By Tom McCarthy
President Barack Obama used an unusually picturesque appearance at Everglades National Park on Wednesday to draw attention to an ugly problem that he said was threatening the well-being of people in south Florida and around the world: climate change.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
The president appeared in rolled-up shirt sleeves at a lectern above an obscenely green sawgrass marsh to send a message that “climate change can no longer be denied” and “action can no longer be delayed.”
“In places like this, folks don’t have time, we don’t have time, you don’t have time to deny the effects of climate change,” Obama said. “Folks are already busy dealing with it.”
The White House arranged the event to mark Earth Day, the annual celebration of the planet begun in 1970. The Everglades is a 1.5 milion-acre estuary in southern Florida that boasts hundreds of unique species and serves as an essential buffer and filter between inland freshwater stores and the salt waters of the Gulf Stream and ocean beyond.
The sea level is estimated to have risen a foot in south-east Florida since 1870, and is projected to come up another 9 inches to 2 feet in the next 45 years, according to the Washington-based World Resources Institute. The drinking water of up to one-third of Floridians is threatened by encroaching seawater in the Everglades, according to White House figures.
“If we take action now, we can do something about it,” Obama said. “This is not some impossible problem that we cannot solve. We can solve it.”
In making its environmental pitch in Florida, the White House failed to find a local partner in Governor Rick Scott, a climate change skeptic. Scott was invited to meet Obama on the tarmac as the president arrived, but he declined, deputy press secretary Eric Schultz said.
Obama took a dig at Republicans in Congress who refuse to acknowledge climate change, including Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who earlier this year brought a snowball to the Senate floor to illustrate how cold it was outside. “2014 was the planet’s warmest year on record,” Obama said. “Fourteen of the 15 hottest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century. Yes, this winter was cold in parts of our country, including Washington. Some people in Washington helpfully used a snowball to illustrate that fact. But around the world, in the aggregate, it was the warmest winter ever recorded.”
Doug Young, president of the South Florida Audubon Society and a member of the Broward County climate change taskforce, welcomed Obama’s visit, saying the White House had worked with the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact to educate people on the issue.
“President Obama is very aware of the problems south Florida faces as a result of the effects of climate change including sea level rise,” Young said in an email to the Guardian.
Obama called for $25 million in national park restoration and asked Congress to fund conservation accounts. In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House council on environmental equality, said the Obama administration had invested more than $2.2 billion to protect the Everglades.
Air Force One would have consumed an estimated 9,180 gallons of fuel to make the 1,836-mile round trip to the Everglades, however, CBS News reported.
Reflecting on the magnificent view behind him, Obama said he hoped one day that his grandchildren might enjoy it — a day in the distant future, he stipulated.
“I don’t just want Malia and Sasha to enjoy this amazing view,” Obama said. “I want my grandchildren — a way, way long time from now — to enjoy this amazing view.
“It’s an incredible bounty that’s been given to us. But we’ve got to be good stewards for it. We’ve got to take care of it.”
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