After reading the first three sentences of this story over at FloridaPolitics.com, I couldn’t read any further without mentally editing out all the left-leaning cheerleading. No offense to Scott Powers, but the story couldn’t be more slanted, filled with irrational exuberance about the chances of Florida’s next governor having any impact whatsoever on the direction of the world’s climate. Frankly, this kind of stuff is EXACTLY the reason I launched The Capitolist: to extinguish at least some of the flaming bias in Florida’s media and insert some center-right common sense.
So, with apologies to Scott (maybe it was late and you were tired), here’s a new version of that story, leaning exactly the opposite direction:
[Lib wacko] Chris King issues bold, forward-thinking [nonsensical] statement on climate change
[Longshot] Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris King declared Thursday [with misplaced confidence] that Florida can fight climate change and spur the economy, while he recounted forecasters’ [alarmists’] worst fears for Florida if [in the unlikely event that] sea levels and temperatures rise as [high as some alarmist] scientists project.
In a lengthy[, unsupported] statement placed as a blog post on his campaign website, King outlined his concerns for weather, sea level rise, and economic impacts to Florida under [wildly exaggerated] projections for the next couple of generations, [irrationally] declaring, “fighting climate change could be the smartest investment Florida makes this century.”
The Winter Park developer of affordable housing touted his business successes and decried that Republicans always accuse [rightly point out that many] Democrats [like Gwen Graham] of not [have little] understanding [of] business or the economy.
In his post, King laid out [wagered his quixotic campaign on controversial,] foreboding projections, declaring, “Florida has the most property vulnerable to climate change-related flooding, with $69 billion of it at risk. Many of Florida’s coastal communities, including portions of Miami Beach and the Keys, will become chronically inundated with rising sea levels, flooding every other week on average.
The secondary economic impacts would be statewide, affecting Florida’s agriculture, manufacturing, and energy, as average temperatures rise, he [a wild-eyed King] added.
King then attacked policies and positions of Florida Gov Rick Scott, particularly for reportedly banning mention of climate change or global warming in the state’s environmental agencies. He also criticized the Florida Legislature for doing too little to address changes. [declared he would refuse to accept contributions from Florida sugar farmers, though many observers point out King wasn’t likely to be offered any in the first place since he seems hostile to agriculture and apparently has little understanding of basic economics].
“Florida needs a Governor who will tackle climate change and the threat it poses to our economy head on — not one who ignores it,” King stated, [without going into detail about how his plan would prevent polar ice caps from melting, or how he would stop Florida’s 21 million combustion-engine automobiles from spewing untold millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. King also failed to elaborate on how he would prevent South Florida’s environmental elitists, such as Paul Tudor Jones, from generating yet more carbon emissions during his private jet commutes between his estate in Connecticut and his Palm Beach mansion. Despite the dire predictions of climate activists, King believes that Floridians can still prevent the catastrophic devastation of rising sea levels and the excruciating deaths of untold millions of Floridians, if only every Florida homeowner was required to install solar panels and wind turbines on their rooftops. Such a scheme will undoubtedly stop anthropogenic global warming dead in its tracks, King concluded triumphantly.]
“If Florida were to invest in renewable energy for all energy needs, we would create more than 300,000 long-term jobs in those industries,” he continued [speculated, without addressing how Floridians could afford solar without government subsidies, or how the inevitable spike in energy bills would crater the rest of the economy]. “By 2050, [my imaginary Utopia] our state would save $41 billion per year in health costs resulting from air pollution, the equivalent of 1.8 percent of our GDP. Energy costs would [magically] decrease, energy efficiency would increase [as long as there are no clouds and the wind never stops blowing], and lives would even be saved. [King didn’t elaborate on his plans for the $41 billion in savings, but liberal supporters of such pie-in-the-sky policies suggest the massive windfall could be reinvested in cold fusion reactors, perpetual motion machines, or building a space elevator at Cape Canaveral.]
Among [the job killing] proposals King outlines in his statement:
– Banning fracking and off-shore drilling
– Investing [taxpayer dollars] in [expensive, unproven, and unreliable] renewable energy solutions.
– Supporting hurricane research and disaster-relief funding [a sound strategy, given that 97.9% of Floridians oppose hurricanes and disasters, with 2.1% still undecided].
– Conserving and protecting valuable lands and coasts, including through the land-purchase fund set up by constitutional amendment [nothing new here, see SB10].
– Commit Florida to the national U.S. Climate Alliance and uphold the spirit of the Paris Agreement in Florida [i.e. attach sandbags and boat anchors to Florida’s economic engine].