When a University of Florida Ph.D. candidate used the phrase“climate change” in her epidemiology dissertation, which examinedhow climate change in Florida had affected ciguatera — a deadlyfish-borne disease that affects the nervous system — she and herco-author were informed by the Florida Department of EnvironmentalProtection that they couldn't use the words “climate change.” Theysubstituted “climate variation.”

It's unofficial, of course, and Florida's Governor Rick Scottdenies it (“I'm not a scientist,” he says), but Florida's DEP — andeven the state's Department of Health — are apparently on ordersfrom somewhere in Florida's capitol not to use the words “globalwarming” or “climate change,” and it is even questionable as towhether “sea level rise” is acceptable.

The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, according to theTampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald on March 12,2015, said that the governor's administration “ordered DEPemployees, contractors and volunteers not to use the terms 'climatechange' and 'global warming' in official communications.” TheCenter's investigation showed that the phrases had been used 209times under the prior administration, but only 15 times during thefirst year after Rick Scott first became governor five yearsago.

This is a tricky issue for Florida. In his second inauguraladdress in January 2015, Governor Scott invited the entire nationto move to Florida. Considering what happened in the Northeast andthe Midwest over the next two months, undoubtedly many frozenNortherners would jump at the chance to take Gov. Scott up on hisoffer. This writer is only a part-time resident, but was afull-time Florida citizen for 13 years back in the 1960s and '70s.It was “old Florida” then, few highrises, lots of little retirementbungalows, and the land of the newly wed and the nearly dead. Todayit is beachfront condominiums (at $1.3 million for starters plusmonthly fees, taxes and flood insurance), retirement centers(“where Mama will be cared for in her waning years”), and a lot oflower-middle class housing that just keeps aging and requiring moremaintenance.

Where to sink your retirement savings

Of course the Governor doesn't want any mention of globalwarming; it hurts the real estate market. In early March it wasalready over 90 degrees in mid-Florida. With the rising sea level,all those millions spent on beachfront properties, whether homes orcondos, will be continually sopping wet in the next fewdecades.

Oh, and don't forget to bring drinking water. The CentralFlorida aquifer is being drained, and if you don't live on thebeach, you can expect big sinkholes in your back yard as thelimestone over the aquifer becomes unstable. That's already a biginsurance claim issue in Florida as an ever-increasing number ofnew subdivisions take the place of old cattle ranches, dead ordying orange groves, and phosphate mines scattered throughout thestate.

There have always been sinkholes in Florida when droughts driedout the aquifers, which can be replenished if there are hurricanes;but there haven't been any major hurricanes in central Florida in anumber of years. That's good news for real estate agents who wouldlove to sell you a home on the old aquifer or a beachfront condo.It's a seller's market now that the economy has improved, but it'sbad news for cities that get their water from wells tapped intothat aquifer.

Need a pipeline?

All the fuss about a pipeline to carry Canadian sludge (tarsands oil) to Houston, while California is drying out and a majordrought is predicted for the entire Southwest, makes one wonder ifthe pipeline ought not to run from the Northeast to the Southwest,carrying all those gallons of snowmelt each winter to irrigate thenation's vegetable gardens in the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys.If frozen vegetables can come east, why not send back frozenprecipitation?

If the Saudis don't raise the price of their oil, those longtrains of tank cars won't be needed. Oil fracking is less costefficient than importing oil, and our energy needs are fickle. Wedon't want nuclear, but we don't want coal-fired electricgeneration either. At least these are all good insurance claimissues.