Could a Red Tide Help Turn Florida Blue?

Earlier today I wrote a post examining whether the next presidential election could be fought and won on climate change. 

But I forgot to mention another really interesting question.

Could the red state of Florida be turned blue by a stinking red tide?



For this is a real emergency. 

Florida’s governor this week made official what residents of southwest Florida already knew: The bloom of toxic algae that has darkened gulf waters is an emergency. The red tide has made breathing difficult for locals, scared away tourists, and strewn popular beaches with the stinking carcasses of fish, eels, porpoises, turtles, manatees and one 26-foot whale shark.

Citizens in retirement communities are reporting respiratory distress from the vapors of the microscopic red-tide organism called Karenia brevis. A recent study found a 50 percent spike in hospital visits due to respiratory problems during red-tide blooms.

And although red tides are a well known natural phenomenon, and can be triggered by other factors like the destruction of marsh lands and farm and sewage spill off.

Nobody can rule out the influence of climate change.



Scientists are trying to figure out why, exactly, the current red tide along the Gulf Coast has been so protracted and deadly.

But the incidences of red tides seem to have increased since the 1950s and 1960s. Climate change could be a factor; warmer waters, up to a certain point, are congenial to algal growth. The Gulf of Mexico’s surface temperature has warmed by about two degrees Fahrenheit since 1977.

Which could be really embarrassing for Florida's governor Rick Scott, the ghastly Republican climate change denier who once banned his Department of Environmental Protection from using the words "climate change" and "global warming."

Isn't that great?

In Miami today it's 32 degrees in the shade and feels like 43 degrees.

But I bet there's nothing like the stench of a red tide, to help turn a state blue...