The state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, accepted over $1m from energy companies in the 2022 election cycle and nearly $2m from agribusiness, another top contributor to the climate crisis.
Last month, DeSantis embarked on a campaign to scrub most references to climate change from state law. The very day DeSantis signed the bill into law, Key West registered a heat index of 115 – tying with the highest reading on record for any time of year.
The rightwing governor also came under fire in April when he signed a law preventing Florida municipalities from creating heat protections for workers. The legislation, which will go into effect on 1 July, was seemingly a response to Miami-Dade county farmworkers’ efforts to enshrine rights to mandatory rest breaks, access to water and shade, and other heat protections.
What is the end goal here? As someone who had panic moments daily about the climate crisis, I don’t understand what is driving these choices.
It’s pure “fuck you, I got mine” mentality. Most of these people will be long dead before the worst occurs, so they don’t care. Coupled with greed, they never think they have “enough” and will never change their ways in any altruistic manner, so they constantly need more and more. It doesn’t matter what the end state is, they’ll be dead and won’t care.
I think a lot of it is to just “own the libs.” Perhaps to drive libs out of their states so they’ll never be in danger of going blue. They pass all kinds of laws that make no practical sense like banning lab-grown meat, which doesn’t really exist yet; and the heat protection bans mentioned in the article. I think these people are sadistic and “the cruelty is the point” with these people.
Man, that bums me out as a non religious person. Because if any of that mythology they claim was real, at least there would be consequence after life.
The calming effect of believing climate denial. It is an expensive but powerful drug.
The sand will eventually be too hot to bury their heads in it.