Scott Farrell has walked to more than 3,000 homes in his quest to be elected to the U.S. Congress from Tampa. Along the way, he said, he's gotten an earful from residents concerned about global warming. And powerful hurricanes.
"One voter said to me, if you didn't believe in global warming, you do now," said Farrell, a Democratic candidate for the Congressional 11 seat being vacated by Jim Davis.
"We're being forced to talk about what alternatives we have to fossil fuels," said Farrell, who has made energy a key part of his platform, going so far as to re-fit an old RV to run on waste cooking oil.
As a political issue, global warming has not traditionally moved large numbers of voters. Climate change has suffered from two problems on the campaign trail: First, it became a wedge issue, splitting right down party lines, with Republicans in denial about mankind's impact on global warming and Democrats using the threat of worldwide catastrophe to push what many voters deemed a radical environmental agenda.
Second, while polling over the past 10 years consistently showed a high percentage of Floridians acknowledging global warming and accepting our energy use as the cause of it, those same polls reflected little urgency for solving the problem.
Katrina, Wilma, Charley, Rita, Ivan, Jeanne and Frances may have changed that urgency level.
The idea that global warming is fueling stronger hurricanes is one that remains in dispute among scientists. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which studies and tracks the killer storms, famously said last year that a consensus of its scientists believed normal cycles in hurricanes were to blame for the greater storm activity. A prominent editor's note to that assessment now drops the word "consensus" from the assessment and adds: "It was not the intention of this article to discount the presence of a human-induced global warming element or to attempt to claim that such an element is not present. There is a robust, on-going discussion on hurricanes and climate change within NOAA and the scientific community."
Scientific disagreement aside, the idea that global warming is creating killer hurricanes finds a willing audience here in Florida. And politicians are noticing. Take this admonition from a former Republican state senator from St. Petersburg, Curt Kiser: "Those warmer waters will ultimately lead to more intense hurricanes, potentially making Category 5 storms like Hurricane Katrina an annual threat. Very soon, global warming may impact Florida in a different way — at the ballot box."
Kiser, a strong conservationist writing for the Stop Global Warming organization earlier this month, decried how politics has shaped the global warming dialogue in Florida. Or, more accurately, kept it on the backburner.
Today, there is a glut of media messages on the importance of the issue. Al Gore's film is just one of them. In the past few months, global warming has seen a cover story in Time; HBO and PBS specials; an Associated Press story about two Georgia Tech scientists meeting with Gov. Jeb Bush to discuss the link between warmer surface temperatures and stronger hurricanes; and last week's front-page conclusion from the National Academy of Sciences that the past few decades are the hottest in 400 years.
"It's interesting to see the beginning of real understanding of this issue," said Susan Glickman, the National Resource Defense Council's Florida Policy director and a Pinellas beaches resident. "It is particularly difficult when you have an issue that appears to have such a long-term horizon."
And it's not just stronger hurricanes. Studies show how much of the coast Florida would lose if sea levels rise. Less sand means fewer tourists. Increased mosquito populations, caused by warming and more water, mean a spike in the diseases they carry.
The question is: Will voters be convinced enough to act? One poll suggests at least some of them will.
In March and April, the National Wildlife Federation released a survey of hunters and anglers that found 63 percent believe that global warming has changed Florida's seasonal weather for the worse. Fifty-one percent said they were "very concerned" that the wildlife or fish population where they hunt or fish would disappear in the next decade. And 74 percent said they would vote for a candidate who supported laws to curb global warming and pollution over a candidate who did not.
"What I think is reflected in that poll is that folks who hunt and fish, who actually go to natural places, see this more than the average person because they have a long-term relationship with Place X" where they hunt and fish, said Preston Robertson, vice president and general counsel for the Florida Wildlife Federation.
The federation's poll has a small sample for a statewide survey (304 hunters/anglers, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.62 percentage points) but matches anecdotal perceptions and common sense given the enormous coverage the issue is getting.
And while Robertson also decries the politicization of the issue, the fact remains that it could be a powerful tool if Florida Democrats figure out how to use it. Especially if they link it to that other hurricane-related disaster: Florida's insurance crisis.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2006.