Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, R., is punching back after climate ideologues suggested that his city could soon be underwater due to rising sea levels.
“It’s obvious why they’re coming after Miami,” Suarez said on the Fox News program Lawrence Jones Cross Country. “They can’t protect their citizens, that can’t keep their taxes low, and they’re rejecting high-paying jobs in their own communities, so they have to go after something, and this is what they’ve chosen to go after.”
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Suarez was responding to a thinkpiece published in The Nation entitled, “Should We Start Preparing for the Evacuation of Miami?” In it, the author’s Daniel Aldana Cohen and Samantha Schuyler argue that Americans need to alter their climate policy radically, or else Miamians should start thinking of packing their bags.
“It’s urgent for governments and social movements to start planning for millions of people to land in new places,” said Cohen, a UC Berkeley sociology professor. “Prepping Miami’s evacuation is a perfect starting point. Its residents are a multiracial, multinational, and multigenerational assemblage that spans the class spectrum. Tragically, many of them are already climate migrants—like Puerto Ricans displaced by recent hurricanes.”
Suarez accused the pair of inciting fear to suit a green agenda, and they were willing to hurt businesses in Miami to achieve that.
“They’ve chosen to tell people, ‘Miami is going to be underwater, so don’t invest in Miami,’ never mind the fact that Miami has suffered less hurricane damage New York City since Sandy, never mind the fact that FEMA just downgraded our risk profile because we spent hundreds of millions of dollars making Miami more resilient, never mind the fact that the Netherlands are under sea level for 400 years.”
Suarez told Jones that viewers shouldn’t take his word for it, but that they should “believe the private sector.”
“They just grew Miami by 12 percent, which is the second-most growth in reported history, so they are themselves betting on the long-term future prospects of our city… We care for our customers. We take care of our constituents. We care for our shareholders, and that’s not happening in other American cities.”
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The op-ed’s other author, Samantha Schuyler, suggested that while Miami may not need to evacuate any time soon, the city would still need a radical overhaul in the nation’s climate policy to survive.
“Shortsighted, surface-level adaptations aren’t going to save metropolises like Miami… At some point, if South Florida doesn’t change its approach to navigating climate change, evacuation will be necessary.”
Suarez has previously had to fend off critics that insist that his coastal resort city is doomed because of rising sea levels. In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation in July, Suarez said that Miami was taking active steps to improve its infrastructure, including building sea walls.
“The basis of the plan is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars that were voted approved that was actually a voter approved tax, and combine them with other funding sources like the state and federal government to be able to upgrade our infrastructure to deal with all the things that are being thrown our way from Mother Nature.”
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Suarez said the name of the project is called Miami Forever.
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