It is devastating to watch people go through this. It's scary, but it's also frustrating to see their reactions. You're implying that the government made a hurricane stronger to hurt its own country, the United States of America. And what would be the gain of that? When if you, like there's been people out there, if they have an Alexa, I don't know if you've heard that and they've asked what caused Milton. You can go on there now, it's already predicted the number of deaths in the amount of time. It's already predicted it. You, on a Google, it won't do that. If you ask it about Halloween, it'll tell you the government actively used seed clouding. This is before Halloween even happened. Why would a country want to have a hurricane be strong and hit its own country? Because they want to control certain places and if you're looking at where the hurricane is going, it's a lot of red states. That's the global warming you have to worry about. Not that the ocean is going to rise in 400 years, an eighth of an inch, and you'll have more seafront property right if that happens. I said, "Is that good or bad?" I said, "Isn't that a good thing? If I have a little property on the ocean, I have a little bit more property. I have a little bit more ocean." In building up policies that will help the people of the US who is going through climate change consequences. We have a chance as a people that are part of democratic societies to vote in people who will do something about climate change, who vote in people who are not going to believe in these crazy, crazy schemes or conspiracy theories, who want to criticize government policies to make them better to help the people later, not just to get into power, not just to take down a government, but to say, "Let's work together on this and let's help the American people." I have more respect for somebody who's not in power as part of a party that says, "Let's work together to make relief efforts better after these disasters because we're asking more of them than somebody to come up with some crazy conspiracy theory and pass it out and make sure that misinformation is out there to say, "Hey, you know what? Who cares? I want to be in power. You suck. You're cloud seating. You're making the Republicans not vote because of this storm. You're controlling the weather. You're controlling the weather." This is like a scene out of like a Mike Myers movie. It's like Dr. Evil. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. The podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about Hurricane Milton. We're also going to be talking about Hurricane Helene. These are both hurricanes that have passed through over the past couple of weeks through the southern Florida, middle Florida, I guess Gulf states like the western coast of Florida and have produced a lot of damage, right? And with Milton as it just passed by last night as of recording this, we were very fortunate that there wasn't the damage that happened that we first initially thought. Initially like a couple of days ago, even a day ago, it went from a category three to a category five quite rapidly. And then before it hit the Tampa region, which was bracing and evacuating, it went down to a category three. It passed over the entire state of Florida and then went to the other side. By the time it reached the other side, it was a category one. So there was some flooding in areas, but the damage wasn't as bad as it was predicted to be, which is a great thing. We got away with a lot. Let's be honest, you know, as a community, as a continent, you know, the US state of Florida, they got away with a lot. And of although, unfortunately, people did pass away, the last time I heard it was about nine that they're saying passed away, the damage and the amount of lies that were that were lost was minimized by the evacuation, by the lessened storm. But at hurricane three, I've gone through her, I've been through a hurricane that was a category three. That is scary. It is extremely scary to live through. I remember I went through hurricane one in in Halifax when I was when I was living there with my now wife. We were okay because there weren't a lot of big trees where it was, but you know, in downtown Halifax, where there were like older trees, you know, large trees, the pavement was a jackknife because the trees and the roots had come up. The wind was so high that the city shut down for like three weeks. And that was devastating to the people in the city, to the city itself. And it just it's it was a standstill with hurricane, Helene and hurricane Milton coming through. There was a lot of damage just because it was two hurricanes, one hurricane category four, and the other one a category three in Milton. So the worry was that Helene was so devastating that, you know, the category three was a category three five, especially it would just compound the problems that was already there. However, it didn't seem to do that, although there was a lot of damage. There were tornadoes in Hurricane Milton, a lot of tornadoes that caused a lot of damage as well. The wind caused more damage than what it was expected as the flooding to cause, which was better than normal. I guess it's still a lot of damage. It's still going to cost a lot. It's still, you know, life changing for a lot of people that had to go through it, that live there that may not have insurance or is is uninsurable. People who lost their homes that live in trailer parks because of the tornadoes and the winds, other places that are more that are vulnerable as well to high winds, you know, lost, lost a lot, lost their livelihoods like in terms of their homes and everything. And I don't know what how they're going to get over that. It's going to be a very difficult thing. There are a lot of GoFundMe's. There are a lot of ways that you can donate. One place I heard is that people be careful where you donate. If you can go through reputable organizations, that might be better. But just be careful because there are people who will commit fraud. So you just just be careful with that. I want to go just to kind of cover that part because, you know, when you when we cover episodes like this and we cover these hurricanes, I'm going to go into some some stuff that I didn't like about some of the politics and what it was said around these. And I got some clips that I'm going to show you today around, you know, the statements that were around these hurricanes. And this is where I have the problem. But I want to cover this part where, you know, talking about some of the damage, talking about the problems that are faced and that people that are living through it, the people who couldn't evacuate or even the people who evacuate, like, we're looking at nine to 10 million people trying to evacuate the area. I want to cover that first because I want to let people know, you know, it is devastating. It is sad and it's scary and it's frustrating to see people go through this, you know, to see people who have nowhere to go and can evacuate and have to live through hurricanes that are very scary. Though some people, you know, say, hey, you know, I've stayed, I've lived through hurricanes for a long time, lived in Florida for 45 years or more. We've been through this before. It's going to be okay. It's still a scary prospect to live through and not know what's going to happen, what kind of damage is going to happen, flooding or anything like that. As was reported, Tampa is not built for flooding, which is very surprising. Being in Florida, where there are quite a number of hurricanes, it's not built for that great of flooding. But regardless, you know, it's something that we have to make sure that, you know, we cover it, we got to make sure that we talk about some of the reasoning, you know, of why people are so vulnerable, why we're all vulnerable to hurricanes like this, how hurricanes are causing this, and the politics around climate change, the politics around it rapidly intensified and more numerous hurricanes that we're seeing. And this is the frustrating aspect of watching people go through this because they don't have a choice. You know, we're seeing people on like they're taking videos, we're seeing people. Some people are like, no, like our house was built to withstand a hurricane and we're going to be fine. And we're not leaving because, you know, this is a conspiracy, you know, get into that in a second. But, you know, we're going to be fine because, you know what, we're American, we can handle this and it's that. And look, I get, you know, wanting to stay. I'm not a guy who likes change. But these are scary times, you know, especially these hurricanes that are rapidly intensifying, that are coming in later or even sooner than, you know, normally. Originally, this was predicted to be the most devastating hurricane in 100 years that Tampa has ever faced Tampa Bay. So these are the problems that we have to face. But then the politics around it is the frustrating part, not even just the stuff that is not done to prevent these hurricanes from happening in the future. The problems are the stuff that's said after because it's a lot of, you know, there's an election, obviously, in the US coming up in November, a very important presidential election, a very important election for some governors, some senators, for Congress, people who are running for Congress, there are, I don't know exactly how it's all delved out, you know, if who gets voted up, I think even some governors are having some races. So there's a lot, there's some very important elections coming up. And I wanted to do this episode and I wanted to highlight some of the things that are being said, all in the name of politics, all in the name of these elections. And some of them are way, way out there and some of them are okay, like I get what needs to be done. And you would think that after storms like these that we've faced and that we watched and witnessed and some people went through and, you know, life, literally life changing, there's critique to be done to be said. There are, you know, reports to be written, there's things that need to be reviewed and need to say, hey, did we do a good job in the relief efforts? Did we do a good job in the rescue efforts? What's happening with evacuation? How did evacuation go this time? How can we improve it for the next time and just sort of adapt to the new changing normal that we are seeing with these storms? That is normal. That is what I expect to see. Maybe some criticism from the other side, like the people who are not in charge of government, like the parties that are not like. So in this case, the Republicans are going to critique the Democrats and even some Democrats are going to be like, we could have done better, maybe, you know, that's that's something. The big thing is right after a storm is to get the relief efforts to get the rescue efforts in as soon as possible. And, you know, when Hurricane Helene went through and it devastated so many states, it touched so many states, not just Florida, but Georgia. I believe it was like Tennessee and the Carolinas. There may have been another state in there that I missed, but those places were like Asheville, North Carolina was devastated with flooding and a lot, not a lot of rescue efforts. I mean, it spans so many states and so many so much area that relief efforts had to be had to go through. And so there was criticism by, you know, the right, so the Republicans on how fast things were, the amount of money that people received right away, whether the president and or the vice president who's running for president were in contact with the governors, there was a lot of stuff set and a lot of misinformation that was dropped out by potentially both sides. And this is where the politics frustrates me. You know, it's like, you know, former President Trump who's running for president again is out there talking about how, you know, the president, current president Biden didn't talk to people in Florida didn't talk like a lot of stuff was said that didn't actually happen. A lot of the governors had to come out and say, Hey, you know what, we actually heard from President Biden. He actually gave us all the updates. He said, if we need anything, let them know we're here. They're here for them. But the thing is, that's all said and good. Like you want the president to like to call the people, make sure that all the resources get there with what was not really said a lot. It was said a little bit. But there are like rules and regulations that are put into place. There are actions that are put into place as soon as the disaster hits. There's a reason why there's a there's an entire department FEMA that are there for these natural disasters, for the cleanup, for the immediate rescue, like to manage all of that. And all of those tasks and rules and regulations are done by the department. And a lot of the times they're set out by like the lawmakers, so Congress and the senators, you know, these are bills that are put into place to ensure that these regulations are ready and the tasks are ready to be delved out in time for that when a natural disaster hits, relief efforts are right there. So the amount of money that people will receive and the amount of effort and the amount of resources that are that are that are put towards this rescue and this relief are there as soon as it happens. You know, the president just has to say put him to place or it doesn't even have to be the president. The president calling the governors to make sure that everything is fine is probably normal practice. That's just good ethics. But all the other tasks are just like that's done right away. And even probably before the president could say let's do it, it's probably already in place. And when you have people on the other side who are like, well, it's not enough, we shouldn't do this, we should do that. That's when you're like, that's great to be like, hey, look, we tried this, it didn't work, or maybe the money didn't get there enough, or maybe like there's there was a $750 that was given to everybody who was like right away, so they can buy groceries, they can do whatever if they can do that. I don't know what it's for, but that's essentially what it's for. That is already done. But if they talk about like, well, that's not enough money, well, that's what's agreed upon in Congress, agreed upon by the lawmakers that put this stuff into place. If they have a problem with it, bring it up in government next time before these storms hit, not after like you can say this critique is not enough, like you can say it's not if I get that. But then go back and say, hey, you know what, like we have to understand that storms are changing, they're getting more intensified, you know, climate change is real, you don't even have to admit that, just be like, hey, 750 doesn't sound like enough money, can we up it, and how is that going to affect the budget, how is that going to affect the amount of money that's given to the people who need rescue efforts, and especially if it goes across a number of states, especially if it hits millions and millions of people, what is that number? That's not even up to me to decide, that's up for the lawmakers and the departments and everything to provide the information so that the decisions can be made. But then you have all these critiques and all the ones I's trying to do is trying to, you know, make the other side look bad, the side that's in government, is just to make them look bad. That's all they're trying to do because they want to get into power in this upcoming election, and this is not to say that Republicans are doing this as just the Republicans. If everything was switched, if the Republicans were say President Trump was actually president this time, and you know Biden's trying to get in or Kamala Harris is trying to get in, and she's criticizing the same thing, it'll probably happen the same way. This is not a matter of Republicans against Democrats, or one doing better than the other. This is a matter of not politicking when it comes to natural disasters. Try to like, hey, what can I do? How can I help? You know what I mean? Like let's look at some camaraderie for Americans, some camaraderie for the people of the country. This is not just to Americans, this is like if Canada had a natural disaster, like how can we help? There'll be time for criticizing the laws and the way it was done after. Where's that that camaraderie? You know, where is that that that patriotism that people always talk about, right? To help the citizens, both sides should be coming together to do what they can, and there was that with President Biden and some of the governors that were Republican governors, and they came out and they said good things, they said, hey, he actually said whatever we need, there's a there's that ability, we can have all of that, but there needs to be more of that because what I saw and what I heard and what made headlines were some people that are in Congress, I'm not going to name their name, but who said that, you know, and put it out there, which is total BS and misinformation at its finest. It was basically the government, like the government in power, Biden and his administration is seeding, cloud seeding the storms to make them rapidly intensify so that the storm goes over Republican dominated states and affects the voting for the future. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans lose the race, that that is an excuse that is given. So imagine this, that the president itself and the administration would take the powers that be, and like the public servants and everything ends, cloud seed the storms to make them intensify more. It's not climate change, it's the government controlling the storms to make sure that Republican dominated states are in disarray. So when the election comes, they cannot vote. Imagine thinking that. It's not climate change that people have been talking about for the last 50, 60 years. It's the fact that the governments don't want the the government doesn't want the election to go to the Republicans. So they're going to affect Republican states. And that was perpetuated over a number of new stations over TikTok over social media. And here's a clip just of somebody who is believing this stuff. Like this is not just me saying this. These are people who are saying this. It's like the government controlling hurricanes. Here's that clip. Like this is absolutely insane for someone to think that not the fact that science and scientists around the world are saying climate change is bad. And the reason for the rapidly intensifying storms is because the ocean is so warm due to the climate warming. Right? That's the reason it's said by so many people. And it got to the point that meteorologists who are out there working their butts off to make sure that people have the information that they need because the storm is rapidly intensifying. We don't know when the evacuation orders are going to come. Hurricane Lane went from a category one to a category four in like four or five hours. And so the big damage there was that people did not know enough to evacuate because a category one Florida people probably stay because they've lived through category one before category four those are pretty intensified winds. Are you looking at it? A hundred mile an hour winds? To like 165 mile an hour winds. That's a big difference. That could cause a lot of damage plus the flooding. Right? So these meteorologists are working their butts off. Some of them are even getting emotional on on on TV. Right? And because they can't fathom the fact that these storms are going to hurt people. These storms are going to affect people. Meteorologists are there to help people prepare for the weather. And yes, they're not always right. The predictions models and stuff change. But these, they're out there online, you know, doing what they can to give people proper information and what, how do people respond? Some people are offering them debt or sending them death threats. Some people are giving them crap and harassing them and bullying them online. The fact that they're just trying to help people and inform people of the weather that is coming and what the preparations and what to expect. They're saying, no, you're lying. You're just somebody for the government trying to get us and affect the way we're going to vote in the election. This is insane. And it doesn't help the people all the way at the top, like the Republican candidate former President Trump believes that sometimes having ocean property is good. So the fact that there's sea level rise says that, hey, more people are going to have ocean property. Right? So anybody who's on the coastline and the ocean and the sea level rises and the storm surge come up further and the ocean comes up further means a loss of land. Well, that's okay. You'll have more oceanfront property for everybody. That'll be good for real estate, which is false. It's actually bad. It's so bad. People will lose their property. They will lose their homes. And here he is, a guy who's going to be president potentially is ready to make those decisions and say, hey, you know what, climate change isn't that bad? Even if it is, if they're sea level rise, it's okay. And people have more oceanfront property. Who's going to have more oceanfront property? Who's going to be able to afford to live there? And who's going to be able to afford to realize that they can't live there, they can't sell their property when the when they when sea level rise does hit an ocean and ocean storm surges hit and they lose their homes. Only the rich are going to be able to like, you know what, it's okay. I can afford it. I have four other homes. But the people who don't, the people on trailer parks, the people who have homes on the long the ocean or along a river that can only afford one home and are only there for one home like most of us, if you can't sell your house, you can't buy another home somewhere else. Right? That's the equity you have in that home. If that home is gone and nobody will buy it because it's in water most of the year or one part of the year, the dam is there, no insurance, you have to pay for it every year. Where are they going to go? They can't go anywhere. But you know, Donald Trump's rich friends can go somewhere. And I'm not favoring Republican over Democrat. But this is a guy who's running for president who's having a pro who who says, hey, you know what, sea level rise is here. Everybody's going to have more oceanfront property. It doesn't make sense. And it's just perpetuating these false narratives that, hey, climate change is okay. There's nothing we can do about it. We're not going to do anything. The governor of Florida has authorized the removal of the phrase climate change in all of their documents, all of the state government's documents. They even said that people can't even say climate change in a work related government work related forum. Public meetings, they can't say climate change. You're talking to a co worker that's part of the state government. You cannot say climate change. You cannot mention you can't do studies on climate change. You just stays on flooding, which can't do studies on climate change. How are we supposed to get better when we have people in power who are doing these things, removing phrases that is literally causing their state to flood on a regular basis? And they have to spend more money fixing these cities and these towns. And then the people who live there are devastated, potentially lose their livelihoods, potentially lose their homes are in debt because they can't afford to buy another home because the insurance isn't going to give them any money. Where's all this money coming from? How are we paying for this? How are the taxpayers of the US paying for this? This is what happens when you have politicians in place who are not doing anything about what is real, what is actually happening, how the changes are happening, they see it, they don't believe it, and they go against what everybody's saying. Just because they say people are overreacting, these scientists aren't real. It's not actually agreed upon by 97% of scientists, which is BS. Such BS. And it's costing people lives and their homes and their livelihoods. You know, in capitalism at its finest, you see people trying to fly out to get out because the driving is so difficult that flight tickets for flights out are getting higher and higher and higher as the storm approaches. So normally what would cost you $200 to fly out to a different state, the closest state, that is not going to be affected. It's like $1,200, $700, $1,200. There's people who are showing what the prices would be. They're gouging. That's what they're doing. They gouge because they can, because the demand is up. That's how capitalism works. It doesn't matter if this is an emergency and people are trying to get out. But people who can't afford a ticket for them or their families, they can't leave. And now they're at risk of being harmed in a storm that could have been a category five, even a category three, which is still scary. And there still could have been a lot more names than there was. It is devastating to watch people go through this. It's scary, but it's also frustrating to see the reactions and the lack of proper reaction and building of policies that will help the people of the US, the people of a specific country who is going through climate change consequences. But we have a chance, as a people, as part of democratic, that are part of democratic societies, to vote in people who will do something about climate change, who vote in people who are not going to believe in these crazy, crazy schemes or conspiracy theories, who want to criticize government policies to make them better to help the people later, not just to get into power, not just to take down a government, but to say, let's work together on this and let's help the American people. I have more respect for somebody who's not in power as part of a party that says, let's work together to make relief efforts better after these disasters because we're going to see more of them. I would rather vote for somebody like that, even if I don't believe in their party structure because they're willing to work with the government to make it better than somebody to come up with some crazy conspiracy theory and pass it out and make sure that misinformation is out there to say, hey, you know what? Who cares? I want to be in power. You suck. You're doing this. You're cloud-seeding. You're making the Republicans not vote because of this storm. You're controlling the weather. You're controlling the weather. This is like a scene out of like a Mike Myers movie. It's like Dr. Evil. Give me a break, people. Let's get back down to reality. Let's vote for people who want to work with government, whether they're in power or not, for the people that they're representing, for their country, for the betterment of the country, not for the power in getting in. This is not just the US. This is Canada. This is the UK, Australia, India, China, everybody. Let's vote for people who care more. If you can vote in a country, I know some of those countries, you can't vote for the people, vote for somebody who will do something. That's the call to action. Vote for somebody that will actually work with the government, whether in power or not, to help the people. That's the goal. That's what politicians should be doing. And what I'm seeing right now is disgraceful in some of these politicians pulling, just pulling out a thin air, these conspiracy theories to try and bring down a government. Unreal. And it's literally a disgrace. It's sad. It's not even laughable. It's just sad. But that's the call to action. Let's go out. Let's do our research. Let's vote. And let's make our politicians accountable to helping their people. That's it for today's episode. I want to thank you for joining us. I apologize for doing the rant, but I feel like this is something that a lot of people are feeling. We see this all the time. I don't know if it's like a social media thing. I don't know if it's like a lack of education in schools. I'm not sure what's happening, but it's really distressful or stressful to watch. It really is. But I'd love to hear your thoughts. You don't let me know. You can comment on Spotify with this video. You can comment on YouTube just in the comment on this video below. Or you can reach out to me on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. Let me know how you feel about this when you see politicians saying these ridiculous things. I'd love to hear your thoughts and how you're going to vote in the future when you look at it and how you're holding your politicians accountable. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy conservation.
