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Audubon Florida Climate and Energy News Roundup This week we share news about a legislative plan to reduce the cost-effectiveness of rooftop solar, ways Miami-Dade County is enhancing infrastructure resilience, the one group of people Americans trust on climate science, and more!

A Brown Pelican in flight.

Electric Vehicle Sales Hit Record High in 2021, KBB Reports From Fox Business “Despite the slow growth in new car sales last year, one type of vehicle is defying the industry-wide trend. Battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) saw record-setting growth in the fourth quarter of 2021, with sales jumping 72% year-over-year, according to a new report from Kelley Blue Book. Nearly 150,000 EVs were sold in Q4, and the EV market share was 4.5% — another record for the segment.” Read the entire article.

Sea Rise Prompts Miami-Dade to Consider Raising Heights of Roads, Seawalls and Canals From the Miami Herald “Miami-Dade hasn’t changed the most basic form of flood protection — the minimum height for building things like roads and new homes — in 40 years. Now a new proposal on the table could nearly double that standard, a dramatic change that reflects two inevitable realities: sea rise poses an increasingly imminent threat and adapting to it will raise construction costs. A new minimum height of 6 feet for things like roads, sea walls, canal banks and lots sounds high, but the visual impact will likely be minor for everywhere except the most low-lying pockets of the county.” Read the entire article.

Florida Lawmakers Aim to Cut Solar Power Energy Buybacks by 75% From Fox-13 News Tampa Bay “Recent polling shows a bill making its way through the Florida legislature is widely unpopular. The bill would make significant changes to the way utility bills are calculated for customers with solar power. Critics say it would stop a major incentive that many drew those customers to solar power in the first place, essentially stopping new households from adopting the technology.” Read the entire article.

Biden Halts Oil, Gas Leases Amid Legal Fight on Climate Cost From the Miami Herald “The Biden administration is delaying decisions on new oil and gas drilling on federal land and other energy-related actions after a federal court blocked the way officials were calculating the real-world costs of climate change… Among the immediate effects is an indefinite delay in planned oil and gas lease sales on public lands in a half-dozen states in the West, including Wyoming, Montana and Utah. The ruling also will delay plans to restrict methane waste emissions from natural gas drilling on public lands and a court-ordered plan to develop energy conservation standards for manufactured housing, the administration said.” Read the entire article.

10 Steps You Can Take to Lower Your Carbon Footprint From the Washington Post “Here’s the thing: Small changes alone won’t save our planet. To keep the Earth from warming above the critical 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit, climate action needs to happen at an institutional level. The Washington Post has built a tracker to keep you up to date on all of President Biden’s environmental actions. But that doesn’t mean you should feel helpless, or that your actions aren’t worthwhile. Taking steps to lower your own carbon footprint may help ease your climate anxiety by giving you back some power — and even the smallest of actions will contribute to keeping our planet habitable.” Read the entire article.

The One Group of People Americans Actually Trust on Climate Science From the Atlantic “TV is a fancy medium, and we like that, don’t we? We like it so much that on average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we Americans watched TV for more than three hours every day in 2020. While newspapers are folding everywhere (more than 2,100 kaput since 2004), local TV has continued to command our attention like a tennis ball commands a dog. In 2020, local-news stations made a total of $18.4 billion in over-the-air ad revenue… Social scientists have long assumed that most of the Americans misinformed about climate change were protecting a constructed reality, but that view is shifting.” Read the entire article.

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