Rick Scott is an American politician and businessman. He served as Florida’s Governor from 2011 to 2019, and has served as a United States Senator from Florida since 2019.
On Climate Change
The Palm Beach Post, a daily newspaper for Palm Beach county, wrote a 2022 titled “Rick Scott called climate solutions ‘nutty’. What’s ‘nutty’ is doing nothing. | Commentary”. The piece discusses Scott’s 2022 “11-point Plan for America,” in which he says “The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs.”
In 2021, the Orlando Sentinel—Florida’s primary newspaper—posted an article titled “Editorial: Rick Scott’s environmental record was dismal.” The Sentinel explains that Scott “spent his eight years in office avoiding the subject [of climate change] by claiming he was no scientist, while overseeing an environmental protection department where scientists reportedly were ordered not to utter or write the words climate change, global warming or sustainability.”
The piece continues with quotes from Scott “setting the record straight” in regards to his environmental record, but the editorial reports that “virtually everything Scott did during his eight years in office reflected his No. 1 desire, which wasn’t to protect the natural environment but instead an environment that’s favorable for business and development interests.”
Amidst 2018’s Hurricane Michael, The Guardian published “Rick Scott’s climate record condemned as Hurricane Michael bears down on Florida”. The article reports that Scott’s opponents believe he is a climate change denier. Scott “acknowledges that [Florida is] having sea level rise and stronger hurricanes but he’s just not willing to say what the cause of it is,” and he avoids discussing climate change by simply saying “I’m not a scientist.”
A 2017 Politico article titled “Florida governor remains unsure about climate change after Hurricane Irma” goes into Scott’s thinking when it comes to how climate change factors into the impact of large storms. “Clearly our environment changes all the time,” states Scott, “and whether that’s cycles we’re going through or whether that’s man-made, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one it is.” While Scott asserts that “we ought to go solve problems”—among which he lists beach renourishment and flood mitigation—Scott repeatedly refuses to take sides on the climate change debate. The article makes note of his first election in 2010, where Scott said, “I’ve not been convinced that there’s any man-made climate change,” and reports that in 2015, as Governor, in Scott’s Department of Environmental Protection the words ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ were banned.
See Also
Climate of Denial