Journalist and author Carl Hiassen recalls a time in the 1970s when he was working for the Miami Herald and preserving the Everglades was not a political issue.
“None of the political power structure mentioned it,” he said.
But time and activism have changed because of “pending water crises where cities might not have enough fresh water to expand or farmers might not have enough water for sugar crops or tomato fields, or developers won’t have enough water to add another 1,000 units.”
Over the years, as more people moved to the state, it seemed there was “always water somewhere where someone wishes it wasn’t. We’ve taken over God’s work. We decided to become plumbers,” he said.
The environment has long been a recurring topic in Hiassen’s reporting, his long-running Miami Herald columns, and his many novels that often capture the oddities of life in the Sunshine state.
Hiassen will be talking about the environment, conservation and stories about Florida as part of a panel during a multi-day Eco Summit + Expo presented by the Science and Environment Council. Hiassen will be joined by journalist and author Craig Pittman, storyteller and dolphin expert Dr. Randy Wells and Americana songwriter Karen Jonas and her band at 7 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.
The summit also includes a week of mostly free and family-friendly activities that are part of the Ever-Green Days at The Bay Park Nov. 30-Dec. 6; a Green Living Expo Dec. 2 and 3, with exhibitors touching on energy, waste, water, food and nature; and two days of speakers, panels and conversations on a variety of environmental and conservation issues on Dec. 5 and 6.
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Carl Hiassen on Florida’s environmental concerns
Approaches may have changed over the years, but the issues and concerns remain regarding the environment.
“There are so many good people working, not just on the wetlands in Florida, but the estuaries, the oceans and beaches, all the places people want to live, at least in the postcard that is so pure and so full of life,” Hiassen said in a recent telephone interview.
“People moved to Florida to find out the reality is different. The bay you bought your house on is not OK to swim in, and there are real dangers, like the red tides. Those did not happen when I was a kid. Tourists have to stay in hotel rooms because they’re gagging and wheezing on the beach because of what’s in the air.
Even while producing a regular column for the Miami Herald until 2021, Hiassen was busy writing 18 novels and seven young adult books over the last 20 years, the most recent being “Wrecker.” He doesn’t try to compete with the strange stories that have given life to the hashtag #FloridaMan.
“When I first started writing #FloridaMan didn’t exist. You’d see some crazy stories from Texas and California and then Florida leapt to the forefront of that dubious kind of lore. We’re now a running punch line for Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel. Writers love Florida.”
Carl Hiassen on writing for young readers and Florida book bans
Hiassen said he was dubious when editors first suggested he write for kids. “I thought they were nuts. Why expose your children to the likes of me? But I had a great editor who told me, ‘Never write down to a young audience. They’re smarter than you.’”
He writes the same kinds of stories only without some of the adult situations and language that find their way into his other novels.
“It’s liberating to look at the world through kids’ eyes. Their first impulse when deciding what’s right or wrong is the right one,” he said. “They don’t know about lobbying, zoning boards, corporate contributions, PACs, all of the things that lead to bad things happening.”
The keen understanding and connections young readers make with favorite books makes the growing national effort to ban books more troubling to Hiassen. One of his books got in trouble in what he called ‘flyspeck county” because he used the word “ butt” as in, “the kid fell on his butt.”
“It’s pathetic and hilarious at the same time. The climate is much different now in Florida with Ron DeSantis trying to save us all from Disney and the facts of Black history.”
That history plays a role in “Wrecker,” which is set in Key West and involves a young boy who is a sixth-generation concher involved in the family salvage business, finding things to save in wrecks on reefs.
“It’s one of the most laid-back places in all of Florida. I went down there for research and found that the Ku Klux Klan had been very active and controlled the whole island in the early 1920s. There was a lynching on Christmas Day in 1921,” he said.
When Hiassen was signing copies of the book for a group of students ranging from fifth to 10th grade, “at least two or three said to me, ‘What’s the KKK?’ It’s not their fault that they don’t know what the Ku Klux Klan is. And the odds of them learning from an approved textbook in this administration in Florida has probably diminished a bit.”
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He said school administrators and librarians are afraid of groups like Moms for Liberty, “which is a very amusing name. It’s pretty funny really because they are for the opposite of liberty.”
He is scheduled for a talk in Collier County, which has listed more than 300 books that have been removed from school district libraries.
“That’s fairly terrifying. It’s disheartening and a step backwards.”
Hiassen said he feels most sorry for the children, who love to read, and “the small independent bookstores. They need and plan on the income from events with authors, It’s just punishing the kids and the local business.”
For detailed schedules, speakers and tickets: scienceandenvironment.org/project/2023summit-expo
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