I would like to point out for the record that the Governor of Florida, Rick Scott — under whom state scientists have been banned from using the term “Climate Change” in any official capacity — is now bracing for Hurricane Irma, ordering evacuations and declaring a state of emergency, and effectively ordering the entire Florida government to rely heavily on the knowledge of modern climatology and weather science, as well as the sophisticated predictive models that are the culmination of all the research of climate scientists, that is based on the exact same science and research that have largely driven the broad consensus within the science community that human-caused climate change is occurring.
In other words, what Rick Scott and his climate change-denying administration are largely denying and claiming has not yet been fully proven, which is the scientific findings that are the evidence for Climate Change, they will turn around and show they believe — when their lives are on the line.
It also needs to be noted how this is exactly a demonstration of why such hypocritical behavior should be called out for the foolishness that it is. For as much work and effort that Florida is now putting in to prevent the worst effects of Hurricane Irma — and potentially the hurricanes Florida will be struck by in the future — if they were actually taking action and enacting preventative policies that reflected the truth of climate science, their efforts to mitigate the damage and loss of life of these hurricanes would provide even more benefit than what they will be capable of as things stand now.
While Florida Republicans chose the political rewards that came from hamstringing their own scientists in addressing and researching climate change, the entire state will now suffer additional costs and hardships as a direct result of its leaders ignoring or distorting the valuable findings of dedicated, hardworking scientists.