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Hugh Pickens writes:

Michael Mishak writes that there are few places in the nation more vulnerable to rising sea levels than low-lying South Florida, a tourist and retirement mecca built on drained swampland. Yet as other coastal states and the Obama administration take aggressive measures to battle the effects of global warming, Florida's top Republican politicians are challenging the science and balking at government fixes. In Miami Beach the concern is palpable. On a recent afternoon, local businessman Scott McKenzie pulled out his iPad and flipped through photos from a 2009 storm. In one, two women kayak through knee-high water in the center of town. "This is not a future problem. It's a current problem," says Leonard Berry, a contributing author of the National Climate Assessment, which found that sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the past century. By one regional assessment, the waters off South Florida could rise another 2 feet by 2060, a scenario that would overwhelm the region's aging drainage system and taint its sources of drinking water. "It's getting to the point where some properties being bought today will probably not be able to be sold at the end of a 30-year mortgage," says Harold Wanless. "You would think responsible leaders and responsible governments would take that as a wake-up call."

Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for re-election, has worked with the Republican-controlled Legislature to dismantle Florida's fledgling climate change initiatives that were put into place by his predecessor and current opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist. "I'm not a scientist," says Scott when asked about anthropogenic global warming during a stop in Miami. Meanwhile, Miami Beach is bracing for another season of punishing tides. "We're suffering while everyone is arguing man-made or natural," says Christine Florez, president of the West Avenue Corridor Neighborhood Association. "We should be working together to find solutions so people don't feel like they've been left on a log drifting out to sea."