A roundup of news items related to climate change and other environmental issues in Florida:
Plant City’s summer was record hot. What could that mean for strawberries? | Tampa Bay Times
PLANT CITY — Fan blades whirred at the open-air ParkesdaleFarm Market on a scorching hot day in September. Co-owner Jim Meeks had installed the large fans this summer to cool customers as they ordered milkshakes flavored with Plant City’s famous strawberries.
Smaller fans blew air onto employees working the counter. Meeks sometimes found them seeking more relief in the walk-in freezer.
“Without question, this is the hottest summer I’ve felt,” he said.
When sea levels rise, so does your rent | BBC
With sea levels rising around the globe, Miami is facing an urgent need to adapt. As property investors turn their gaze inland, away from the exclusive low-lying beach area, residents in one poorer neighborhood further above sea level say rising rents are forcing them out.
“It’s a beautiful place, and developers are selling this tropical lifestyle,” says housing activist Renita Holmes. “So, they build up and everybody moves to Miami, and we get moved out.”
Holmes lives in Little Haiti, a neighborhood situated five miles inland from the luxurious Miami Beach.
Why the Florida homeowners insurance crisis should worry us all | Yahoo News
Earlier this year, Chicago native Steve Swanson decided to move full-time to Sanibel Island, Fla., where he had vacationed as a child. A boomerang-shaped barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, Sanibel was devastated by Hurricane Ian last year, but Swanson did something that would have been unthinkable anywhere in the country a few years ago: He purchased a small house but declined to purchase homeowner’s insurance, which would reimburse him in case of another disaster.
“You self-insure,” Swanson said in an interview with Yahoo News, describing how he adds each month to a rainy-day fund against natural disasters instead of paying a premium to an insurance company. “And then you just hope that it never happens.”
Swanson’s experience is becoming increasingly common. He landed on the frontline of a budding home insurance crisis that has hit coastal and inland states alike. Insurance companies are pulling out of states where evermore frequent natural disasters mean those companies have to pay out large claims after a home is destroyed in a wildfire, leveled by a mudslide or wrecked by a flood.
If you have any news items of note that you think we should include in our next roundup, please email The Invading Sea Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here.
