When you watch the news I see that everyone is talking about how the Sanibel Bridge is now open. That is true but that is also not true. Yes the Sanibel Bridge is open for workers and residents but not for the general public so don’t go packing your beach umbrella yet. The long road to recovery has only started. I too am looking forward to pizza at the Island Pizza or breakfast at the Over Easy but that is still some time away. My dog Zoe and I were regulars at Bonita Bills on Fort Myers Beach and still every day she looks at me in the morning like when are we going to go. I am hoping that they rebuild but we will see what comes back and what does not come back. I think Zoe and I will need to find a new place for a while but one problem is that everything along the water has been damaged. The rest of the country has already moved on from Ian but we will not be able to move on for quite some time.

We are at the point in the recovery were there doesn’t look like there is very much progress being made even though it is. Brush, trees and garbage is everywhere you look. Every day when you go out of the house you see all of the reminders of Ian and all of the destruction that Ian brought. Nature is an opponent that you cannot defeat and when you mix nature’s destruction with man’s pollution you have a deadly combination that can cause illness and even death. I was up by Joe’s Crab Shack and the smell of diesel fuel and gas is really overpowering. Boats are piled everywhere some of them are well over 30 feet and weigh thousands of pounds but they were no match for the destruction of Ian. All this pollution just runs down to the Gulf and the beaches so people are being told to stay out of the water. There has been a spike in vibrio cases with people being infected with bacteria in our waters.

The one subject that you do not hear about is climate change. I knew that climate change was real before the hurricane but this really brought it home to me. Where I live probably will not be inhabitable in a hundred years from now; it will probably be under water. When is the proper time to talk about climate change? We have Senators like the lady from Tennessee that every day is on Twitter criticizing Biden because he wants to wean us off fossil fuels. We know that the burning of fossil fuels contributes greatly to climate change but yet, we have people who want to keep on drilling more and burning more. The lady from Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn doesn’t care about all the death and destruction here in Southwest Florida as long as she can line her pockets with bribes from the oil companies, oh, excuse me I mean campaign donations. The destruction is in the billions but what the hell. Let’s just continue on our path of destruction for much of Florida. She won’t be alive so why does see care. In fact, I think that too many people think that it doesn’t really affect them because there won’t be around anyway. What responsibility do we have to future generations?

I have been to Mount Rushmore three times in my life and I look at those four men up there in awe. Each man up there had a vision of not only of today but for future generations that came after them. The things that they have left have endured for many generations. They are not perfect men but their accomplishments have survived the test of time. What are we leaving for the generations that come after us? I can’t think of anyone in politics today that is doing as good of a job looking out for the future than those four did. I really do not think that we are doing a very good job at all. Some try but politics get in the way. We seem to be electing too many people that want to look backwards instead of looking forward. That is going to cost us more in the future than if we started preparing now. I believe in capitalism but I have to admit that sometimes it just gets in the way of progress. Wanting the big buck now and sacrificing the future just doesn’t make sense. I want us to be as mobile as we can just like the next guy. Let’s face it, our mobility is part of our freedom but we have to start moving away from fossil fuels before it is too late. I may already be too late for much of Florida but there is still a lot of America to be saved for future generations. Are electric cars the answer? I don’t know but I do know that gas emissions are part of the problem. I now drive a hybrid increasing my gas mileage by 30 percent. I keep hearing that Hydrogen powered cars are the future but I don’t know. Every bit helps but I know that we as a nation have to do better.

A year from now we will still be cleaning up from Ian but no matter how much we try we will never be able to bring back that old Florida Charm that I came down for. I am pretty sure that when the next hurricane hits we will not be very much better prepared for that one either. We have had 3 Hurricanes in under 20 years so you know that there will be more. When is the time to talk about Climate Change? I really think that now would be a good time. When would a good time to talk about building a better infrastructure to withstand these storms? When would it be a good time to talk about hurricane preparedness? I think that there is no better time than the present. We just need to leave the politics and the lobbyist at the door.