It’s hard out there for a ‘tee. Florida’s population of endangered yet lovable underwater hunks, the manatee, has had a mixed 2015 so far. Yes, the manatee season – which runs from November to the first week April, when the water temperatures lure herds south to Florida – ended with…
Good news for Gladesmen, snake-heads, reptile fiends, would-be reality TV stars, and just about anybody else who gets their kicks chasing big slimey invasive species through the wild: The Python Challenge is back. This is probably the best news we’ve heard in awhile. In case you weren’t around for the…
The Environment Florida Research & Policy Center released a new report showing that a good amount of wetlands remain in the flood-prone areas of the state to hold enough rain to cover Broward and Palm Beach in more than four feet of water. And the group is calling on the federal…
Just a few paces from busy Brickell Avenue, Ishmael Bermudez crouches behind his little clapboard house and drinks serenely from a hose lowered into the ancient bedrock. Skyscrapers drape his property in shadows. Across the street, a Metrorail train clamors to a stop at an elevated station. All around, construction…
Tea Party activists are encouraging people to “stop the land grab” — meaning stop the state from buying 46,000 acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee that environmentalists say would be critical to cleaning up the Everglades. Tea partiers held a protest yesterday at the South Florida Water Management District’s…
The statewide push to get a solar power proposal on the 2016 ballot recently hit a milestone. Backers of the proposal announced last week that they’d secured enough initial signatures to send the proposal to the Florida Supreme Court. It’s an important first step for backers of the proposal, which…
With more than 1,800 miles of coastline in Florida, debris washes onshore up daily — everything from plastic bottles to discarded diapers. But Rudy Socha, who says he’s a veteran of the US Marine Corps, is worried about treated wood from piers and docks. The Ohio-bred, South Carolina-inhabiting Socha has…
On March 7, off a dirt road 40 miles west of Miami, swamp buggies careened into the thicket and little kids shimmied up a 40-foot wooden pole trying to grab the $50 bill stapled to the top. At a booth, Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee tribe member with a long black…
Somebody call the Syfy channel, because a Lionfishnado is a thing and only Ian Ziering and Tara Reid can save us from impending doom. Researchers at Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Oceanographic Center have discovered a new way in which hurricanes are a super pain-in-the-ass; they spread lionfish into the Florida…
Manatees are the cute-looking sea cows that bring on Florida tourists like iron filings to a magnet. But now a group of environmentalists has alerted the federal government it plans to sue on behalf of the critters. In particular, the group wants the USA to implement a look-don’t-touch (or swim)…
Rick Scott has an abysmal environmental record. So the latest report revealing that Scott ordered the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to ban the term “climate change” from all emails and reports should be the least shocking thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life. Scott has, from the word…
According to a news release from Beyond Pesticides, the EPA yesterday granted Florida farmers a 2½-year emergency exemption to use a powerful pesticide known to have a side effect of killing bees. Clothiandin is a neonicotinoid, a type of pesticide that has been linked to declines in honey-bee populations and…
It’s cold out here today. And it’s about to get even colder than originally expected. The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill advisory for Broward and Palm Beach Counties for Thursday night, with temps expected to dip into the 30s and even 20s in some parts of South…
With the sudden blast of arctic coolness making its way down to our neck of the woods, Broward and Palm Beach counties have declared a cold weather emergency for at least the next two days. The National Weather Service has forecast low temperatures tonight through Thursday, including a wind chill…
Solar is good. It’s good for the environment. It’s good for you and me. And, apparently, it’s good for the state’s massive utilities, who have steadily been rolling out large-scale solar projects. These project unveilings come after the utilities spent the past year edging the private solar providers out of…
Gov. Rick Scott announced on Tuesday a plan to dedicate $5 billion for Everglades restoration over the next 20 years. He also proposed another $150 million for land acquisition and management to help protect the Florida panther. The proposed amount will be included in the governor’s budget recommendations that he’ll…
The Solar Wars continue. As we’ve been steadily reporting over the past year, the face-off between the state’s powerful power utilities and the private solar industry has been pretty much a one-side squabble. Using their sway with Florida’s Public Service Commission, the state’s power companies like Florida Power & Light…
It’s time to dust off those sweaters and bust out the leather boots, because a sudden and pretty strong cold front is about to smack us in the face this weekend. It’s also expected to last into next week. Sure, it’s a balmy 78 degrees right now, and you probably…
You should probably recycle just because it’s, ya know, the right thing to do for the ecosystem, but Cooper City realizes that a few of us might need some incentive to throw jars into the recycling bin rather than the trash can. It’s instituting a program that rewards people for…
Barack Obama delivered his State of the Union last night, and pretty much everyone is talking about the moment in the evening when the president did some trash talking at Republicans who sarcastically applauded his declaration of not campaigning anymore by claiming it’s because he won both elections. Boom. Mic…
The strange political bedfellows that are hoping to revitalize Florida’s solar industry are taking another step toward that goal. Floridians for Solar Choice bills itself as a “grassroots citizens’ effort to allow more homes and businesses to generate electricity by harnessing the power of the sun.” Right now the organization…
The environmental threat of fracking has been looming over Florida for some time now, especially after the big utilities have tried to squash solar energy at every turn. But Florida Rep. Evan Jenne is looking to keep the practice of fracking out of the state by introducing a bill that…
