As the Northern Hemisphere tiptoes into summer, Florida is already in the crosshairs of what is likely to be a season of extremes. Storms battered South Florida this week, with nearly a foot of rain falling in just hours over some parts on Wednesday, causing severe flooding in and around Miami , Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota and other major cities. Several weeks earlier, an early-season heat wave sent heat indexes well into the triple digits across the same region.
And all of this comes less ahead of what forecasters say could be an exceptionally active hurricane season . Those extremes have a common denominator — they’re all amplified by climate change. That’s a reality at odds with the state’s politics.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has emerged as one of the country’s most vocal and active politicians in opposing efforts to address climate change. Last month, he signed into law a bill to deprioritize climate change in the state’s energy policies, largely scrubbing the phrase from its statutes .
“We’re restoring sanity in our approach to energy and rejecting the agenda of the radical green zealots,” DeSantis wrote on X touting the bill. DeSantis this year also signed into law a bill that bans cities and counties from requiring mandatory water breaks and other workplace protections against extreme heat. It goes into effect July 1, leaving workers with little to no protections ahead of what the National Weather Service predicts will be a warmer-than-usual summer for .