It is hurricane season again. We have already had one named storm and it looks like another one later this week with another following closely behind. The flow off of Africa is starting early this year. The water in the Gulf of Mexico is like bath water, to be that warm already is not a good thing. It is the warm water that fuels the severe weather in the Gulf of Mexico. I had my two oldest grandchildren here in Ft. Myers for a few days we of course gave them a tour of all the damage on Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel Island that are still left over from Ian. Everywhere you go along the water the view still is affected by all the damage. There is still a lot of work to be done for our recovery so it is a little scary entering another Hurricane season. You can say that the odds are in our favor for not getting hit by other Hurricane for a while but when you have been hit with three Hurricanes in the last 18 years you know that it is possible. I love it here but it does come with its problems with Hurricanes being one of them.  

Everyday our weather seems to get more extreme. Some of that may be because like the news, weather is streamed live to us 24 hours a day but I also think climate change is real and it is affecting our daily weather. I was reading an article that showed how our Tornado Alley was expanding or maybe shifting east. Our tornados also appear to be happening more frequently, that is not good for the heartland and Midwestern states. Only twice in our history have we had more tornados the first two months of the year than we have had this year. I have seen video of very low visibility in New York City because of the wild fires in Canada. The fires are so bad that they are affecting the air quality for much of the eastern section of the United States. No matter what some of the Republican talking heads said, that cannot be good for anyone’s lungs.  We have to stop making this a political issue and start trying to solve the problems. We are hotter and in much of the country and that trend seem to be continuing.

Because of the ages of our recent visitors we had to think of something that a couple of teenagers would like and we decided to take them down to the Everglades to go on an Airboat Tour. None of us had ever been on one so it was a new experience but also an educational one too. The Everglades is just one real wide river of fresh water that flows slowly to the sea. In most of it looks like one big sea of grass. In the middle of the tour our guide stopped and talked about all the changes that the Everglades have been going though because of man’s interference. He pointed out all the Red Mangroves that were growing everywhere were taking over this section of the Everglades. He talked about how the construction of Highway 41. which is called the Tamiami Trail, was built right through the Everglades restricting the flow of freshwater moving south and allowing saltwater to encroach making the water more brackish allowing  the Red Mangroves to encroach farther into the Everglades. He also commented about how there were not as many birds because to all the Pythons that had been released into the Everglades are taking over the entire ecosystem killing a lot of the natural wildlife. I hate to say this but it almost seems to be that everything man touches he ruins. Eventually, the Everglades will be gone which will be a great loss for Florida but also a great loss for the entire planet.  

Florida has a few major industries. One of course is tourism which is probably our major industry. Our waters and our amusements parks are known around the world. Sailing, power boating, fishing and our beaches attract millions to our State. Weather and pollution really affect those industries. We are looking at a 3 to 5 year rebuild of Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel. That will be a great loss of tax revenue for both the state and the local communities that will never be able to be made up. Pollution will also affect our Tourism because of green and red algae bloom that is common here. Lake Okeechobee is one of the most polluted lakes in the State. When the water gets too high they open up the locks to increase the flow down the Caloosahatchee and let all that polluted water just flow down to the Gulf of Mexico. You can see the dirty water just flowing toward the gulf and the nutrient water just feeds the Green Algae and the Red Tide. It not only affects the water quality but also the air quality for the people that live near the water.

The State legislature has sent a bill to the Governor’s desk that would allow the use of a radioactive material that is a byproduct of the Phosphate Mining, one of Florida’s major industries, in the building of roads. Processing of Phosphate is also used for fertilizer. Phosphogypsum has been outlawed from being used for over 30 years. Our State Legislature wants to use it in the manufacturing of our roads in Florida. Of course as you can expect, conservationists are asking DeSantis to veto the bill because exposure to it could increase the chance for cancer in our road crews and construction crews. It can also leak into our water system. DeSantis is running for President so I don’t see him vetoing it. What I see him doing is nothing which would just let the bill become law. That way he can minimize the fallout. Can you imagine a State wanting to use radioactive material?  Only in Florida, you just can’t make this stuff up. The real kicker is that the mining companies could turn a profit on radioactive waste that they produce that could eventually cause cancer and screw up our environment.  

If I was Generation Z I would be really pissed at the world that we are leaving them.