President Barack Obama visited the Everglades last week to commemorate Earth Day and to talk about the risks climate change poses to South Florida, the nation, and the world.
"If we don't act, there may not be an Everglades as we know it," the president said.
The president also used the opportunity to chide Governor Rick Scott for his administration’s unofficial ban of the phrase "climate change."
"Simply refusing to say the words ‘climate change’ doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening," Obama said.
The president noted that South Florida is especially at risk, in part because the region's water supply is threatened by saltwater flowing into the Everglades--and the aquifers--as sea levels rise.
"All of this poses risks to Florida’s $82 billion tourism industry on which so many good jobs and livelihoods depend," the president said.
The president touted his proposal for $240 million in federal Everglades restoration funding this year. He also said he is committed to cutting carbon pollution. But, a small group of environmental activists gathered outside the park were not completely satisfied. The activists held signs that read “ban fracking now” and “fracking = climate change."
Vickie Machado, an organizer with Food & Water Watch, took issue with the president's “all-of-the-above” energy policy that includes the use of fossil fuels like natural gas.
Machado decried illegal fracking near the Everglades last year, and said continued fracking could put South Florida’s drinking water at risk. Meanwhile, the legislature is considering a bill that could allow oil and gas companies to hide from the publicwhat chemicals are used in the fracking process.
Machado called on the president to help keep the natural gas extraction method out of the Sunshine State.
“President Obama, please do not allow fracking in the Everglades, do not allow fracking in Florida, and do not allow fracking in our nation," Machado said. "Change to something renewable, change to something sustainable, something that’s going to sustain my future and the futures of all of these other young people.”
Obama went on to express outrage at congressional inaction on climate change during the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday. The president brought out his anger translator "Luther" (Keegan-Michael Key from Comedy Central's Key and Peele), but when the president started discussing climate change there was no need for translation.
