JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The heat outside is nothing compared to what we’re going to experience in years to come.
Why? One local scientist says it’s because of the Supreme Court’s decision to reduce the regulating authority from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Dr. Adam Rosenblatt, a biology professor at the University of North Florida, studies heat. He’s even working to create Jacksonville’s first heat map.
Just weeks after Rosenblatt and volunteers collected and documented blazing hot temps from across the River City, the U-S supreme court has now ruled to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions.
The ruling is a victory for power plants, which say it preserves energy independence.
However, there's no question "it's going to slow action on limiting greenhouse emissions."
The more greenhouse emissions means the hotter it will get.
And Rosenblatt believes there is a direct correlation between the Supreme Court's decision regarding the EPA and how hot it will get in the coming years.
"It’s going to continue to be much hotter," he said. "The really scary thing to talk about: the summer we are experiencing right now, which we’d all agree is very hot, we are going to think of it as one of the coolest summers we’ve ever experienced over the next 50 years."
Rosenblatt said the impacts of climate change also include "more frequent and extreme droughts. Stronger hurricanes."
The court’s decision gives lawmakers – not scientists or experts at the EPA -- broad authority to regulate power plant emissions.
"The issue, as we’ve seen, Congress has an inability to do that. They have not passed any sweeping climate change legislation ever," Roseblatt noted.
So he says it’s going to get hotter.
