Gov. DeSantis Schools Media Reporters Hyping Flawed Alarmists Claims of Hurricane Milton was Made Worse by “Human Caused Global Warming”

Editor’s Note: In the essay below, many of the remarks by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis echo what we have been saying here at Climate Realism about hurricane Milton as well as Helene and hurricanes in general: Hurricane Milton is Historic, but Not Unprecedented, Nor Climate Driven,  and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Presents Master Class on Hurricane Milton and Climate Misinformation. Previously, CR took on media claims about hurricane Helene in:  No, Media. Hurricane Helene was not Worsened by Climate Change.

Our Climate at a Glance topic on Hurricanes, lays the facts bare – hurricanes are not caused by nor worsened by human activity.

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

Governor DeSantis provided a spectacular example of political leadership while demonstrating his climate science knowledge and credibility when he addressed a news conference regarding the state’s situation and status in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Milton. You can watch the full video here.

His significant remarks regarding Florida’s hurricane history and impacts as well as actions being taken to address Hurricane Milton’s outcome merit being displayed in print as best as possible as well as being listened to at several websites that carried his extraordinarily competent news conference remarks.

Toward that end, I have tried to summarize and encapsulate his key remarks and capture the many hurricane climate science perspectives addressed by Governor DeSantis as an example of competent climate science political leadership and knowledge.

In response to a reporter’s question attempting to connect “human caused global warming” to increasing numbers and impacts of hurricanes and tornadoes Governor DeSantis noted:

“Tornadoes – I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all human history, for sure, especially in Florida.

How does this storm rate – in kind of – the history of storms.

I think this storm hit with a barometric pressure of – what was it – about 950 millibars when it hit,”

“If you go back to 1851, there’s probably been 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric, so the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is”.

“I think there have been about 27 hurricanes that have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did, and of those, 17 occurred I think prior to 1960.”

“The most powerful hurricane on record since the 1850s in the state of Florida occurred in the 1930s, the Labor Day Hurricane, barometric pressure on that was 892 millibars,”

“It totally wiped out the Keys. We’ve never seen anything like it, and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane that we’ve ever had in the state of Florida.”

“The deadliest hurricane the state has ever faced was the Okeechobee hurricane in 1928, which killed more than 4,000 people.”

“Fortunately, we aren’t going to have anything like that this time.”

“So, I just think people should put this in perspective there.”

“They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something, there’s nothing new under the sun”.

You know, this is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history, and it’s something that will continue to deal with.”

“I think what’s changed is we’ve got 23 million people, a storm that hits are likely to hit more people and property than it would have 100 years ago, and so the potential for that damage has grown, but what’s also changed is our ability to do the prevention, to pre-stage the assets,”

“I mean, we never did the pre-staging of power assets until I became governor. Now, people like expect that, but that wasn’t what was done in the past.”

“That’s why people would be out with power for three weeks when we have hurricanes, we thought that that’s not good. Now we have to pay to get these guys to come in, but my view is, the quicker you get everyone hooked up, the better off the economy is going to be anyway.”

In response to another reporter’s question regarding the claim that human caused global warming was causing increasing intensification of storms Governor DeSantis noted:

“Oh, I think most people remember 2004, right, where it seemed like we had storms occur every other week”

“You know that we had no hurricanes at all from 2006 to 2016.”

“There was a time period we had a lot of hurricanes in the 1940s.”

“So, this situation has a lot of similarities to what happened in 2004.”

What a breath of fresh air from a competent political leader addressing climate science reality instead of politically contrived climate alarmism speculation and hype.