Florida Democratic Primary Ballot for August 18, 2026 election - Thoughts

There's an election coming up soon in Florida, and since I signed up to vote by mail I have my ballot now. I'm registered as a democrat, so my version of the ballot lets me vote for candidates in the democratic primary elections, as well as in elections for non-partisan positions like judges and school board members. Interestingly, I also get to choose between two republicans in a "universal primary" for District 5 County Commissioner, because Florida law opens up the primaries to all registered voters if all the primary candidates are from one party.

I tried to do a reasonable amount of a research into all the candidates before I marked my ballot, looking not only at the candidates' own campaign websites, but also at what the local newspapers and trusted pundits were saying about them. The News-Press usually has some local candidate information, and I think it's viewable even to non-subscribers. (I actually subscribed to that newspaper recently, which is the first time I've ever purchased a newspaper subscription. It seems to be a good local news source that covers shit in more detail than you get on the TV news. Also, I know and admire some of the writers a lot, including Amy Bennett Williams and Chad Gillis who have often covered science and environment stories I've weighed in on.)

Anyway, this is what I marked (the X is who I voted for), with a little explanation of why:

United States Senator - 
Angie Nixon (X) 
Alex Vindaman

- Both senate candidates have admirable qualities such as being willing to speak truth to power at personal risk. However, I chose Angie Nixon because of her support for peace in Gaza where my friend Rachel was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 in a pattern of violence against Palestinian civilians, aid workers, and human rights activists that the US has abetted for far too long. This needs to change. 

US Congressional Representative for District 19 (Byron Donalds' seat) -
Victor Arias
Robert M. Neeld
Howard Sapp (X) - 

- Sapp is a respected local leader who has been in tough political races before. He has also raised the most money.

Governor and Lieutenant Governor -
Evelyn Castillo-Bach
Thomas Eloy Fernandez
Dayna Marie Foster
David Jolly / Gwen Graham 
Dotie Joseph (X)  
Stephann Norman

- Dotie Joseph is an legitimate democrat with 8 years experience in the Florida House. David Jolly is the favorite in this race but he was a republican until recently, which I think is suspicious. 

Chief Financial Officer
Earle Ford
Annette Taddeo (X) 

- Taddeo has political experience and seems to unequivocally support stuff I care about.

Commissioner of Agriculture
Joey Mendoza Atkins (X) 
Donald A. "Don" Prichard

- Mendoza Atkins says he'll actually follow the recommendations of the Blue Green Algae Task force, which includes some scientists I admire. Also, Mendoza Atkins is the only candidate with a website.

Board of County Commissioners District 5
Amanda Cochran REP (X) 
Trish Petrosky REP 

- Cochran is a rural Lee County resident opposed to sprawl and endorsed by the non-partisan "Vote Water" environmental organization. Petrosky on the other hand was appointed by Governor DeSantis, is not really from around here, and is expected to be a rubber stamp for environment-destroying special interests

Circuit Court Judge 20th Group 19
Vera Bergermann (X) 
James Stewart 

- Stewart was appointed by Governor DeSantis. That suggests that Stewart has far right conservative views like DeSantis does. Bergermann was not appointed by DeSantis and is more likely to have independent views.

Circuit Court Judge 20th Group 27
Ryan Kuhl (X) 
Amanda Levy-Reis 

- Levy-Reis was appointed by Governor DeSantis. That suggests that Levy-Reis has far right conservative views like DeSantis does. Kuhl was not appointed by DeSantis and is more likely to have independent views.

County Judge Group 5
Mike Colombo (X) - Not appointed by DeSantis
Javier A. Pachecho - Appointed by DeSantis

- Pachecho was appointed by Governor DeSantis. That suggests that Pachecho has far right conservative views like DeSantis does. Colombo was not appointed by DeSantis and is more likely to have independent views.

School Board Member District 6

Jada Langford Fleming 
India Palencia (X) 

- Fleming is one of those ultra-conservative "anti-woke" crusaders who I think are dumbing down and education and censoring important topics. Palencia is known for standing up for minorities. 

Stop the "rollout" of PLASTIC GRASS at FGCU

College campuses are usually quiet in summer, but Florida Gulf Coast University buzzed this week with an impassioned effort to stop the rollout of PLASTIC GRASS in the central quad. Plastic grass already sneaked its way onto campus in two other places this year, including a 4000 square foot area around the student center that used to be real grass and trees and is now an uninhabitable plastic heat-collector.

While mowed lawn is far from the best type of land cover for nature (you may have seen my other posts advocating for unnecessarily mowed areas to be "rewilded"), it's still WAY better than plastic grass, despite whatever BS hype you might hear from plastic grass salesmen. Some reasons real is better than artificial include:

1. Plastic grass is not alive. Nothing can eat it. Real grass, on the other hand, supports a food chain of bugs and worms and bunny rabbits and things that in turn support birds and other predators.
2. Plastic grass is made from oil in an energy intensive process that contributes to CO2 pollution and other types of pollution.
3. Plastic grass breaks down (quickly in the searing UV of the Florida sun) and introduces microplastic particles and toxic chemical pollutants like PFAS into the soil and water, hurting wildlife and endangering human health.
4. While real grass that's overmanaged with fertilizer, pesticides, watering, etc. can be a burden on the environment, grass actually grows fine in south Florida with no intervention other than mowing. It gets weedy, but that's a good thing because the biodiversity of the weeds leads to more efficient resource use and resilience, and the flowering weeds look pretty and support all sorts of beautiful and important pollinators like honeybees and butterflies.
5. Real grass with no chemicals added can also help sponge-up chemical pollution running off from other areas.
6. Real plants naturally cool the landscape via "evapotranspiration" (wicking water from the soil up through their roots and leaves into the sky), and also by conversion of light energy into chemical energy via photosynthesis. Sunlight hitting plastic grass, on the other hand, just turns into HEAT, making artificial turf areas much hotter than natural grass; even hotter than pavement sometimes. Trees cool better than grass, but grass is still way cooler than plastic. We've known this stuff about the heat problem of plastic turf since the early 1970s, at least, but just to demonstrate it again I deployed a thermometer on the real and fake grass at FGCU last week-

The plastic grass on campus is particularly galling because FGCU, my employer, is conspicuously branded as Florida's "environmental university." Environmental sustainability has been a central part of FGCU's stated goals since its founding in 1997. This may be partly to offset the original scandal of our campus' construction over sensitive wetlands and panther habitat that was supposed to be preserved. (This was part of a trojan horse deal to let land baron Ben Hill Griffin develop a bunch of surrounding property that was also supposed to have been protected. Very Florida.) Anyway, despite the dirty beginnings, FGCU has USUALLY done a good job of being green. We've kept most of the campus as natural preserve areas, we've let native plants grow around our stormwater ponds to the point that they've become diverse wetlands, we've integrated hands-on environmental education into almost all our academic programs, and we've hired a lot of biology, environmental science, environmental engineering, and marine science faculty who've been active in research intended to help protect the environment.

So how did we go so wrong with the plastic grass? I think it's because the business and operations parts of the university, in their enterprising zeal, have developed a very bad habit of making environmentally-consequential decisions about campus management and development without involving any of the environmental experts we have among our faculty. FGCU does have a Sustainability and Resiliency Council co-chaired by a wonderful environmental scientist who I sincerely love, but it doesn't seem like that group can do anything besides make recommendations that get ignored. I understand why the business and operations folks don't like involving faculty. We faculty are a bunch of opinionated know-it-alls who are never quite satisfied with anything, and decision-making processes we're involved in often become slow and painful. Also, we might say "NO" to some big building or project that the expand-the-enterprise folks are giddy about getting underway. Nevertheless, faculty from relevant disciplines MUST be included in decision making processes to avoid these kind of glaring, should-have-known-better, publicly-humiliating mistakes. What's the point of all our big brains and expertise if the people making decisions never ask us what we think?

In an official statement addressing the plastic grass controversy, given for a News-Press story about the plastic grass that I was also quoted in, our university's spokesperson pointed out that the planning folks did send around a survey last year to ask what people would like to see for the campus quad area. I remember the survey. It was pretty open-ended and of course I filled it out and said I'd like the quad area to be kept as natural as possible, and oh by the way please remember to ask us or at least tell us when you're making some big environmental decision. "Would you like us to replace the real grass with plastic grass?" was absolutely NOT one of the questions on the survey, and I highly doubt that any of the other staff or students who filled out the survey said anything remotely like, "I want to see more plastic grass." So I think the decision to use plastic grass was a poor interpretation of whatever feedback the planners got from that survey and one that, again, could have easily been avoided if there was anyone on the decision making committee with even the slightest knowledge and appreciation of science and environmental stuff.

The fight is still on. I have hope that we can stop the plastic-rollout from happening in the main quad, and maybe we can even tear it out of the areas it's already gone in. Some students from our ornithology club made an online petition that you can sign if you want to help. (790 signatures so far!) It's wonderful to see bravery and leadership from the students on these campus environmental issues. I was heartened to see their commentary in this Gulf Coast News TV segment, for example. I'm also excited to see one of our top research students, Anthony Dues Jr. has started a substack blog tackling the topic with a scientifically informed rant. This ain't over.

Sea Breeze / Land Breeze - The Gulf of Mexico Breathing

Florida doesn't have any mountains to look at but we do have some primo clouds. Clouds have interested me ever since I was a kid, but since getting into windsurfing and studying marine science, both of which require learning about the roles of ocean and atmospheric circulation in weather and climate, I've developed a cloud obsession bordering on the unhealthy. Clouds are neat in themselves, but their patterns and changes over time tell an awe-inspiring story of the planet's life; its giant, slow breathing and pulsing movements of water, energy, and heat. One cloud pattern I love to watch in summer in Florida is related to the seabreeze / land breeze cycle that unfolds each day and night.

Sea Breeze is wind that blows from the ocean towards the land. It's driven by solar heating of the land during the day, which causes hot air to rise over the land, drawing cooler air in from the sea. If conditions are right the seabreeze forms tall, billowing clouds as it rises over the land. These are the source of Florida's summer thunderstorms, which are particularly intense over the middle of the state where the Atlantic Coast sea breeze coming from the east collides with the Gulf Coast sea breeze coming from the west.

Land Breeze is the opposite of sea breeze. It's wind that blows from lands towards the ocean, when the ocean is warmer than the land so air is rising over the ocean and sinking over the land. It happens at night, because land cools off faster than water does. So when the sun sets in Florida the thunderstorms over land usually peter out, but majestic thunder clouds may form over the ocean. On summer mornings in Florida, especially on the Gulf of Mexico side, you can often look out and see gorgeous, side-lit walls of thunderclouds that formed over the ocean at night.

I can't see the beach from my apartment complex, but I know which direction to look to see those over-the-Gulf clouds, and they're often spectacular in the morning. Likewise, in the afternoon I look east to see the eruptions of storms forming inland, and I try to time my bike ride home from work to not get caught in them. Below is a comparison of the morning and afternoon skies today, demonstrating the pattern pretty well. (I should note that it's never exactly the same, and there definitely exceptions to the land clouds in the day, sea clouds at night rule, but the exceptions are interesting, too.)

Here's what the morning conditions look like on the iwindsurf.com radar. Land breeze pattern, with the activity over the ocean and nothing happening over land.

Here's what the afternoon conditions look like on the iwindsurf.com radar. Sea breeze pattern, with land heating generating rising air and thunderstorms over the peninsula, but not much going on over the waters.

This is the modeled wind strength and direction for the morning from iwindsurf.com. Air is still flowing off the land out into the ocean.

This is the modeled wind strength and direction for the afternoon from iwindsurf.com. You can see landward flow caused the seabreeze, plus locally increased winds around the thunderstorms.