for people and ecosystems,” Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, told Bloomberg.
In a tweet, author and climate scientist Bill McGuire also wrote that the record-breaking July 4 heat was “totally unprecedented and terrifying.”
Last week, a 71-year-old man died at a trailhead in Death Valley National Park. Hours before his death, Steve Curry spoke to a reporter about braving the extreme heat.
What frightens me about the climate crisis is we don’t know how bad things really are
Roger Harrabin – July 25, 2023
As the barrage of bad news from places like Greece continues, all we can be certain of is there are many surprises lying ahead.
‘What is the use of a net zero policy if it relies in part on planting trees that may crackle in wildfire?’ Firefighters tackle wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes, 25 July 2023. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Over the past few decades, climate scientists have made huge strides in understanding the future climate. But after recent weeks of extreme heat and devastating floods it’s clear that, although climate models have provided good information about overall rising temperatures, they can’t be sure what level of destruction each notch on the thermometer will bring.
Climate modelling is extremely complex, but its fundamentals rely on basic physics – X tonnes of emissions will bring Y increase in temperature, with some error bars. Supercomputers have been able to factor inshifts in land use that will change the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface. Improved temperature records helped verify their findings.
But lately,leading researchers have made a painful confession: even their most sophisticated models can’t yet foresee exactly how Earth systems will respond to those higher temperatures.
The influential Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says cranking up global temperature by half a degree will bring much more extreme weather, and it can be more often, more intense, or extended in duration – but exactly how much more, it can’t precisely say.
So, for instance, we’ve already had a global temperature rise of about 1.2C: that’s in line with IPCC projections. Yet the panel couldn’t warn us about the appalling heat dome that’s been searing North America. I can’t find heat domes mentioned in the bible of climate change, the IPCC report. This periodic report inevitably lags behind new science and – under pressure from some governments and industries, as well as a desire not to scaremonger – its pronouncements tend to be conservative.
The models also couldn’t warn us accurately about the emergence of the heat trapped deep in the ocean, which soaks up 90% of the world’s excess warmth. In the 35 years I covered the environment for the BBC, I recall speculation that the warmth could stay deep for decades, perhaps centuries – not that some of it would suddenly burst up to the surface off the coast of northern Britain.
Major uncertainties remain, too, over rainfall. Good information about the future of monsoon rain would be a godsend for farmers who rely upon it – not just in India but in southern China. Unfortunately, good information on precipitation is proving a bit tricky to find.
The macro models also failed to project the effect of current elevated temperatures on ice at both poles. The former IPCC chief, Prof Bob Watson, told me: “I am very concerned. None of the observed changes so far (with a 1.2C temperature rise) are surprising. But they are more severe than we predicted 20 years ago, and more severe than the predictions of five years ago. We probably underestimated the consequences.”
This is a massive admission. He added: “Scientists are only now starting to understand the response of large ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica – and it is very disturbing.”
Prof Jane Francis, director of the British Antarctic Survey, told me a few months ago the latest science on ice melt was “truly scary”.
‘The US has considered itself less vulnerable. But tell that to people in Phoenix trapped under that heat dome.’ Photograph: Matt York/AP
Watson said at current rates the world would almost certainly exceed the agreed maximum temperature rise of 1.5-2C. We would be lucky to get away with 2.5C, he said. More likely, we’re heading towards 3C.
That number positively frightens many climate scientists. But, as India starts stockpiling rice with a temperature rise of 1.2C, what useful advice can scientists offer for a 3C world? Just how bad will things be by then?
Should holidaymakers avoid buying homes in Greece? China is vulnerable to extremes – how should its economy adapt? The US has considered itself less vulnerable. But tell that to New Yorkers choking on wildfire smoke, or people in Phoenix trapped under that heat dome.
While immediate harm to people grabs the headlines, what’seven more destructive could be the impact of heat and humidity on food production for an expanding population. A global shift towards a plant-based diet could halve the land and water used for agriculture – and halve the carbon emissions – but politicians fear angeringvoters by recommending a dietary shift.
Facing all this gloom means we need imagineers as well as climatologists. Watson said civilization will still exist in the future, but with much worse living conditions. But what sort of a degraded civilization might that be? By then we may even have triggered some natural tipping points that could result in a massive release of trapped methane in the tundra – let’s hope not.
What we do know is that so far, the effects of heating the climate are sooner and worse than many scientists projected (in public at least). This has policy implications. The world has agreed to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, but the UN secretary general, António Guterres, says rich countries should be aiming to squeeze the timetable to 2040. But what is the use of a net zero policy if it relies in part on planting trees that may shrivel in future drought or crackle in wildfire?
To make matters worse, climate heating is one thing on a list of huge environmental problems – including pollution of the air and water, destruction of wildlife habitats, overfishing, insect population declines, loss of birds, plastic pollution, nitrates, soil loss and more.
Watson says we don’t know how these phenomena will interact with each other, but he urges politicians to err on the side of caution, as the stakes are so very high. Every 0.1C warming matters, scientists say: 1.5C is better than 1.6C. That in turn is less bad than 1.7C.
As the barrage of bad news continues, all we can be certain of is that there are many climate surprises lying ahead of us. Governments, companies and individuals need to urgently squeeze down emissions to insulate ourselves as far as possible from what we may face.
Roger Harrabin is an energy and environment analyst and a former BBC correspondent
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State grapples with rampant algae that can cause lung infections and neurological disorders: ‘A bullet in the chamber’
Stephen Proctor – July 25, 2023
Toxic algae is overtaking the largest freshwater lake in Florida, hampering the summer plans of thousands — and the situation is likely to worsen. While plans are underway to alleviate the problem going forward, some are skeptical.
What’s happening?
Lake Okeechobee in southern Florida is currently half full of bright green toxic algae, which is expected to increase throughout the summer.
“We’re looking at a bullet in the chamber here,” Eve Samples, executive director of the conservation group Friends of the Everglades, told The New York Times of the growing bloom.
A handful of conditions allow the dangerous algae to thrive. According to reporting, the severity of the algal bloom is largely due to our overheating planet, which has caused increased storms and rainfall that have stirred up phosphorus that the algae need to grow. The phosphorous has mostly been sourced by fertilizer runoff from rivers upstream that feed into the lake. Rising levels of carbon dioxide pollution, which the algae need, intensify the problem.
While blooms of algae aren’t uncommon for Florida in the summer months, blooms of this magnitude are, and they seem to be occurring more often.
In 2018, Lake Okeechobee experienced a similar bloom that leaked into surrounding canals and the Caloosahatchee River. That year, toxin-producing algae exploded in both fresh and saltwater ecosystems, leading to former Governor Rick Scott to declare a state of emergency.
Downstream algae outbreaks from Okeechobee’s outflows also significantly impacted coastal communities in 2013, 2016, and 2018, causing beaches to be closed and businesses to shut down. Some residents were evacuated as well.
Why toxic algae is concerning
The Florida Department of Health issued a health alert in June warning the public to exercise caution in and around the area of Lake Okeechobee. Those looking for summer fun in the lake were warned not to swim, wade, ski, or boat where there is a visible bloom. They were also told to keep pets away from the water, and for good reason.
The toxic algae overtaking Lake Okeechobee can cause major health issues for humans and animals, including lung infections, organ damage, and neurological disorders. The algae-contaminated water is so harmful that even boiling it will not eliminate the toxins, according to health officials.
What’s being done about the toxic algae
The Army Corps of Engineers is undertaking a massive project to combat the growing issue of toxic algae affecting not only Lake Okeechobee, but the surrounding area as well.
A 10,500-acre reservoir expected to be completed in 10 years or so will capture at least some of Okeechobee’s toxic outflows. This is in addition to the recently completed 6,500-acre artificial wetland designed to remove nutrient pollution before water flows out into the Everglades.
Some are skeptical, though, of the project’s impact, as the new reservoir will fill to capacity after draining only 6 inches of water from Lake Okeechobee, per The New York Times.
An earlier proposal for a 60,000-acre system was scrapped due to objections from the local agricultural community.
There’s enough blame to go around for Florida’s insurance crisis, but not where you think | Opinion
Robert Sanchez – July 24, 2023
There have been many good reasons to criticize Gov. Ron DeSantis, especially during his second term, but Florida’s property insurance crisis is not among them. It’s a problem that has festered for years and began long before DeSantis came along.
Even so, Florida’s increasingly desperate Democrats tried to blame him and his fellow Republicans last week after Farmers Insurance abruptly announced that it would be reducing its risks by scuttling thousands of policies.
The Farmers move occurred in a state where more than a dozen insurers have recently gone broke, and where others are selectively non-renewing some of their policies, especially for properties in high-risk areas such as barrier islands.
The burden of providing coverage has fallen upon Florida’s “insurer of last resort,” the state-owned Citizens Property Insurance. Now it’s being forced to raise its own rates lest it become insolvent after the next major natural disaster.
Seeing the insurance problems as a political opportunity, Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried, noting the obvious that Florida’s insurance premiums are “through the roof,” declared that the situation is “totally unacceptable,” and complained that solutions proffered by legislative Democrats “have gone completely unheard.”
Meanwhile, one of Democrats’ legislative leaders had an especially far-fetched notion of what to do to fix the state’s otherwise intractable problems, which are contributing to premiums way above the national average: Her suggestion: Let the insurance commissioner be elected rather than appointed.
That was a solution suggested by House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa. She was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate back in 1998, when Florida voters resoundingly approved amending the state Constitution to shrink the elected Cabinet and, among other changes, have the insurance commissioner be appointed rather than elected.
It seems that voters had noticed that running a statewide political campaign in a state the size of Florida required tons of money. When candidates for insurance commissioner ran, lots of that money came from — surprise! — the insurance industry itself, including the companies, brokers and agents. Moreover, the successful candidates sometimes had more political skills than useful insights into insurance issues.
As for realistically addressing the underlying factors causing Florida’s property insurance crisis, some of them are — and will remain — beyond the capability of any governor, legislator or insurance commissioner to address.
For instance, to the extent that natural disasters are factors in Florida’s higher rates at a time when forecasters expect windstorms to be more frequent, intense and destructive, no public official — whether elected or appointed — can do much to change the geography of a peninsular state bounded by the warming (and rising) waters of the Atlantic and Gulf.
This has not escaped the attention of the global reinsurance companies, which provide insurance for insurance companies. As a result, they’re charging higher rates to the insurance companies, which pass them along to Florida’s property owners.
Another major factor contributing to the higher rates is inflation. The costs associated with repairing and/or replacing damaged properties have soared, arguably more so in Florida than in other states because Florida’s population surge has outpaced the housing supply, driving up property values.
This came atop generalized inflation throughout the economy as a factor in higher insurance rates. For that, President Biden and Gov. DeSantis could jointly take a bow.
Inflation surged worldwide in part because the Biden administration’s energy policies and profligate spending drove up prices, and Putin’s attack on Ukraine added to the problem.
DeSantis’ short-sighted stance on immigration is causing an exodus of some of the migrant workers who will be needed in the next rebuilding effort. The labor shortage will cause delays and inevitably increase costs after the next big storm.
So, if Florida can do little about the intractable insurance problems related to weather, the reinsurance market or inflation, is there anything left that the state could or should do?
Yes, and the 2023 Florida Legislature did it by enacting a law to end “assignment of benefits” and other kinds of abuses practiced by some of Florida’s politically powerful personal injury lawyers.
DeSantis signed the legislation into law, but just before it took effect the personal injury attorneys filed more than 70,000 lawsuits that will be handled under the former rules, which were favorable to the plaintiffs.
Therefore, this constructive step won’t have an immediate impact, and its long-term impact remains to be seen. Meanwhile, as Florida’s property owners and other residents warily monitor the approach of the busiest portion of the June 1-Nov. 30 hurricane season, they might try resorting to the tactics recommended after each mass shooting: thoughts and prayers.
