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/ Environmental advocates celebrated the creation of a chief resilience officer. Now they have doubts. For almost seven months, Florida had a dedicated leader on climate change. Then she left for another job. The state has now gone longer than that without a full-time replacement. Environmental advocates celebrated Gov. Ron DeSantis’s hiring of Julia Nesheiwat for the newly created position of chief resilience officer in summer 2019. They saw the move as a declaration his office would accept, and try to address, the realities of climate change in a vulnerable state. Now some wonder about th...

Former State Resilience Officer Julia Nesheiwat speaks at an American Water Resources Association meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach in November 2019. BRENDAN RIVERS/ADAPT For almost seven months, Florida had a dedicated leader on climate change. Then she left for another job. The state has now gone longer than that without a full-time replacement. Environmental advocates celebrated Gov. Ron DeSantis’s hiring of Julia Nesheiwat for the newly created position of chief resilience officer in summer 2019. They saw the move as a declaration his office would accept, and try to address, the realities of...

full-time position running the state’s response to sea level rise. Nesheiwat stepped down in February to take a homeland security job in the Trump administration. For most of 2020 at least some of her responsibilities were supposed to be shifted to Noah Valenstein, the secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. From left: Florida Chief Science Officer Thomas Frazer, then-Chief Resilience Officer Julia Nesheiwat and Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Noah Valenstein sit for an interview in August 2019. [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | TIMES | Tampa Bay Times ] Nes...