{"id":393629,"date":"2025-08-07T20:31:42","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=393629"},"modified":"2025-08-07T20:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T18:32:12","slug":"no-florida-today-climate-change-isnt-boosting-fire-ants-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=393629","title":{"rendered":"No, Florida Today, Climate Change Isn\u2019t Boosting Fire Ants in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Close-up<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A recent article in Florida Today<\/em> (FT) \u201cInvasive fire ants spread, get boost from climate change in Florida<\/a><\/strong>\u201d is not just false\u2014it\u2019s a classic case of alarmist reporting that ignores decades of entomological and ecological data. Fire ants have been widespread in Florida for decades, the existing climate being conducive to their flourishing across much of the country. The climate has not changed in any meaningful way to make the spread of fire any colonies to new locations more likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An excerpt from the FT article states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With temperatures rising and winters getting milder, invasive fire ants are finding it easier to expand their range across Florida. Climate change, scientists say, is giving the ants a leg up, pushing them farther north and deeper into the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a tidy story for headline writers, but it glosses over the well-established reasons behind the spread of fire ants\u2014namely, accidental introduction through global and regional trade, poorly regulated movement of nursery stock and soil, and the absence of natural predators in North America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The science is clear: fire ants (Solenopsis invicta<\/em><\/a>) first arrived in Mobile Alabama via South American shipping in the 1930s<\/a>\u2014not because of climate change, but thanks to lax port controls as documented by USDA\u2019s APHIS website<\/a>. Their spread consistently is tracked with expansions of highways and railroads, plus the movement of landscaping materials, not minor temperature shifts. Even the University of Florida\u2019s IFAS Extension<\/a> points to \u201chuman-assisted movement of infested sod, soil, nursery plants, and other materials\u201d as the primary culprit. This becomes clear when you look at the timeline of fire ants in Florida based on multiple sources of data<\/a>, including a peer-reviewed study<\/a> from the University of Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This table summarizes the timeline:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This timeline clearly underscores that the fire ant invasion in Florida has been overwhelmingly complicit with human-mediated transport and habitat alteration<\/strong>\u2014not a result of minor climate fluctuations. Indeed, as the timeline shows, fire ants first landed in northern Florida, the portion of the state that experiences cooler, sometimes freezing temperatures, far more often than any other region of the state. The red imported fire ant\u2019s rapid spread is attributed to its ability to adapt to new environments, its lack of natural predators in the US, and its accidental dispersal through cargo, soil, and nursery stock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facts show that fire ants spread explosively in the 1940s through 1970s northward from the coasts, during a period when the Earth was modestly cooling, decades before \u201cglobal warming\u201d became a household term. Nor is there any evidence the modest warming experienced in North Florida, or elsewhere in what is already fire ant range, has made the invasive pest more likely to flourish than it already does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To claim otherwise, as Florida Today<\/em> does, is journalistic malpractice<\/em>. By promoting climate alarmism, while ignoring the data, Florida Today<\/em> does a disservice to readers and local policy makers alike. One wonders whether the editorial staff even bothered to consult entomologists before greenlighting this copy-paste climate narrative, which is nothing more than misinformation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent article in\u00a0Florida Today\u00a0(FT) \u201cInvasive fire ants spread, get boost from climate change in Florida\u201d is not just false\u2014it\u2019s a classic case of alarmist reporting that ignores decades of entomological and ecological data. Fire ants have been widespread in Florida for decades, the existing climate being conducive to their flourishing across much of the country. The climate has not changed in any meaningful way to make the spread of fire any colonies to new locations more likely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":393635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Discover why claims linking fire ant spread in Florida to climate change are misguided. Understand the real factors behind their invasion.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Why Florida's Fire Ant Spread Isn't Due to Climate Change","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691819134,691818056,691819743,691822770,691818542,691837099,691837100],"class_list":{"0":"post-393629","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-climate-alarmism","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-climate-propaganda","11":"tag-fire-ants","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-florida-today-ft","14":"tag-global-and-regional-trade","16":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0AQNM0r9uvOiBqvANJ7n1hzqyr7Mg_eeP8Pa1EbvI50LCO65mvWmOWy2XUq9QyNqeAy_do0R8uoBViRl-c7J_pRwUp-UUgBv4Fkz_xlijBHRqwzYhZlBqv3rV1V6DuPQuX39l0T3uJirPxSmxPdpbTj850nSPLA-1.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1EoR","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":260868,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=260868","url_meta":{"origin":393629,"position":0},"title":"Biased New \u2018Study\u2019 Claims Florida Strawberry Scare \u2013 As Harvests Set Records","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"06\/06\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"At the top of today\u2019s \u201cclimate change\u201d search results promoted by Google News is\u00a0an article by Axios\u00a0claiming \u201cFlorida\u2019s strawberry industry threatened by climate change.\u201d The article uncritically parrots talking points from\u00a0a paper published by the activist group Environment Defense Fund (EDF), which raises\u00a0hundreds of millions of dollars each year\u00a0promoting false\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Climate change\"","block_context":{"text":"Climate change","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climate-change"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0IMG_20140329_092858.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0IMG_20140329_092858.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0IMG_20140329_092858.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0IMG_20140329_092858.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/0IMG_20140329_092858.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":258575,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=258575","url_meta":{"origin":393629,"position":1},"title":"Relax, Fresh Plaza, Florida Strawberry Production Is Growing","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"22\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Fresh Plaza, a global trade publication for the fresh produce industry, ran an article claiming climate change is harming Florida\u2019s strawberry production. 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