THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

But some Republicans, like those in South Florida have seen the first signs of climate change on their cities and are trying to do something about it.

Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch, whose South Florida districts are already enduring increased flooding, salt water intrusion and other effects of rising sea levels, are leading the first truly bipartisan congressional effort to tackle climate change.

Joined by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, they’ve formed a caucus that uses an unusual “buddy system” in which each Democratic member must bring along a Republican colleague willing to renounce party orthodoxy and stop minimizing the peril – or even existence – of global warming.

Deutch, a third-term Democrat from Boca Raton, spoke Thursday at the third Sea-Level Rise Summit in Fort Lauderdale, which was sponsored by Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Environmental Studies and drew leading climate change experts.

“For too long in Washington, we’ve been unable to have a bipartisan discussion around climate change,” Deutch told the gathering. “But in South Florida, where the rate of sea-level rise outpaces the global rate tenfold, and where the high water mark jumps one inch each year, our local governments and our business leaders recognize we must act for the benefit of our environment and for the benefit of our economy.”

“Our bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus is finally giving Washington the opportunity to do the same,” he said.

Curbelo, a Cuban-American Republican from Miami in his first House term, sounded similar themes in an interview before the conference.

“It’s an issue where there should be bipartisan consensus,” Curbelo told McClatchy. “It’s a clear threat to our viability here in South Florida. People in government should be focused on solving problems, improving the quality of life and protecting people.”

Conspicuously absent from the congressional caucus so far is Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, a Miami Republican who declined to say whether he planned to join the group.

At its first meeting last month, caucus members heard from New Zealand Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett and from an executive with Statoil, a large Norwegian oil and natural gas company.

Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo and Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch, whose South Florida districts are already enduring increased flooding, salt water intrusion and other effects of rising sea levels, are leading the first truly bipartisan congressional effort to tackle climate change.

Joined by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, they’ve formed a caucus that uses an unusual “buddy system” in which each Democratic member must bring along a Republican colleague willing to renounce party orthodoxy and stop minimizing the peril – or even existence – of global warming.

Deutch, a third-term Democrat from Boca Raton, spoke Thursday at the third Sea-Level Rise Summit in Fort Lauderdale, which was sponsored by Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Environmental Studies and drew leading climate change experts.

“For too long in Washington, we’ve been unable to have a bipartisan discussion around climate change,” Deutch told the gathering. “But in South Florida, where the rate of sea-level rise outpaces the global rate tenfold, and where the high water mark jumps one inch each year, our local governments and our business leaders recognize we must act for the benefit of our environment and for the benefit of our economy.”

“Our bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus is finally giving Washington the opportunity to do the same,” he said.

Curbelo, a Cuban-American Republican from Miami in his first House term, sounded similar themes in an interview before the conference.

“It’s an issue where there should be bipartisan consensus,” Curbelo told McClatchy. “It’s a clear threat to our viability here in South Florida. People in government should be focused on solving problems, improving the quality of life and protecting people.”

Conspicuously absent from the congressional caucus so far is Rep. Mario Diaz Balart, a Miami Republican who declined to say whether he planned to join the group.

At its first meeting last month, caucus members heard from New Zealand Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett and from an executive with Statoil, a large Norwegian oil and natural gas company.

Harold Wanless, a University of Miami geologist who’s consulting with Curbelo and Deutch as co-founders of the caucus, puts the current danger in stark terms.

“Miami Beach, Miami and the rest of South Florida have become the poster child for climate change because it has huge assets that will be lost with just two or three feet of further sea level rise,” he said. “Right now we have a huge amount of condos being built in South Florida with no regard for sea rise. A lot of people are going to lose out big.”

The ocean that many of those condos overlook will rise between 4.1 and 6.6 feet by the end of the century, according to projections from government scientists.

Hard to deny the water rising around your feet but even harder to deny a policy with no basis in reality but planted firmly in ideology.