Florida Gov. Rick Scott has been fighting all month against claims by former state employees that his administration banned the use of “climate change.” With state workers now upping the ante — including news yesterday one state employee was ordered into a mental health exam for demanding to use the…
“Termites thrive in warm, moist environments,” says Doug Webb, a Terminex technical specialist, in a statement touting the company’s rankings of America’s most termite infected cities. From that alone you should be able to determine that Miami made the list, and indeed we did at number six. Terminix released its rankings…
On March 7, off a dirt road 40 miles west of Miami, swamp buggies careened into the thicket and little kids shimmied up a 40-foot wooden pole trying to grab the $50 bill stapled to the top. At a booth, Betty Osceola, a Miccosukee tribe member with a long black…
When New York City opened the first phase of its High Line park in 2010, Miamians naturally said, “Oh, we want something like that.” The High Line is 1.45-mile linear park built atop an abandoned elevated railway. Miami’s answer was to propose a 10-mile linear park underneath an active railway,…
The rains of God came down Saturday. The result was flooded streets, stranded cars, and bone-soaked tourists. All in all as much as eight inches dropped on parts of Miami-Dade, along with strong winds. If you were caught in Saturday afternoon’s downpour, you already know it sucked. Especially if your…
More than seven months after it was announced that the University of Miami had sold an 88-acre parcel of endangered pine rocklands habitat to a developer set on building a Walmart, the project remains stalled pending environmental certification — and the blowback continues. Today at 3 p.m. supporters will gather…
Living in Miami in 2015 and harboring any doubts about sea level rise is roughly equivalent to being a volcano truther in Pompeii circa 79 AD. The catastrophe is happening. The only question is just how quickly climate change will sink parts of South Florida. The answer, according to new…
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Barack Obama and Rick Scott may not have that much in common politically, but both the president’s and the governor’s recently proposed budgets had one similarity: lots of money for the restoration of the Florida Everglades. Last month Scott set aside $150 million in his budget for the Everglades as…
In the lab, the genetically modified mosquito larvae glow green and red to help researchers track them. The bugs’ DNA has been tweaked with a killer gene that will wipe out the next generation of blood-suckers before they can latch onto humans. Millions of the scientifically created bugs are released…
The fight over an endangered patch of native pine rocklands has sparked a planned rally at the site of the two highly controversial development projects — a proposed Walmart and the theme park Miami Wilds. “We’ll do two for the price of one,” says Matthew Schwartz, executive director of the…
Across the country, strong resistance has cropped up against the oil extraction process known as fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. Even a single fracking job requires a staggering amount of water, as well as an abundance of toxic chemicals. Some evidence suggests the “fracking fluid” that has to be injected deep…
This hasn’t been the easiest season to be a Miami Heat fan. The Heat are in danger of heading into their Christmas Day match-up against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers as a sub-.500 team. The fact is, the Heat are a middling Eastern Conference team at the moment with…
The developers aren’t giving up yet. Earlier this week, Ram Realty Services, the West Palm Beach-based developer behind the proposed Coral Reef Commons project — highly controversial because it would develop critically endangered pine rockland habitat — met with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) officials and agreed to submit…
In this week’s Miami New Times, we profile 30 of the most interesting characters in town, with portraits of each from photographer Stian Roenning. See the entire Miami New Times People Issue here. When he was a 9-year-old Boy Scout, Jeff Ransom and his fellow troop members got lost in…
In this week’s Miami New Times, we profile 30 of the most interesting characters in town, with portraits of each from photographer Stian Roenning. See the entire Miami New Times People Issue here. After 45 years of poisoning the mostly black residents of West Coconut Grove, the incinerator Old Smokey…
Hurricane season ends on November 30, but for Floridians it seems like it didn’t even begin this year. In fact, it will be the ninth straight year in a row that a hurricane hasn’t made landfall in Florida. That’s the longest stretch in recorded history, more than doubling the previous…
Oh, the Everglades. Our noble river of grass. Our beautiful, unique ecosystem. Oh, the ways in which we have totally screwed it over. No, seriously. We’ve made our alligators the size of Kate Moss. We’ve turned some birds gay, and we keep releasing all sorts of stupid pets into it…
The alligators of the Everglades are wasting away. Literally. Scientists have noticed for decades that gators in South Florida have become increasingly smaller than those found in central and north Florida, and things haven’t gotten better. CBS News reports that the habitat now supports about half the population scientists expect…
After weeks of wrangling, a park protest, and the recent involvement of an attorney, the infamous Merrie Christmas Park toxic soil pile is finally on its way out thanks to funding promised by an anonymous donor. “I’m pretty sure it’ll happen in the next day or two,” Commissioner Marc Sarnoff…
Call it a split decision. The latest legal skirmish over the Deep Dredge devolved into an all-day court battle over contracts and language yesterday. Despite the dredge drudgery, however, environmentalists emerged from federal court claiming important concessions in their ongoing battle against the Army Corps of Engineers, including almost half…
Everyone knows that adult fish can produce sounds, right? Well, maybe not, but trust us, they do. But earlier this month, a team from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School became the first ever — ever! — to document that fish larvae, also known as baby fish, can also make…
