Obama to talk of rising seas in ’Glades visit

President Barack Obama will celebrate Earth Day in the Everglades on Wednesday to call attention to problems caused by rising seas, especially its impact on South Florida tourism.

The Everglades is “one of the most special places,” but also one of the most fragile, Obama said Saturday morning in his pre-recorded weekly address to the nation.

“Rising sea levels are putting a national treasure — and an economic engine for the South Flori-

da tourism industry — at risk,” he said in an address widely broadcast via radio and the Internet.

Everglades boosters and environmental groups have long welcomed visits by national leaders.

The high-profile tours help make the case for federal and state funding to pay for a massive project designed to restore the national environment, save threatened wildlife and protect water supplies. Politicians of both major parties have often used the famed River of Grass as a backdrop to promote their causes and burnish their environmental credentials.

Low-lying Florida makes an especially good setting for pointing to problems caused by rising seas. South Florida communities already are moving critical facilities inland because of intruding seawater and storm surges that threaten fresh water supplies.

As a result, the region has become a leading symbol in the national debate on global warming.

“On Earth Day, I’m going to visit the Florida Everglades to talk about the way that climate change threatens our economy,” Obama told the nation in his weekly address.

The problem “can no longer be denied — or ignored,” he said. “The world is looking to the United States, to us, to lead.”

“We’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution, and China has committed, for the first time, to limiting their emissions. And because the world’s two largest economies came together, there’s new hope that, with American leadership, this year, the world will finally reach an agreement to prevent the worst impacts of climate change before it’s too late.” Wgibson@Tribune.com, 202-824-8256.