It's Earth Day, and local residents say climate change is an increasingly urgent issue

With Earth Day just past, Palm Beach County residents are saying that awareness of climate change and preserving the environment is more important now than ever.

Saturday's commemoration of the environment came a week after Broward County experienced historic flooding that was followed a few days later by record-setting rain in Palm Beach County. The flooding in Broward closed the airport and schools and state and local emergency management teams spent the week restoring roads and hard-hit areas. The heavy rains also came after a storm season in which Hurricane Ian delivered a powerful blow to the state's Southwest in September.

While Florida Climatologist David Zierden said it's impossible to blame climate change on a single event like what happened in Broward, he said that heavy rainfall events like that will become more common in a warming world where the atmosphere can hold more moisture.

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Residents interviewed Saturday in downtown Lake Worth Beach said they were concerned about the environment and climate change.

Chris Ennis of West Palm Beach travels back and forth to his other residence in Costa Rica. Between the two places, he said there's a stark difference in environmental care, where West Palm Beach vegetation seems to suffer compared to Costa Rica.

"Some things that you planted before you can't now, because climate has changed so much," Ennis said.

Ennis said that what he thinks is blocking real action from getting done is legislators beholden to special interests, but that the public needs to be more aware of climate change.

Rosa Maria of West Palm Beach, a fashion designer, said that cleaning parks and beaches are important to protecting the earth. Maria said she notices the difference in climate every day, with growing allergies and the hotter temperatures, but that living near the ocean helps because she gets breezes.

"I never used to have allergies," she said. "But now it gets hotter than what it used to be." She, too, said that people need to be more aware of the environment.

An Associated Press poll released Saturday showed that about 8 in 10 U.S. adults say that they have felt the effects of extreme weather, such as extreme heat or drought, in the past five years. More than half said they believed it was at least partly a result of climate change.

Brenda Zambrano of West Palm Beach said that people are not doing the things that they need to do to help, like recycling and cleaning up trash. She said that South Florida's heavy rains and hotter temperatures are getting more overwhelming.

"You want to be outdoors, but it's almost impossible to be outdoors for a long period of time," Zambrano said.

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What lawmakers are doing for climate change and the environment

The past week has brought teams from all over the state and neighboring counties to help Broward County recover. In addition, Vice President Kamala Harris visited Miami on Friday to tout federal cash going into climate resilience, with a large chunk of the total $561 million going to Florida.

"The climate crisis represents a profound threat, as we all know, to our nation and to the world. And every community is at risk," Harris said during an appearance at the University of Miami. "Each year — I don’t need to tell anyone here — hurricanes and tropical storms grow more and more powerful."

Harris spoke the same day that President Joe Biden signed an executive order creating the White House Office of Environmental Justice, an effort to keep marginalized communities from enduring worse exposure to pollution and other kinds of environmental harm.

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State Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman, R-Boca Raton, focuses largely on environmental issues in the Florida House, and she said talks on climate change and environmental protection happen almost every day. She said a large number of bills filed in Tallahassee involve the environment.

Gossett-Seidman said Saturday more attention needs to be paid to water issues.

"Floridians don't think about it every day. You take it for granted, as you should, because it's a basic part of your life. I think the cities, those who aren't doing it, need to step up," Gossett-Seidman said, referring to things such as good wastewater systems.

Gossett-Seidman said she has always been an outdoors person, and that Earth Day is important to her because the world wouldn't be what it is "without the sustainability of nature, without the water, which invigorates all of us, the trees, the forests. We eat, live and breathe everything grown on the earth.”

She said that residents could take on small actions to help the environment, like recycling, reusing yard clippings for mulch or composting if their local codes allow it.

"It took a long time to get to where we need to pay attention to it, and it's going to take a long time to get everything corrected," she said.

Stephany Matat is a politics reporter for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY-Florida network. Reach her at smatat@pbpost.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach County residents care on climate, call for more awareness