- [Voiceover] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Rob] Support for this program is provided in part by the Susan Howarth Foundation at Community Foundation Tampa Bay, and the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation.

Coming up next, as sea levels rise by the year 2050, Florida's coastline is projected to be dramatically altered.

The Tampa Bay and Sarasota areas are among the most vulnerable in the country because of climate change.

What are local leaders in business and government doing to prepare?

We'll find out next on a special edition of "Florida This Week"."

(dramatic music) (audience applauds) Welcome to "Florida This Week," we're in the WEDU studios with a live audience for our special on global warming, and its effects on us here in Florida.

Climate change rose to our national consciousness in 1988, when landmark testimony from Dr. James Hansen, then the Director of NASA's Institute for Space Studies, reported on a cause-and-effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and global warming.

He attributed the phenomenon to human exploitation of carbon energy sources, and sounded the alarm that a climate crisis loomed.

In 2006, Al Gore produced a film called "An Inconvenient Truth."

- [Al] The most vulnerable part of the Earth's ecological system is the atmosphere.

- [Rob] He showed us how carbon emissions are trapping heat in the atmosphere and changing the Earth's climate.

It was memorable, seeing Gore walk along a life-size graphic showing how the climate has changed over the eons, tracking the natural ebb and flow of carbon in the atmosphere.

He then climbs aboard a lift to demonstrate the dramatic rise in atmospheric carbon since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

- [Al] Within less than 50 years, it'll be here.

- [Rob] Since the film's release, atmospheric carbon has climbed even higher.

At the start of the Industrial Revolution, it averaged 275 parts-per-million.

This year, it reached 421, the highest level since monitoring began.

In 2015, the world's Nations set carbon reduction goals in Paris, hoping to keep the globe from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels.

But the broken promises of Paris have us on pace to see temperatures rise more than that; three degrees by the end of this century.

If that happens, the forecast is dire.

The planet will experience blistering heat and drought, ferocious hurricanes and wildfires, devastating floods and sea-level rise.

The seas are rising because glaciers and ice sheets are melting into the oceans and adding volume.

Plus, as water warms it expands.

At the Tampa Bay Tidal Gauge in St. Petersburg, the sea has risen 8 inches since 1946, and it's expected to rise in other 12 inches over the next 30 years.

The Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel says our region should expect 2 to 8.5 feet of sea-level rise by the end of the century, depending on what actions or inactions people, government, and business take.

At the University of South Florida, Gary Mitchum is a professor and Associate Dean of the College of Marine Science.

- The problem that we're facing now is what we call high-tide flooding, and we're seeing this more and more frequently.

Instead of having 7 of these events per year, you know, the forecast is 70 events per year, and that's coming up in about 10 years.

We also were having rapid increases in the intensity of our rainfall.

- [TV Anchor] So breaking right now, we are working to try to find out how many cars are damaged after floodwaters filled the valet parking garage at the Vinoy Hotel in St. Pete.

- [TV Anchor 2] In fact, St. Pete broke its record for daily rainfall yesterday, with more than three inches of rain in one hour.

- [Gary] The very intense rainfalls that we're getting is a climate change effect as well.

As a warmer atmosphere holds more water and can therefore dump more water in a short period of time.

- Now, the good news on climate change, public attitudes are changing.

92% of Floridians believe climate change is real, that includes 96% of Democrats and 88% of Republicans.

Younger Republicans are even more likely than their parents to believe humans bear some of the blame.

There's also good news coming from the private sector, both nationally and locally.

In Hillsborough County, Lennar Homes is piloting a renewable energy microgrid that will power 40 homes in South Shore Bay.

In Pinellas, Great Bay distributors has installed one of Florida's largest solar arrays on the roof of their St. Petersburg warehouse.

The number of residential solar systems installed in Florida increased by 45% last year.

Florida has the second-highest number of registered electric vehicles in the country, ahead of Texas, but behind California.

And there's more good news, business groups are speaking up about the need to prepare for what's headed our way.

In October, a Florida Tax Watch report said, "Doing nothing about climate change would be catastrophic for Florida's economy."

Of the 25 US cities most vulnerable to sea-level rise, Climate Central says 23 are here in Florida.

In April, a report from the Tampa Bay Partnership put a price tag on needed regional preparations for sea-level rise at $13.4 billion.

And also said something must be done about fossil fuel emissions.

Brian Auld, the president of the Tampa Bay Rays, chairs the Partnership's Resilience Committee.

- $13.4 Billion is a lot of money, it's an unfathomable amount of money really.

And yet the damage, the destruction, the physical and financial cost, the impact it could have to our economy, particularly in the tourism front, far exceeds that $13.4 billion of investment.

- Because of climate impacts, the Rays no longer talk about building an open-air ballpark on the waterfront.

Today, Auld emphasizes a hurricane-proof roof, and a ballpark that is key to the emergency management infrastructure of whichever county they choose for their new stadium.

- Certainly is impacting our stadium choices, it makes some sense to put it on higher ground, so to speak.

- [Rob] Governments are taking encouraging steps too.

Florida's Republican-led legislature might not use the words "climate change," but it has approved more than $1.5 billion over the last two years, for quote, "resilience, raising roads, building higher dunes, and improving storm and wastewater systems."

The Democratic-led Congress recently passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which represents America's largest investment so far to fight climate change.

And closer to home, 6 counties and 21 cities have joined the Tampa Bay Regional Resilience Coalition, to work together on climate challenges that cross city and county lines.

Given the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere, there's no stopping the big changes headed our way, but reducing emissions would keep things from getting even worse.

So much depends on power companies which generate about a third of carbon emissions, and in Florida, they largely burn natural gas and coal.

TECO and Duke Energy, which respectively power Hillsborough and Pinellas, say that they're committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions, but haven't said exactly how.

Florida Power and Light, which powers Manatee and Sarasota Counties, says it will reach real zero by 2045, with a massive solar push, plus hydrogen and nuclear.

It's already installed 1 million solar panels each in Manatee and Des Soto Counties.

Tampa Mayor Jane Castor says similar urgency is needed around transportation.

Since the gas we put in cars and trucks accounts for another 1/3 of all carbon emissions.

- The best thing that we can do right now to reduce the carbon emissions is to pass the All For Transportation referendum that's going to be on the November ballot.

Really is critical for our community right now to provide those mass transit, those mobility options, that won't add to the emissions and to our carbon footprint.

- [Rob] Absent more intervention in the years ahead, land will be lost, and more and more people will be displaced from low-lying coastal areas.

Optimists hope that human ingenuity finds a way to suck carbon out of the atmosphere.

Others are confident humankind will adapt.

Count USF's Gary Mitchum as one of the optimists.

- [Gary] The positive thing that I see is people are more and more open to talking about this and aware of it.

That's important, because it's the first thing we need to do in order to start taking action, appropriate actions.

But at first, it takes a recognition of the risk, and then a discussion about how do we deal with that risk.

And I think that's starting to happen, I'm very optimistic about it.

(uplifting chimes) - Joining us now to discuss the effects of climate change on the state, Dr. Jennifer Shafer is the Co-executive Director of the Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida.

Bemetra Simmons is the President and CEO of the Tampa Bay Partnership.

And Sean Sullivan is the Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

Thank you all for joining us.

Climate Central says we can expect a sea-level rise of at least 10 inches, and maybe more, along the Gulf Coast between now and 2050.

The effect is forecast to be most dramatic in Hillsborough County along the western parts of Ruskin and Apollo Beach.

The southern parts of MacDill Air Force Base, parts of South Tampa that are to the west of West Shore Boulevard, and the shoreline along upper Tampa Bay will also be affected by the rise.

In Manatee, the western edges of Bradenton and Palmetto will be most affected.

The eastern parts of Longboat Key and Siesta Key in Sarasota, and in Pinellas, Weedon Island.

Low-lying areas of northeast St. Petersburg and parts of Tierra Verde will also notice rising sea levels in the next three decades.

Jennifer, this area, as vulnerable as I said in that piece, what keeps you up at night?

What are you most concerned about, of all these climate change issues?

- Well, Rob, I'm kind of a to-do list kind of person, so my concern is that we're wasting time.

We have a window of opportunity to kind of get our house in order.

So I think that focusing on growth planning, recognizing the risk of where and what we build.

And environmental protection, reversing some of the chronic strains on our environment, pollution, algae blooms, and getting our house in order now is important.

- Bemetra, let me ask you, what keeps you up at night when it comes to the issues of climate change?

- I think very similar to what Jennifer was sharing, just the lack of urgency that we have around it, and in the impact that that could ultimately have, and our lack of preparation.

So it's like we know we are vulnerable, but we don't seem to have a lot of energy around getting prepared to not be so vulnerable.

- And Sean, how about you?

- What keeps me up at night, Rob, is that I worry about, "Am I gonna be flooded?

Can I actually leave my driveway in the morning?"

Because we had high intensity, frequent rainfall the night before, much like we experienced recently here in the Tampa Bay region.

And if I might add, the climate, the chief meteorologist at Fox 13 here in Tampa Bay, Paul Dellegatto the other night, mentioned that the rainy season of 2022 in the Tampa Bay region was a rainy season on steroids.

So flooding is what keeps me up, Rob.

- Is it too late to do anything?

And Jennifer, let me start with you on that one, because I think a lot of people think, "Well, this is set in motion."

For instance, China is a big polluter out there, and they are continuing to build new coal power plants.

Is it too late?

- It absolutely is not too late.

It is time now though, to get busy, there are a number of gaps we have, in being able to go to a net-zero world.

And so R&D is gonna be very important to come up with our net-zero solutions for fuels, and for materials, like, making steel and concrete, fertilizers, meat, even.

So all of these things need to be developed before we can move to them.

We also need to make sure that markets are incentivized and policy goes hand-in-hand with those.

So it is not too late, we do have a lot of prep to do, if you will, but I'm very hopeful that in 2050 we're gonna be living in a net carbon-free world.

- So you're saying that beyond coal, beyond gashouse-emitting power plants and beyond cars, you've got industries such as steel, such as concrete, such as the meat industry, that are also contributing to climate change gases.

- Right, around the world actually, materials and construction making the things that we have in our world is the number one producer of climate change gases.

Producing electricity, our transportation, our food.

And these things have alternatives that haven't been scaled up yet with regard to energy, clean biofuels, nuclear, fission and fusion perhaps.

And so the alternatives that we need are possible, but the incentives, the policy, and the markets need to line up.

- Bemetra, the Tampa Bay Partnership says that we need to start dealing with the problems that we're facing, and spend $13.4 billion to protect against rising seas and frequent flooding by the year 2070.

What would you spend that $13.4 billion on?

- Well, I think there's a lot of different levers that we can press to help with that.

I mean, everything from strengthening, and repairing, and rising sea walls well, as well as berm construction, beach nourishment, new standards for how we build our houses, how we work with the older homes to get them at a higher level.

So there's a number of things that we can do, but you know, the $13.4 billion is, if we start it today, right, that number just keeps going higher, the longer we wait to start with some of the proactive things that we can do.

- [Rob] Are the politicians listening to you?

- [Bemetra] We're hopeful.

(panel laughs) - Are you being diplomatic there?

- I mean, yeah, I mean we're certainly, you know, raising this issue when we're meeting with our local elected officials, our state elected officials.

You know, we'd like to see, you know, some more tax incentives and zoning laws that can help with some of these things.

And that's some of the things that the Partnership is advocating for.

- Sean, let me read you a list of issues that are coming our way because of climate change: roads being flooded, drinking water supplies affected, bridges being affected, sewer systems being affected, property values declining, because they're along the rising sea, property insurance increasing.

And then possible, I mean, likely changes in the weather, more hurricanes, and climate refugees, people moving away from the coast.

Which of those do you think is...?

All of the above?

- I would say all of the above, Rob.

And that's why I think it's important that government really take the lead, and it starts in the White House, and it trickles down to each county commission here in the Tampa Bay region.

So at the Regional Planning Council, and you mentioned in your promo that we work with 27 member governments, specifically our Regional Resiliency Coalition has really grown to 32 governments now, and 90 private-sector partners.

And as a professional planner, I like to say, "Every good action has a plan."

So we are developing, putting the finishing touches on, the first of its kind in the Tampa Bay region, which is called the Regional Resiliency Action Plan.

And it's a call-to-action that 32 governments have signed on to a memorandum of understanding, to agree to work collaboratively to come up with a plan to make Tampa Bay more resilient.

We'll be releasing that plan in December, and I'm happy to give you a reference to our website.

But we're really proud of the work that we are able to continue through COVID, and we are very grateful to our private-sector partners, and our government staff, and our government-elected leaders.

Happy with the governor's office and with our state legislature for appropriating dollars and realizing that we have a changing climate.

And if I could just real briefly say if there was someone who was born in 1970, would be 52 years old today, in 1970 when that person was born, there were 40 days a year that the temperature in Tampa Bay exceeded 90 degrees.

52 years later, that same person would have double, would witness and live through, double the amount of days that exceed 90 degrees.

So climate change is real, climate is changing, and it's up to us, collectively, to come up with a plan to make our region more resilient.

- I want to ask you, so there's something that you're also involved in, the Shoreline Protection Ordinance; what is that?

- Yes, Rob, we developed recently, at the request specifically of our elected members on the council, what we call the Model Shoreline Protection Ordinance.

Really the first of its kind in Tampa Bay.

And what we did is we looked at the effect of sea-level rise, not only today, but the projections.

And how can we learn to live with water rather than just build the sea wall?

Which is a component of the document, but how else can we live with water?

And we brought in international experts from the Netherlands over the course of the spring to help us develop this policy.

The Council adopted that just last week, and if I can quote Commissioner Ron Kitchen from Citrus County, at the end of the meeting, he said, "This is exactly what the Regional Planning Council should be doing to create this regional model policy."

- Then the question is, have local governments adopted this ordinance?

- Absolutely, then what we do is we create the framework in the ordinance that's a model.

We know that each city and county is different and unique in their own ways, and we know that the ordinance might not be as written, be perfect in each city or county.

But even if counties and cities can use pieces of this ordinance to help them develop what works best in their community, we like to say that we gave 'em a running start.

- Jennifer, I think there's two tracks.

One is kind of hardening the infrastructure that we have already, and the second is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We've gotta do both, right?

- Yes, I would say that's true, but I'm not gonna agree with you on everything has to be hardened.

There are natural solutions that we can employ that can allow us to soak up more water, allow us to retreat from the coastline, preserving salt marshes and mangroves that themselves store carbon.

So I don't think hardening is 100% of the answer.

- And when a hurricane strikes a community and devastates, especially the homes on the shoreline, should those homes be rebuilt?

- That's a question for the community.

- [Rob] What do you think?

- I think that if there is a disaster, the community has to take a hard look to see how vulnerable that community is, and whether the community should continue to provide services, rebuild storm water, sewer, roads.

It's a great opportunity to kind of look in the mirror and decide what other mechanisms can we do, other than rebuild right in place, in a high-risk zone?

- Bemetra, let's talk about this idea of hardening the infrastructure, versus kind of retreating from the shoreline.

Where do you come down on that issue?

- Well, I just think that like, you know, this is the responsibility of all of us, right?

It's, you know, Sean talked about government taking a lead, but I think the business community also has to get involved.

And, you know, I'd like to see the business community, you know, putting together some public-private partnerships to help with some of those adaptation costs.

And also being a voice as to why this is important, because, you know, we have a, you know, catastrophic event that's gonna have an impact to income, that's gonna have an impact to jobs, that's gonna have an impact to tourism.

I mean, we are gonna all be affected.

- [Rob] We're seeing homeowners insurance rates rise here in Florida.

Is that an indication that the insurance companies know that global warming is real, and they don't trust what's about to happen in Florida?

- I don't know that they don't trust what's about to happen in Florida.

I think they have predictive models of where they think they see Florida going, and then they're trying to account for the risk in that.

And then we, as they insured, are gonna pay those additional costs for those models, if that makes sense.

- Okay, so what's the best way to deal with the problem?

What's the low-hanging fruit right now, Sean?

What could we do easily right now to begin to reduce the harmful effects of global warming?

- Right now, I think in the Tampa Bay region, we could all buy an electric vehicle.

But we also know that those vehicles are not cheap, right?

Perhaps take public transportation.

And Bemetra knows as well as Janet does, that there's been a significant emphasis in the Tampa Bay region to improve our public transportation system on both sides of the Bay.

So I would encourage folks to consider using public transportation.

In October I know the SunRunner is the first of its kind, Bus Rapid Transit, the first of its kind in the Tampa Bay region, is gonna happen downtown St. Petersburg.

Really in the hard work of PSTA.

And then across the bridge at DOT, they've got federal grant over water to build a ferry so that we can use water-borne transportation more effectively and more regularly, and take cars off the road.

And if you're going somewhere, before you get in your vehicle as a single-occupant vehicle, think about that.

Does your neighbor need a ride, can you accomplish it driving to work?

If you can't take a bus, can you take it with a group of folks?

So you're reducing your cost, and you're reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and essentially helping the Tampa Bay region remain resilient.

- Jennifer, oh, Bemetra first.

- I was gonna say, if I may right now, the Biden administration has a tax credit of about $7,500 for electric vehicles.

And we if we had half of our cars were electrified here in our area, it would bring about $7.5 billion into our state economy.

So there's an economic benefit as well to this.

- Jennifer, I was gonna ask you about low-hanging fruit.

Are there other things that we could do right away?

- Yes, I think all of us need to join collective action to start talking about climate change to everyone and anyone.

We all need to clean up our carbon footprint.

There's many things that we can be doing right now to reduce our energy consumption.

Our homes consume a lot of energy, our transportation consumes a lot of energy.

We can reduce the amount of carbon that is in our foods, our food choices.

But I think also as consumers, we have a lot of power to show demand for carbon neutral, or net-neutral products.

And that, as I mentioned earlier, is part of kind of getting this going to show support.

So whenever you can buy a super efficient home appliance, or an electric car, or reducing your food footprint, show the market that you're interested in buying those things, there'll be more money put into R&D.

Government policy can support that direction, and we can move faster into the future.

- [Rob] Bemetra, what are the signs?

I mean, business is really important, because they kind of set the pace.

Government also sets the pace, but what are the signs of business is taking this seriously?

We saw Brian Auld in the setup piece, he says they're not gonna build a stadium that's in a flood zone that's likely to flood.

- Right, I think, you know, like I said, the business community can really take a leadership role in the way that we do things, and showing that this is important.

And then that will help push the policy that we need from our state and local- - But this is, are businesses showing that they are concerned about this?

Are you seeing within your Partnership...?

- I would say within the Partnership, yes, that's why we took the time to do the study that we did.

And, you know, thankful to JP Morgan Chase for underwriting the cost of us to do that study.

So I definitely think, you know, that the 40 or so companies that are in the Partnership... and I'm encouraged by that, right?

'Cause that represents a little less than 100,000 jobs right here in our region.

- [Rob] Sean, we only have about 50 seconds left.

But is it too late?

I mean, because I said by the end of the century it's gonna get very dire, the shorelines are really gonna be impacted.

Is it too late?

- I don't think it is too late.

I think collectively, if people work together with government, you become involved.

You become an activist, you learn more about what you can do to help.

'Cause we can all help, it is not too late.

And if I can quote Commissioner Long from Pinellas County, "Living in the Tampa Bay region, we truly live in paradise, but living in paradise comes with great responsibility."

So if we all take that responsibility serious, I think we'll continue to pass on this beautiful region to our children and our grandchildren.

- Thank you all for sharing your insights on this really important issue, thank you.

And that concludes our broadcast portion of the program.

I want to thank our panelists for being here and sharing their expertise.

And I want to thank our audience for supporting efforts to control climate change here in Florida.

We're going to continue our discussion with questions from the audience in a webcast extra, available online at wedu.org.

And from all of us here at WEDU, have a great weekend.

(audience applauds) (lively electronic music) - [Voiceover] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU, who is solely responsible for its content.

- [Rob] Support for this program is provided in part by the Susan Howarth Foundation at Community Foundation Tampa Bay, and the Charles and Margery Barancik Foundation.

(soothing music)