Activists protest at Rick Scott’s district office in Tampa
A dozen climate change activists held a protest in front of Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s district office in Tampa on Monday, highlighting his public stance on climate change as well as his ties to the fossil fuel industry.
The demonstration came days after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the Southeastern United States, including the west coast and Big Bend of Florida, and killed more than 100 people in six states, according to the Associated Press.
Scott told CNN on Friday after visiting parts of Florida destroyed by the Category 4 storm that the climate is “clearly changing,” adding, ‘Who knows what the reason is, but something is changing.”
“No sir, it is climate change,” said Nicole Victoria Gazo, 22, during the protest. “That is what’s changing.”
Gazo and her cohorts were with the Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate organization that emerged during the first year of the Trump administration. Members came from around the state to the Tampa Bay area over the weekend to observe first-hand destruction that the storm brought due to the unprecedented storm surge in Pinellas County.
As part of their demonstration, they took some of the debris they found over the weekend and placed it on Florida Avenue in front of the federal courthouse (which also houses a district office for Scott) to make their point.
‘We can’t survive this anymore’
“We can’t keep doing this. We can’t survive this anymore,” said Manuel Guerrero, 18, a freshman at the University of Central Florida who visited his aunt in Tarpon Springs in Pinellas County on Sunday. He said she didn’t evacuate on Thursday because she didn’t have a place to go to.
“She called us as soon as she could get a signal, shaking and crying,” he recounted. “She thought she was going to lose her life, and certainly that she was going to lose her roof.” She didn’t, he said, but other neighbors weren’t as lucky.
“Several of her neighbors have lost their roofs and have lost their lands, and honestly that’s not the worst of it,” he said. “Yesterday I went to South Pasadena and I spoke with a woman who had to be rescued by a Coast Guard. She had flooding up to the middle of her chest. She was shaking telling us her story.”
‘More complicated’
The link between climate change and hurricanes is “more complicated than most people realize,” a paper from the MIT Technology Review stated last year.
The report noted that “climate change is causing sea levels to rise, making storm surges even more severe and coastal flooding more likely and damaging. In addition, as air gets warmer it can hold more water, meaning here will be more rain from storms as climate change pushes global temperatures higher. This could all add up more flooding during hurricanes.”
“A lot of people don’t know one of the main fuels — the gasoline for stronger hurricanes — is warmer waters,” Gazo said.
“Why are hurricanes getting stronger? Why are they accelerating more quickly? Because the oceans are warming,” she continued.
“You can deny science as much as you want, but even your pockets will attest that climate change is happening, and will continue to happen, if we do not divest from fossil fuels and switch to more renewable sources of energy that are longer lasting, more sustainable,” she added, referring to solar and wind power.
It was revealed during a Florida Public Service Commission meeting that Florida relies on natural gas for 75% of its energy portfolio, more than any state in the nation.
The state receives about 7% of its net generation from solar energy in, according to the U.S Energy Information Administration. Florida has never used wind energy, and a bill passed by the state Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year bans offshore wind development within a mile of the coastline (that was the same bill that stripped the term “climate change” from much of state law).
Tenny-Ann Dandy, 23, graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania a year ago and now lives in Broward County. She said she all she could do was laugh when Scott said last week that “something had changed” when it came to the weather.
“He’s an intelligent man,” she said. “He knows what’s going on. I’m sure he knows what science is.”
Scott and fossil fuel
The young climate activists also targeted Scott because of support he’s gathered over the years from the fossil fuel industry. According to Open Secrets, Scott has received more than $486,000 from oil and gas since he first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2018.
The New York Times reported that year that he and his wife, Ann, had invested in companies with ownership interests in Florida’s three natural gas pipelines, permitted and regulated by the state.
Although Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Scott’s Democratic opponent, was not at all involved in the protest, the Scott campaign took aim at her when learning about the protest.
“Senator Scott has been consistently clear that taking care of the planet and pursuing economic prosperity are objectives that can and must be pursued simultaneously,” said Scott campaign spokesperson Will Hampson.
“Protecting Florida’s environmental treasures is one of the few areas where there’s bipartisan agreement in our state, so it’s sad to see Debbie and the Democrats try to politicize this in the midst of a crisis in our state. It’s one of the many reasons voters will reject her in November,” he continued.
“The climate is changing, and that’s why Senator Scott made important investments to take care of the environment and address rising sea levels and other impacts as Governor. Both parties need to work together to build a stronger economy and invest in priorities like protecting our environment and natural treasures.”
Future at stake
“It’s inevitable that the climate’s only going to get worse, and more homes are going to be lost,” said Chris Arrieza, 17, a senior at Coral Gables High School in Miami-Dade County. He said he had a direct question to post to Scott had he been in his Tampa office.
“What’s it going to take? Is it going to take his grandchildren and future generations for him to realize that the title of senator has no weight and nature has no remorse?” he said.
As Sunrise Movement members gathered in front of the federal building, a security guard asked them why they were holding their protest in that location.
They told him it was because the senator had an office in the building. The guard responded that he didn’t believe that he had ever seen Scott visit the office. Former Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, the man Scott defeated in 2018, frequently did hold press conferences in that same office whenever he was in Tampa.
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