By Shauna Junco (original article from The Invading Sea

One evening after work, I came home to find my healthy 3-year-old daughter struggling to breathe. On our way to the hospital, I watched in horror as she began to lose consciousness and slumped forward in her car seat. After rushing her into the emergency department, I learned her oxygen saturation had fallen dangerously low.

Thankfully, she made a full recovery after receiving oxygen and breathing treatments. Once she was safe, my attention turned to the cause, and I was surprised: Her airways had overreacted to a common respiratory virus. She didn’t have asthma or pneumonia, yet she could not breathe.

As a health professional, I was stunned to learn that what happened to my daughter was not rare, and it was not random. Living near sources of air pollution increases many health risks, including children’s risk of emergency department visits for breathing problems. Like many families in Florida, we live in an area with an active coal plant and major highways, both major sources of particulate matter, a harmful air pollutant.

I had never thought about the coal plant or highways because they are miles away from where we live, but particulate matter travels tens to hundreds of miles beyond its source. Children who live closest to pollution bear the highest burden, but people across entire regions are exposed. I didn’t know that — most people don’t.

Stories like my daughter’s are reminders that clean air protections aren’t abstract. They’re lifesaving. This is exactly why taking action to reduce all forms of air pollution matters. Because the same smokestacks and tailpipes that emit climate pollution also emit particulate matter and other harmful co-pollutants, reducing climate pollution delivers cleaner air and better health across Florida.

With recent federal actions rolling back bedrock environmental regulations that have steadily cleaned our air for decades, it is more important than ever for local communities to act. But just when we need local entities to set science-based pollution reduction goals, the Florida Legislature passed HB 1217, which blocks cities, counties, school districts, hospital districts and other public agencies from adopting or funding net-zero policies to cut climate pollution, even when those policies would protect community and children’s health.

HB 1217 contradicts medical consensus, scientific evidence and the lived experiences of people across our state. It threatens to increase health care costs, strain hospitals and expose all of us — especially our children — to greater harm. That’s because although only a small share of local governments in Florida have adopted net-zero goals so far, this will discourage any future goals or investments to reduce greenhouse-gas pollution, no matter how much it would benefit residents and children.

Legislators sponsoring HB 1217 stated that local governments trying to meet net-zero goals would waste taxpayer money by investing to meet those goals, but there is no evidence that is the case. When local governments invest in energy efficiency, renewable energy and electrification, they benefit from lower and more predictable energy costs as well as direct operational savings from clean-energy projects. While fossil fuel prices are unstable and can go up at a moment’s notice — as we’ve seen recently with sharp spikes in gas prices at the pump — renewable energy sources have low, stable operating costs.

School districts that pursue net-zero policies benefit from investments in efficient buildings and electric buses, which reduce children’s exposure to air pollution, improve test scores, lower absenteeism and cut operating costs. For local governments, implementing net-zero policies through renewable energy, energy efficiency and electric vehicles translate into lower operating costs. For residents in these communities, that means tax dollars go further.

Although HB 1217 passed the Florida Legislature, we still have time to act. Write to Gov. Ron DeSantis and local officials and tell them you support local governments’ choice to set net-zero goals. Look for ways to reduce the closest pollution sources to your families, like replacing gas appliances, cars and lawn equipment with clean, efficient electric options.

Every parent deserves to know the air their child breathes won’t harm them. My daughter’s story is just one example of what families across the state face if we don’t work together to reduce air pollution. We all deserve to breathe air that doesn’t put our health at risk.

Shauna Junco is a clinical pharmacy specialist in infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship with more than 10 years of clinical practice in Orlando. This opinion piece was originally published by the Orlando Sentinel, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea. 

Energy is power. It not only powers our way of life, but it is also a key component of national power.

History is replete with examples. The Dutch harnessed the wind with windmills, powering the Netherlands’ economy and the nation’s rise as early as the 17th century. The British Empire was fueled by coal and the invention of the steam engine, which led to the Industrial Revolution. The age of oil for the United States started in 1859 when oil was found in western Pennsylvania. Oil and geopolitics have been intertwined, ever since.

Today, another energy transition is underway in renewable energy, and I am concerned that we are ceding ground to China in this next energy revolution. China is way ahead in renewable energy and battery technology, including solar power, an American invention.

Putting aside the climate concerns for the moment, energy security is an essential component of U.S. national security. We need to start treating renewable energy as a strategic commodity. Effective energy policies are vital to U.S. prosperity and geopolitical standing. We need a new energy economy that works for everyone.

Like it or not, we are in a long-term strategic competition with China for global order and leadership. The stakes are high. China leads the world in clean energy technology and electric vehicles. China has also cornered the market and dominates critical clean energy supply chains on commodities such as lithium, copper and rare-earth magnets. These are the technologies of the 21st century and the future.

Energy technology transitions, as in changes to world order, generally produce periods of disruption and conflict. We can’t stand on the sidelines of the clean energy transition. We must get into the game.

The current White House administration has rightfully highlighted the skyrocketing energy demands of AI, large data centers and new American innovation. We will need new technologies and a diverse energy mix to meet these challenges.

It is going to take a full-court press to spur and leverage American innovation to improve domestic supply chains, modernize our electric grid’s infrastructure and reform how energy projects are permitted to shrink timelines. Renewable energy will need to be a large part of this mix if we are to stay competitive and cost conscious.

However, despite rising energy demands and the ramp-up of renewable energy far exceeding predictions a couple of decades ago, the current administration has turned away from supporting the clean energy transition and doubled down on fossil fuels. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” was a major change in tack and eliminated many of the clean energy policies of the previous administration.

In his remarks at the U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” I am not sure that the good residents of Southern California who suffered the devastating wildfires at the beginning of this year, or those still recovering from Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina, would agree with him. The earth is burning, the ice is melting and calving into the sea, and sea level is rising. It doesn’t sound like a hoax to me.

We cannot let energy policy become so politicized. We need consistency in our long-term strategic energy planning and a stable investment climate for businesses and entrepreneurs.

Dealing with the climate emergency is not only a national security strategic imperative, it also presents an opportunity for the U.S. to exert global leadership. The global transition to a clean energy future will be difficult, and there is no institutional framework to deal with a problem of this scale. Enter the U.S., the only country that can properly lead a new global order capable of dealing with this existential crisis.

This is also an opportunity to showcase U.S. soft power and strengthen our web of international partners. Although not particularly in vogue at the Pentagon these days, I feel that soft power is vital to U.S. national interests. As a former naval officer, I am familiar with the importance of maintaining a free and open international commons, such as the freedom of the seas. It is a global public good that benefits everyone.

The international commons now includes global climate change, the air that we all breathe and the thin atmosphere above us that all life depends on. I remember sitting on a panel in South Asia focused on maritime security, and a Bangladeshi general told me he had had to move his family multiple times because rising sea levels inundated his village. How the U.S communicates its concerns about the effects of climate change to the most at-risk nations, especially across the global South, will matter a lot to our international standing.

The clean energy transition will be hard and take a long time. But it is already underway, and we need to make sure that we aren’t taking one step forward and two steps back with every change in administration.

We need to ensure that our energy policies are well planned and attract private capital and investment. More specifically, we need to ensure energy markets in this country are truly equal playing fields. We also need to keep consumers worried about rising energy costs at the forefront. Ratepayers shouldn’t foot the bill for adding capacity to power large data centers.

America can lead the clean energy transition and renew the American spirit and our global competitiveness in the process, but the train is leaving the station. I hear the steam whistle blowing.

America is at its best when it leads. It led the recovery of a devastated world economy following World War II with the Marshall Plan. It can lead again, bringing jobs back home for U.S. workers, promoting a more balanced and just world order, and helping to stave off the worst effects of climate change.

William McQuilkin is a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral who commanded the Aegis cruiser USS Gettysburg, where he served as Air Defense Commander in the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He currently resides on his farm in Florida. This opinion piece was originally published by the Tampa Bay Times, which is a media partner of The Invading Sea.

On Thursday, the Trump Administration's announcement that the EPA was going to repeal the endangerment finding made huge news. Major news outlets across the globe covered it. An avalanche of headlines and push notifications suddenly turned even more attention to attacks on environmental regulation than we've seen during the first year of the second Trump Administration. But what's behind the headlines of this decision? What does this announcement actually do?

I asked Andres Restrepo, senior attorney for the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, to come on the show to react to what happened this week and explain exactly what this means and where we go from here. I was pretty surprised by his answers. This conversation introduces a lot of nuance and great information and goes behind the headlines you might have seen this week. I cannot recommend this discussion enough.

Listen to the full episode. 

Here’s a timely event you won’t want to miss: Highly regarded climate author Jeff Goodell will visit Jacksonville May 18 to discuss his illuminating book published last year, The Heat Will Kill You First.

His talk comes at a pivotal moment, as Floridians brace for another sweltering summer while anticipating rising seas and a forecast of a busy hurricane season – confirming our state’s status as a canary in the climate coal mine.

While Goodell's latest book takes on the life-threatening consequences of extreme heat, his previous work, "The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World," examined a second climate crisis facing coastal regions like Florida - sea level rise.

Fittingly, Goodell begins that book with a fictional account of a hurricane that floods out Miami in 2037 with a 20-foot storm surge. 

While not as exposed to the sea as Miami, Northeast Florida has experience with flooding, most consistently in St. Augustine, and most notably from Tropical Storm Irma in 2017 which flooded Downtown Jacksonville and nearby neighborhoods.

Still, what we’ve experienced is just prelude to a much more challenging future.

Much of sea level rise, which is happening around the world, is caused by the melting of massive ice sheets at the earth’s North and South poles. That melting is caused by warming temperatures, which are also warming the seas. All this warming has its roots in the burning of fossil fuels – oil, coal, natural gas. 

Recent projections being used by the federal government have sea level rising by 10 to 12 inches by 2050 around Florida – as much as the water has risen from 1920 to 2020. In other words, water rise has accelerated.

Sea level rise does not just happen out at the beach, water travels up the rivers and creeks that connect to the ocean. If the sea rises a foot at Jacksonville Beach, it will also rise a corresponding amount along the St. Johns River and its tributaries. Duval County has 1,000 miles of waterfront susceptible to sea level rise.

To get an idea of what’s heading our way, we only need to look south to Miami and the Florida Keys, which grapple with high tide flooding regularly.

Jacksonville has much to learn from our sister cities, including Miami, Charleston and New Orleans, which have been more proactive in addressing flooding threats.

Jacksonville has not acted on this threat in a consequential way – yet.  City leaders are far more engaged in plans to spend several hundreds of millions of dollars to replace an adequate football stadium than on protecting the city from flooding. 

Problems seen to be 10 to 20 years away are acknowledged (or not) and nudged aside.  Rising waters come on slowly, over decades, which stifles the urgency to act. Climate procrastination happens around the world.

A hard truth of climate change is that this slow motion train wreck has given people space to put off for decades what’s required – a sustained move towards clean energy.

Now it’s 2024 and time for indecision has run out. The water will come and the heat will kill, it’s true. But we can still alter course to build a better outcome.

John Burr, editor, Jacksonville Climate Change newsletter