Miami’s mayor on Hurricane Irma: ‘If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is’
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/
Miami’s Republican mayor called on President Donald Trump and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Friday to acknowledge that climate change is playing a role in the extreme weather that has slammed his city and the continental U.S. this summer.
Speaking from Miami’s Emergency Operations Center in downtown, where the city’s senior public safety and political authorities will ride out Category 4 Hurricane Irma this weekend, Mayor Tomás Regalado told the Miami Herald that he believes warming and rising seas are threatening South Florida’s immediate and long-term future.
“This is the time to talk about climate change. This is the time that the president and the EPA and whoever makes decisions needs to talk about climate change,” said Regalado, who flew back to Miami from Argentina Friday morning to be in the city during the storm. “If this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is. This is a truly, truly poster child for what is to come.”
Hurricane Irma is expected to begin lashing Regalado’s city with hurricane-force winds this weekend. The storm, which is trailed in the Atlantic Ocean by Category 4 storm Jose, has forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate from Coconut Grove and areas around downtown, Brickell, Little Haiti and the Miami River. A third hurricane, Katia, is located off Mexico’s coast.