Deepening the Florida experience in an era of climate change 

By Joe Murphy 

Florida has always been a land of profound changes. Sea level has naturally risen and fallen over thousands of years, greatly expanding and contracting the peninsula. A key difference now is that the invading sea that confronts us is rising as a result of human causation. This is a new reality we are facing.

Florida has always been a land of change in the human era. It has been a land devoid of people; a land of native tribes; a land of Spain, England, the United States, the Confederacy, then the United States again. Many flags have flown over Florida.

In 1900, Florida was one of the least-populated states in the American South, with a population of roughly 528,000 people. By 1970, the year of my birth 55 years ago, Florida had grown to a population of 6,800,000 people.

Now, in 2025, Florida’s population is estimated at 23,400,000 people. Add to that the roughly 143 million tourists who visit each year. Change in Florida seems to occur exponentially and takes no respite. Now it is in part being driven by a climate crisis.

So, the Florida experience in the human era has always been defined by some degree of change. Some changes have been for the better, but most have been dramatically for the worse when viewed through the perspective of natural resources or quality of life of existing residents. It’s the people who already live here who subsidize all the new growth as roads clog, schools become overcrowded, water disappears and green space vanishes.

While valiant efforts have been made to protect and preserve some of Florida’s wild places, the pace of preservation has not kept pace with the pace of loss. And even when land is placed in conservation, over the last year bad plans for state parks and greedy land swaps remind us that nothing is permanently protected. Increasingly in the last wild corners of Florida, the bulldozers are at the gates of Eden.

Add to this the unrelenting and increasing impacts of climate change and the future of Florida can seem bleak indeed. Worsening hurricanes, increasing flooding, sea levels rising, invasive plants and animals spreading, resiliency decreasing and new pressures on even intact natural systems create an ominous future for Florida.

While we must do all we can to fight the causes and impacts of climate change in every way possible, and protect every last wild place we can, we must do one more essential thing to ensure some positive vestige of the Florida experience continues. We must embrace, explore and exult in wild Florida! We must commit to immerse ourselves in all things natural in Florida.

We must do this to ground conservation efforts in essential human experiences, and we must connect our youth and new residents to the Florida we have known. But at a deeper level we must nourish our souls in the springs and rivers of this state. We must hike vast pinelands and rest under massive live oaks. We must do this to keep some semblance of humanity alive in us.

And we must do this because places generations have known and loved are disappearing, because of development and increasingly because of climate change.

Stop the causes of climate change. Promote and enact policies and practices that embrace adaptation and resilience. Conserve wild places. At the same time explore, enjoy and immerse. Fill your soul with all things natural in Florida as an antidote against cynicism, a source of strength and resilience, and because we still can.

The Florida experience has always been about the strange and chaotic things that comprise Florida. And the Florida experience will evolve in the era of climate change.

With that said. let it always be grounded in part in the deep, powerful and beautiful wild that surrounds us. Let us seek it just beyond that next bend in the river, down that winding trail and on the windswept beach. Let us connect in love to know, and know in love to preserve.

Joe Murphy is a native and lifelong Floridian who lives in the southern Nature Coast. Banner photo: Hernando County’s Cypress Lakes Preserve Hiking Trail (Joe Murphy photo).

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