This weekend the CLEO Institute in FIU, held the symposium “Empowering Capable Climate Communicators”, in which the founders of VoLo Foundation explained how climate change is affecting the economy and tourism of Florida.
By MiamiDiario Editorial
The world-renowned expert in data analysis and predictive modeling, David S. Vogel, and the lawyer, community leader and Venezuelan philanthropist Thais López Vogel created the VoLo Foundation, a non-profit organization based in South Florida, whose mission is to accelerate change and the global impact endorsing climate solutions based on science, improving education and health.
“The economic impacts in Florida will be hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years. This includes the costs of hurricanes, real estate, restoration of electricity and tourism. In 2017 alone, Hurricane Irma cost the state around $ 50 billion, “said David S. Vogel, one of the founders of the VoLo Foundation.
At the “Empowering Capable Climate Communicators” Symposium, presented by the CLEO Institute in partnership with the Sea Level Solutions Center, the International University of Florida, David S. Vogel said to us how global warming is affecting the economy and tourism of Florida. At the local level, some leaders in Florida are making progress in approving environmental policies. Legislators in St. Petersburg, for example, have committed to “clean energy” by the year 2035, which includes electric buses and buildings with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
The City of Orlando has committed to achieve net energy consumption to zero by 2050, and Miami is investing $ 100 million over the next two years to install pumps and elevate roads above the projected rise in sea level. In total, Miami will invest between $ 400 and $ 500 million in adaptation to climate change.
Thais López Vogel indicated that “much more needs to be done since at this moment, climate change is perhaps the greatest threat to our future and future generations. Many people believe that climate science is new and has not been proven, but data and evidence have existed for almost 200 years.
Global warming is no longer a problem for future generations, but a problem that affects us all nowadays. The same, particularly impacts the residents of Florida is one of the states that has eight of the 10 metropolitan areas in the nation that are most affected by climate change, which has generated:
• Not only an increase in the number of hurricanes, but also in their intensity and duration producing greater disasters including massive floods.
• A negative impact on agriculture, including Florida strawberries producers who have suffered due to above-average heat and longer droughts.
• A negative effect on housing, tourism and employment at the state and national levels.
