Climate, environment, and energy issues were on the ballot as referenda in states nationwide—and corporations suffered losses in unexpected places, including Louisiana and Florida.
Welcome back to the Climate Crisis News Roundup, elections postmortem edition.
Election Day has come and gone. At the presidential level, after days of anxious ballot counting, we finally have a declared winner: This Saturday, at 11:25 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, the Associated Press called the race for Joe Biden. But many other races—and, in particular, ballot initiatives—got a vote and results last Tuesday. On climate and environmental issues, progressives got some big wins in some unexpected places.
If you have a story you think deserves a spot in the Roundup, or story pitches in general, get in touch with me at steve@therealnews.com or on Twitter at @SteveAHorn. You can read the previous edition here.
Rights of Nature Gets Biggest Win
In Orange County, Florida, home to Disney World, the state’s waterways won a major victory by a wide margin. The Right to Clean Water Initiative—called Question 1 in official terms—grants affirmative legal rights to the county’s waters against their pollution.
The 30th largest county in the United States and fifth largest in Florida, Orange County is the first municipality in the Sunshine State’s history to enact rights of nature, and the largest ever to do so in the United States. Orange County now joins a list of about three dozen municipalities in the United States that have granted rights to nature within their borders. While Joe Biden won by a margin of 68% to 31% in Orange County, the ballot measure won by an overwhelming 89.2% to 10.8%.
During TRNN’s live election night show, Chuck O’Neal, director at large of the Florida Rights of Nature Network, spoke about the resounding victory and vote tally.
“This is a non-partisan, bipartisan issue: the right to clean water,” O’Neal said. “It’s nice to see an issue that transcends partisan politics. The right to clean water today has exerted itself in the public domain of Florida as being what the voters of Florida want.”
Thomas Linzey, senior legal counsel at the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, a group that assisted with the measure, echoed O’Neal in a press release.
“This is an important step forward in Florida, with the adoption of the first rights of nature law in the state,” Linzey said. “We look forward to assisting the people of Orange County to enforce and defend this measure, and to helping people across Florida to adopt similar measures to protect Florida’s threatened rivers, streams, bays, and watersheds.”
But there is still a major hurdle to clear for O’Neal’s group. As O’Neal said previously on TRNN’s pre-election show, Election Day is the “regular season,” and the ongoing litigation surrounding the ballot initiative’s language will be the “playoffs.” A few months after the initiative made it onto the ballot, the Florida Legislature passed a law halting municipalities from enacting “any legal rights to a plant, an animal, a body of water, or any other part of the natural environment.” The law received lobbying support from the Florida Farm Bureau, Florida Ag Coalition, Florida Chamber of Commerce, and the Florida Home Builders Association.
Read the full article and watch the segment (at 7:29) HERE.