Planet on Fire: Brian McNoldy, meteorologist

THIS JULY, record temperatures around the world are setting records in the oceans and in cities. Miami has had days of excessive, unprecedented heat. And scientists say the record surface temperatures could endanger corals and make hurricane forecasting unpredictable.

Our guest is BRIAN McNOLDY, a meteorologist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and hurricane expert. We talk to him about the records, what they mean -- and if there is any relief in sight.

--We also discuss a new soccer phenom who from Key Biscayne is now playing with Lionel Messi on Inter Miami...the controversy over the new Barbie movie

AND WE ARE CELEBRATING the 3rd BIRTHDAY of the Key Biscayne Independent

Transcript

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Unknown: 0:00

The views expressed in the following program are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily represent those of the Key Biscayne independent Miami fort the state portions were recorded again always be my friend

Tony Winton: 0:44

live from Key Biscayne, Florida, this is antisocial, the podcast that looks at social media and gives it an x ray to see what might be lurking underneath the surface. I'm Tony Winton.

John Pacenti: 0:56

I'm John presenti.

Tony Winton: 0:58

John, what's been going on?

John Pacenti: 1:01

Well, I was a walk on on TED last of this week. Tell me I showed up at the inter Miami's new soccer facility in Fort Lauderdale. It's pretty shocking pink for one thing.

Tony Winton: 1:18

That's interesting color for soccer. Well, I guess it matches their uniform this the color of the biggest story going on in Miami right now has to be right. And what's that Messi mania?

John Pacenti: 1:28

Messi mania? Yes. He was there but not to be seen by the press. What does that mean? That means he was in the facility. But you know,

Tony Winton: 1:39

it had admitted can

John Pacenti: 1:42

supposedly they're going to when they unveil the stadium on Sunday, he's going to be there. That's the rumor anyway.

Tony Winton: 1:48

Right? Well, it is very hot. It is hot.

John Pacenti: 1:52

And we were waiting in the sun for these players to come out to talk to us. And we were melting. Some of us had to go back to the car.

Tony Winton: 2:01

That bad that bad. Yeah. And what about the players? How are they handling that?

John Pacenti: 2:05

Amazing? Well, that's one of the players like come on, man. I don't need to ask questions. The other one, the goat the goalkeeper was like, Bring it on. I just I just lean into it. You know, but it was really hot out there. That caught

Tony Winton: 2:29

that's our walk up music for our guests.

John Pacenti: 2:37

Yes, our guest today is Brian McNulty. Tony, you've known Brian for some time, haven't you?

Tony Winton: 2:45

Well, yes. Brian is a meteorologist at the Rosenstiel school right up the road in Virginia Key. He talked often about weather items. And he's always a great source of information. I think he's actually been voted the best meteorologist in Miami, isn't

Unknown: 2:59

that right? That's what they said. That was a Miami New time Miami news. I

Tony Winton: 3:03

agree with the new times award in 2022.

Unknown: 3:06

Oh, wow. It's recent.

Tony Winton: 3:09

Well, thank you for being our guest.

Unknown: 3:10

My pleasure. I appreciate the invitation.

Tony Winton: 3:13

Yeah, so your normal field of study is Hurricane research. Right? Colorado State that's your that's that's your figuring out the storms and what we can better predict them and guard against them. Right? Yeah, I

Brian McNoldy: 3:26

was a I was at a Colorado State for 13 years or so. And then came to University of Miami in 2012. Right, but

John Pacenti: 3:37

so you worked with the hurricane guru, right? What was his name again?

Unknown: 3:44

Well, it was Bill Gray, Earl Grey one who started the seasonal forecasting. He did a lot of work long before that even but yeah, he passed away in 2016. And then one of his students who I've known for 20 Some years is Phil Klotzbach. Right, who carries on these seasonal forecasts. So it's always great to see that happen.

John Pacenti: 4:06

It's the gold standard when you say Right, yep.

Tony Winton: 4:10

But the reason you're here though, is the heat. You have been documenting it now for some time. First started posting I noticed back about the oceanic heat, and the sea surface temperatures, right that are really so critical in the energy source, or tropical storms and cyclones. What is let's let's take it in stages. So what was the ocean heat start first these anomalies and what exactly is an anomaly?

Unknown: 4:38

Yeah, I think that yeah, we can zoom out and start at the beginning. So I think the first time things really started to grab my attention and I think, you know, kind of on a larger scale more where people's attention was the North Atlantic Ocean as a whole. So not just around Florida, but you average you You see surface temperatures over the whole North Atlantic Ocean. And they've been record breaking since mid March. And often at times recently, they keep breaking the record by larger margins. So it's just it's not just record breaking, its record breaking breaking.

Tony Winton: 5:19

And so so let me because we a lot of sports fans out there, so it's not like Babe Ruth hit whatever, 750 homeruns. And the next guy had 751. This is like 850. Right? Okay, 5900 925

Unknown: 5:34

Like, it's just getting absurd. So that gets into what is in a nominally. So in, in a lot of things, we can calculate an average over a period of time. And so we do that we can do that for the North Atlantic ocean temperature. And you know, let's say we do that over a recent period, a conventional one would be like 1991 to 2020. And so that range, you can calculate what the average is, and then you can calculate or see what the current observation is. And you take the current observation value, subtract what the average is, and that is the A normally, that's a pretty, pretty straightforward concept. And it

Tony Winton: 6:18

factors in things like the seasons, and you know, right. Oh, yeah, yeah. So

Unknown: 6:23

an important aspect of that is it's, it's relative to the date. So it's when we say today is four degrees above normal. That means for this date, not for any time of the year. So these these these different temperature anomalies are relative to the time of year they're occurring in.

John Pacenti: 6:44

So when you have these anomalies, does it make it harder to predict what storms are going to do? You know, this El Nino effect? And all that stuff is kind of like, thrown up in the air?

Unknown: 6:59

A little bit, unfortunately, yeah. One of the things we look for in a long range out looks like we were saying a few minutes ago, what CSU does what Bill Gray pioneered and he saw that the these long range, full season outlooks for storm activity. One of the big influences on that is El Nino, and or La Nina, depending on you know, for the cool phase for LA near the warm phase for El Nino. And all other things being equal. During El Nino, we generally see fewer Atlantic hurricanes. It acts that way just through increasing the vertical wind shear in the tropical Atlantic. And so a strong El Nino,

Tony Winton: 7:47

let me just if I can interrupt because just wind shear is a change in the atmosphere. conditions, it makes it harder for a tropical system to grow and intensify right? Yeah, so

Unknown: 7:58

it's kind of a change in winds with height, right. And hurricanes don't like to do that. So during during El Nino in general, increases that vertical wind shears throughout the tropical Atlantic reducing not only how many storms formed, but it can also limit how strong they get to give you picture, there already is a hurricane out there. They're not going to get as strong in the face of wind shear as they would without. So that's the all all things being equal line. But all things aren't equal. So this year is an especially interesting exception, where the North Atlantic sea surface temperatures are very a anomalously warm, and we have a developing El Nino. And that combination is really rare. So we don't have a lot of history to learn from this year.

Tony Winton: 8:51

Right. So these models that ingest all of this data, does that suggest that maybe we're sort of in uncharted territory and not knowing how much confidence you would put into them?

Unknown: 9:04

I think that's a good way to put I'd say there's very low confidence in seasonal forecasts this year.

John Pacenti: 9:09

Wow. Yeah. Something to be Oh, wow. In a hurricane season. Yeah.

Tony Winton: 9:14

It it is the one question I have is, is there any feeling or we're not that really warm ocean could overcome the problems that normally are associated with wind shear. In other words, if I step on the gas, it doesn't matter that the the engine is kind of sputtering it's still going to it's still still gonna go. Yeah, yeah,

Unknown: 9:42

you're exactly right. A hurricane is a little more resilient to wind shear if the ocean is warmer. Gotcha. So it does give it a little extra nudge. That way, it's not invincible still, but it's a good, healthy nudge for it.

John Pacenti: 10:00

But El Nino hasn't really started yet. Right? Right. Yeah, we just

Unknown: 10:03

are creeping into it. We've been in La Nina for three years. And then we spent a few months in kind of the no man's land in between it was neutral. And we just are creeping into El Nino now, so it's, you know, we're not really seeing effects of it yet.

John Pacenti: 10:22

So, can we see like decreased hurricane activity in the Gulf when El Nino gets going, but increased activity in the Atlantic because of the hot water? I mean, it's not even warm. It's hot.

Unknown: 10:38

Yeah, I would say that's a fair assessment, I think it could be spotty. Because the water is warm in the Gulf of Mexico. And by warm I mean, a nominalist. Li warm, so warm, warmer than it would be this time of year. In the Gulf of Mexico, off the far eastern Atlantic, Where were those African easterly waves come from during August, September, October that, you know, those are those long trackers that that we say, Oh, another wave just came off of Africa. And then a week and a half later, we start worrying about it here.

Tony Winton: 11:10

Exactly. What about let's switch gears a little bit if we could and talked about this, the other thing you've been blogging about lately, which is this? I mean, I can't I've lost track of how many records we're breaking up to. We seem to be having and it's, it's not just the heat itself. It's the heat index. Right. So let's explain that first. And then why is it so why is it so unusual? Yeah, so

Unknown: 11:34

we'll start with the heat index. It's, it's an equation based, empirical relationship, meaning it's not an actual thing you can measure. It's a human based index. It's what the temperature feels like to us. And that's the only gift that feels like because, you know, we are humans. So it applies to us and how we cool ourselves. And so it combines the regular air temperature and the humidity in the air. And so the more humid it is, the less efficient we are at cooling ourselves through sweat, sweat is how that's the human AC system, sweating,

Tony Winton: 12:17

you're sweating, and it's useless. It's not cooling you Yeah, if

Unknown: 12:20

your sweat doesn't evaporate, it's not cooling you off. And so when it's really humid, you're sweating. And there's no evaporation. So means you're not cooling off at all. If you're in a dry climate that's hot, let's say Las Vegas, and it's 110 degrees and super dry. You're still sweating a ton, but it's evaporating instantly. Right? Yeah.

Tony Winton: 12:39

So So compared that. So where are we at now in terms of like, how many days in a row of heat index records? Right?

Unknown: 12:47

Yeah, it's good question. So. So I these will all be measured at Miami International. I get

Tony Winton: 12:54

up in the morning. And you're the first thing I check on my Twitter feed, because it says you already think it's 6am. And we're already setting a record. Yeah. I mean, that's really what's happening, folks.

Unknown: 13:05

Yeah, true.

John Pacenti: 13:07

It's hot here. I mean, but in other parts of the country, it's deadly hot. Right, right. Like in Texas.

Unknown: 13:15

Yeah. And so again, that's relative to their normal and all that. So we're, you know, it's hard to compare here to there. The one thing that they have in Texas, just as a quick aside, it's, you know, they certainly do get hotter and that heat indices get higher, but it's more spotty. Like, you know, it'll come in these waves of obscene heat indices. One thing we've got here is it's it's such a prolonged, relentless heat and humidity, you know, it's basically June, July, August, September is just, we're in the soup, and there are no breaks. And so when you just crank it up a few notches, like we've had the last few weeks, especially the last two weeks, there's it's really relentless.

Tony Winton: 14:04

Any relief in sight? No,

Unknown: 14:07

I wish I had a happier I said, Go out of the room. It's hard to see anything, at least, you know, out to a week plus that looks encouraging to me.

John Pacenti: 14:19

I mean, I like to say that by the time we get to November, we're screaming uncle.

Unknown: 14:24

Well, I'm usually there by now even in a good year.

Tony Winton: 14:28

All right, well, on that on that cheery note, we want to talk about what may be some of the more larger things that are driving all of this. So we will have our guest Brian McNulty from the Rosenstiel school and meteorologist thank you for being us. And we're we have some more questions for you. So stick around. We'll be back right after this.

John Pacenti: 15:00

Hi this is John facente.

Tony Winton: 15:13

I'm Tony Winton, and you're back on antisocial. We're talking to Brian McNulty from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of marine atmospheric and earth science. I got them all now. Right. Okay, now the head of the earth and the earth. Yep. Okay.

John Pacenti: 15:30

So locally, all this weather phenomena, you know, the temperatures in the ocean. El Nino, what does this mean for Key Biscayne Bay? And the waters around South Florida?

Unknown: 15:48

Yeah, it's that. So that's another place where records have been being broken. So we

Tony Winton: 15:54

right right out the window here, Biscayne Bay. Yeah,

Unknown: 15:58

there happens to be a fantastic NOAA gauge, right on Virginia Key. It's been measuring water temperatures, tides and all that since 1994. And it's a relatively long record to be looking at this sort of thing anyway. And so these past three days have all had record breaking ocean water temperatures. So now we're not talking about air temperatures, which have also been, of course record breaking around the region. But the ocean temperatures measured right here have also been record breaking.

Tony Winton: 16:34

When you say record breaking again, how much are we that Babe Ruth baseball,

Unknown: 16:39

right? Yeah. So when you go from air to ocean measurements, it's the margins decrease? It's a lot harder to heat up water. So the margins aren't as big. They don't sound as big, but they're equally impressive. So the water temperature at Virginia Key has been 9192 degrees. X in the afternoons evenings,

Tony Winton: 17:06

don't like an August temperature get having happening in July.

Unknown: 17:10

I mean, what I would say it's warmer than it normally would be any time of the year.

Tony Winton: 17:15

Wow. Yeah. So and the the normal hotspot of the of this year is when?

Unknown: 17:21

First week of August, usually second week of August, somewhere in there. So if that would have Yeah, we're still possibly still heading toward it.

John Pacenti: 17:31

So let's talk about the elephant in the room. Climate change. That's what everybody thinks, oh, this is climate change. But it's, it's more complicated than that, isn't it? Yeah,

Unknown: 17:41

it is. It's climate change is I would say it's certainly a slice of everything that's going on. But it's it's always acting in the background. So it's, it's changing the kind of background state that other things act on. So you're always going to have ups and downs and wiggles in temperatures and cool, cool spells, warm spells, but they're all acting on this upward trend. And so it makes these marine heat waves and land heat waves, more likely with time.

Tony Winton: 18:17

Right. When was the last time we had a stretch this long? On the air anyway? I think you said 1948.

Unknown: 18:25

Well, you actually I mean, as as far as exceeding heat indices, you know, heat index threshold of pretty much any number. There's never been anything like this.

Tony Winton: 18:36

Okay, we really are in Yeah, uncharted territory.

John Pacenti: 18:39

So much so that I guess they have decided that it's a new era, the Anthropocene era. I've heard that.

Tony Winton: 18:47

Yes. Or one of our former AP colleague, Seth Borenstein, had that in a story the other day that there's now some talk that somewhere in the last whatever, a year or whatever, they'll draw a line and say, this was the start of a new era.

Unknown: 19:01

Yeah, yeah, I heard about that. Speaking of satellite, I've noticed that for a very long time. So it's, yeah, and I have heard a little bit about that, that an era doesn't need to be defined by some length of time. You know, since the previous one was it's not really by length of time, it's by the significance of change. So that's how I think they're saying this qualifies as a new era, because it's not at all like, what was before it. Even though it hasn't, you know, some some eras, you know, long timescales are millions of years apart,

Tony Winton: 19:39

right, but have a scientific caution. No, you'd want to see it persist for a few years. Yeah, this was, you know, 2023. That wasn't to some crazy fluke. And then it goes back to something. Yeah, more normal regime, but it's, I mean, it has the potential of being that Yeah.

Unknown: 19:53

And it's, you know, even if it's not necessarily this exact year. I'd say the global climate has changed dramatically fast like it never has before, that we're aware of. And so it probably is safe that it will be some, you know, whatever exactly are you assigned to it? It's hard to say but you know that we are in a new era.

Tony Winton: 20:19

Can Can we connect some dots here, though, because one of the big issues on Key Biscayne is planning for sea level rise, there's a $250 million project, the village council is going into budget mode, they'll be making some key votes later this year, and what whether they're going forward with it. We're here seeing publicly some people politicians question or have questioned the some of the effects of climate change, sea level rise and everything else. Maybe it's still a slow process and doesn't have to be done all at once. And there's been some some questioning, which is a big expanse. It's natural to a degree sciences and settled. Yeah, unsettled. Right. So that's my question. When you see these stats, like we've just been talking about in the air in the water, what should we make?

Unknown: 21:10

I mean, this is certainly in a very anomalous year. I mean, you know, this is not like, I don't think we will expect this degree of departure from normal to just keep on happening year after year after year. Like I said, there are ups and downs. And for all we know, next year could be a little bit below average, and that's a down and you know, it's just the way it works. But the overall trend is up and the the ocean levels work exactly the same way. Sea level rise is very real, it's very observable, it's in every station, you look at, you know, the, the rate around here, also to pick up on that station on Virginia Key. The rate around here is about a quarter inch per year, which doesn't sound like a ton, but you know, you do that over 1020 30 years. But that's not it. It's also speeding up. So it even rate of increase. Yeah, so you don't get to just extrapolate the rate we've been seeing you have to extrapolate it and keep adding incrementally to it.

John Pacenti: 22:15

I know that you're not a an expert, you know, in marine life, or, but how is this these temperatures increases? Threatening? The coral reefs, the sea grasses?

Tony Winton: 22:28

sea creatures oxygen level in the water?

Unknown: 22:32

Yeah. I mean, just from from my level of understanding of that is it's not good. It is a it's an extremely bad situation. I from everything, I've heard about this. A lot of coral can't survive water temperatures, like what's happening in the Keys, like 9697 degree Fahrenheit, water? I think a lot of marine life is really going to struggle with this, or already struggling.

John Pacenti: 23:03

Yeah, I mean, I and these coral reefs are and the algae that's in the ocean. I mean, these are like the lungs of the earth.

Unknown: 23:11

Yeah. Yeah. And it's, especially with the coral, because there's so slow to grow. You know, if you just in a matter of weeks, wipe out huge areas of coral. Not like it's gonna come back in a couple weeks.

John Pacenti: 23:26

Yeah, I was at UNM recently, and there's a bunch of students, and they were growing coral, and I had to go out there and replant them. Yeah,

Unknown: 23:35

there is that, again, this is not my work. So I'm not claiming credit for any of this. But some of the work being done at the school, though, is they are kind of altering coral, to be more resilient to heat. And it's working like they have some that are more resilient to heat. But you know, it's certainly catch

Tony Winton: 23:54

up. Right? Yeah, they're getting, they're getting resilient to the heat that it was five years ago, you know, that's what I'm

Unknown: 24:00

right. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a hard fight. But it's, it's a, it's a bright light, at least that that, you know, it's they can plant new coral, and I think they have already planted new coral out into the ocean. So it's not just a lab experiment, that should gradually be able to start growing and doing its thing.

John Pacenti: 24:21

Now, Tony, and I were talking earlier about, you know, fluorocarbons, and how, you know, we man address that and basically stopped the depletion of the ozone layer. The question is that we're where we're at with climate change. Are we past the tipping point that we could kind of reverse things?

Unknown: 24:41

I hope not. That's a good question.

John Pacenti: 24:45

That's not a very confident it's not

Unknown: 24:47

confident. No.

Tony Winton: 24:49

I mean, you read the you know, the IPCC stuff, right? The International Consortium, right? That's that's tries to address these things. And I and it gets the official position is we're getting close to the tipping point.

Unknown: 25:00

Yeah, it's I afraid it's one of those things that we won't recognize until we see it in hindsight. That's that's what I suspect it will be.

John Pacenti: 25:09

That's human nature as it is.

Unknown: 25:12

If the certainly boiled frog syndrome,

Tony Winton: 25:15

right, that's what I'm saying. boiling frog we're getting these words are getting boiled. Pretty close to that situation.

John Pacenti: 25:23

Very good. metaphor there.

Tony Winton: 25:26

I don't know. Yeah, that's I guess that's the question. I mean, we just want to want to try and leave our listeners with a little bit of hope. So what about

John Pacenti: 25:34

a big ice cube in the water in the ocean just dropped?

Tony Winton: 25:37

Well, that's, that's, that's the sea level rise? Oh, yeah.

Unknown: 25:44

Well, you win some you lose.

Tony Winton: 25:48

We're having them break off and melt. I'll leave you know your business, we may have to queue up the Jeopardy music and see positive statements about the environment for 1000. I don't I can tell you that some of some of your students and this is a good thing. And we'll have another column this month. The the the students at address myths are writing a column that we publish on a regular basis about sustainability and things that can practical things that people can do for the planet. We'll have another another installment that column in our newspaper newsletter this week,

John Pacenti: 26:24

I got something positive. How about these these kids? Today? Care?

Unknown: 26:29

They do? Yeah. It's it's really bringing it's like a new spark of life that kind of in? You know, like, in our generation, we're kind of getting a little dismayed I guess. And kind of, like, Well, yeah, how

John Pacenti: 26:44

old are you?

Unknown: 26:45

How old? Am I 47? So

John Pacenti: 26:48

you're in XOR? Right? Yeah, yeah, we are cynical to yeah, yes.

Unknown: 26:53

So if we are totally relying on the younger generation, and new energy and singing, you know, we have to get out of this. There has to be ways to stop and reverse some of this, that it's at

John Pacenti: 27:09

the tip of their tongue. I mean, it's very important to them as it should be, right.

Unknown: 27:13

Yeah. And a lot of them. You hear this just talking to them. One of the that is like the leading topic on them when they vote is how is this person going to be on the environment? All right.

Tony Winton: 27:28

Brian McNulty from the Rosenstiel school meteorologist, thank you for being our guest. I'm gonna keep calling you for news stories. And so you're gonna see him often in the pages of the Independence basically, we get into hurricane season. Thank you for coming on and sharing your time with us. My pleasure. I

Unknown: 27:43

appreciate it. Thanks, Tony.

Tony Winton: 27:44

All right. We'll be back right after this.

Unknown: 27:48

As we know it's it's the end of the world as we know.

Tony Winton: 28:21

And we are back on anti social I'm Tony Winton John Santi Well, you know, we have to keep things light here right that's, that's, that's what we're going to try and do so. Let's talk about some of the exciting stuff that has been topping in our in our social media feeds right.

John Pacenti: 28:37

Oh, okay. Well, I think that you you are fascinated by the new Barbie.

Tony Winton: 28:42

Oh, yes, I am absolutely. Barbie, Let's go party. It's just all over everything. I mean, it was a host of a TV show. We both watch every morning who was absolutely wearing the Barbie colors this morning that conversion ski and morning, Joe. It's just saturating everything people just like this and that but of course it's 2023. So Barbie, there's a political issue.

John Pacenti: 29:10

You were telling me about this. They're upset because of a map in

Tony Winton: 29:14

the movie. There's a map like a weather map apparently in the movie where there's a dotted line that somehow represents the South China Sea that is apparently too deferential to the communist People's Republic of China and doesn't indicate Holly indicates somehow Hollywood's I don't know there have to serve the Chinese masters.

John Pacenti: 29:41

Barbie has always been communist. Always.

Tony Winton: 29:45

I don't know. I mean, if you ever see the s&c the epicenter of capitalism, Stanford after I've been sent it Okay, yeah, I mean, you know, buying new clothes all the time is

John Pacenti: 29:55

consumerism. I mean, this is okay. They're if they think they're going to Bud Light Barbie movie. I mean, it could be a duck, right? And then that then stands on.

Tony Winton: 30:05

Barbie says 800 pound gorilla.

John Pacenti: 30:07

Oh my god, it's going to be huge. I mean all it's so interwoven into the fabric of America. So many girls and women had Barbies might girls had Barbies. And you know, they're gonna they're gonna go to this movie. Plus it's you know, it's also an escape is

Tony Winton: 30:29

can we can we get a podcast Barbie? Is there a podcast a podcast Ken Barbie, that would be cool. I don't know I went live with little your little little headphones, you know that? I mean, why not? I mean, I'm it's got to be somewhere. I just what I'm saying. It's just, it's just another endemic thing of everything having to everything has to be political, whether it's, I don't know, Disney or as you bud light or whatever it is, there's gonna find some way that for someone to try and make a controversy that's just I'm, I'm really kind of done with this stuff that says me personally.

John Pacenti: 31:03

I think most Americans are and this is where the the anti woke stuff is kind of backfiring. You know. I mean, it just gets old after a while.

Tony Winton: 31:14

We'll see. We'll see if someone moves on to something new. But let's, let's go to your story that you were talking about the top of the show. Yes. You

John Pacenti: 31:21

have an interview I did with local soccer legend in the making. Ben Amin. Kerr masky. He is a 18 year old who just turned 80 just turned 18. He has done great on every level. And he went to mass for a few years, played as a little kid here on the island. And now he's a professional with inter Miami and he scored his first goal on Saturday and lifelong dream. He's an Argentine descent and he's playing with Messi right. And he met Messi yesterday. And his father I talked to the family if you read my story, I talked to all the family and they said it was absolutely an emotional moment. You know, I mean, messi in Argentina is like I mean he's he's he's godlike

Tony Winton: 32:21

yeah I mean I having you know been in this island now for several years and just going through the World Cup in Key Biscayne. Every place with a TV screen is your kind of like in the stadium here we were at we were at Nolan Aiza for the last championship and that was just absolutely amazing. Everyone's everyone's got their jerseys on. It's it's like total by and it's even if you're not a soccer fan, right? You get into the you get into the mood of the event,

John Pacenti: 32:47

right. And one time, we went to a Latin restaurant near my house, so we I don't know what was going on with the soccer that day. But everybody was it was packed and everybody had their shirts on. And it was it was nice to see. And you know, I've covered a lot of sports, Tony, but I've never covered soccer. So it was a new thing for me. It was it really had a TED lasso feel for me, these guys are really, they're professional athletes. I mean, you're like, Whoa, you know, that guy is really fit. I mean, you know, and, and so this is an exciting time. I mean, you know, or South Florida sports. It reminds me of LeBron, it really does.

Tony Winton: 33:35

It is it's it's super exciting. And we're gonna continue to follow Ben Amin and the another the other player also making their home here on the island, right? That he commutes with sometimes. So that we will perhaps have additional folks and listen, maybe we'll get really lucky and he'll come on the show. We'll, we'll try. I can't promise it doesn't hurt to ask. We'll we're gonna be super nice and, and you know, maybe that would be a super special show of antisocial. We'll come back for our last segment right after this

Unknown: 34:30

we go down

John Pacenti: 34:38

this is John Pesenti.

Tony Winton: 34:40

I'm Tony Winton, and we're back on anti social. Yes, yes, we are and we're getting ready for the next issue of the keeps getting independent. What are you working on John?

John Pacenti: 34:50

Oh, my got my hands in my fingers and a lot of things. Right now I want to look at this is a call for people to talk to Me on home insurance rates, we just lost travelers. Oh, farmers, I'm so sorry. And we just lost farmers. And that is another company that's walking out the door. And Governor DeSantis says, you know, he's gonna have a fixed but after hurricane season, and you know, it's a it's a huge issue.

Tony Winton: 35:26

We also have next week, a big village council meeting. This is a meeting that's used to set what's known as I'm going to probably bore a lot of people here said to set the millage rate, what it really amounts to is the upper floor on what the budget will be. It's not the budget itself. But they basically set a ceiling as to the budget is not going to exceed X million of dollars. Because they need to do this in order to send out a tax notice Florida law requires every government to mail out a tax notice, telling homeowners and business owners what the what the maximum tax rate would be for the coming year. And then typically what happens is the village council then starts whittling things down. So the actual rate that gets adopted is less than that. But that upper ceiling is going to be set on the 18th ZIZ. Oh, well, it's but we're looking at having this discussion we have here in Kivus. Game we have the council asking, should we do something big for local athletics, we're just talking about soccer. They want to enhance the playability of the St. Agnes field right next to us, which is used for all kinds of practices things and it's overused and it's being torn up and they want to put an artificial turf. Well, that's that costs money. Is that something that the village should do? Yeah,

John Pacenti: 36:51

I mean, and it's still saying that it's the least that from St. Agnes. So that's an interesting issue, right?

Tony Winton: 36:57

The village has a shortage of playing fields. And there's a number of other projects on the list. And the question is, how many of them will the village council bite? And there's always a discussion about raising taxes or whatever, we're going to try and do a deep dive on really what is on the table there? And how much of an increase is it really? Is it something that taxpayers really want to pay for kick the can down the road last year, there was a long desired expansion of the community center, which is very crowded, and that was so crowded, and that was kicked down the field again, at the same the same reason it was considered an extra and it was kicked, kicked downfield. So the question is, do you keep doing that and then ultimately, when you decide to go ahead and do with it, have you you know, basically shot yourself in the foot because the prices have gone up? Yeah, and that's there's a there's a lesson there with a park that got done lately that took two decades to get done called Paradise park,

John Pacenti: 37:56

but I do think we need a sound effect for millage. Maybe there's something maybe just an echo millage Miller

Tony Winton: 38:02

millage, I don't know I could we could check the panel and see we've got I got a whole bunch of stuff you know, I've already used end of the world so I don't know

John Pacenti: 38:10

millage is not the end of the world it is a pathway to a better Island

Tony Winton: 38:14

maybe maybe it's like with the council they decide how many how many millions you know, does it take to do what you need to do right this budget question

John Pacenti: 38:29

I'll take paradise park for 500

Tony Winton: 38:31

Paradise park for 500 This park was delayed by which councilman? I don't know

John Pacenti: 38:40

that's before my time Okay, that's all I know who it is.

Tony Winton: 38:44

Well there's there's a lot of fingerprints on that one.

John Pacenti: 38:48

I'm not gonna say who it is though. He's already mad at me.

Tony Winton: 38:53

Next are you actually with that? But you know there's so many potentials for for for what can happen in a budget meeting so we will try to explain for our readers as best we can you know what the numbers actually are and what the effect is likely to be and and the bottom line of just really quickly it really depends on what your homestead it or not, if you have a homestead exemption, you're gonna pay one tax rate and if you don't, you're gonna pay a lot more. That's right. And that's basically what it comes down to.

John Pacenti: 39:24

So Tony we're we're trying to serve this island and served our community where we believe this is facts matter. And we're trying to do good journalism here aren't we?

Tony Winton: 39:34

We are and we ask for your support and doing that. And so every contribution tax deductible really appreciated. KB independent that O RG we we absolutely rely on those and we also if you check our website, if you ever want to get rid of a clunker a car, we will take your car you all have to do is make a phone call. They will come and take it go right to your place. Pick it up no cost to you and your mate Your donation to the keeps getting independent. So any we take it in many different forms and just any donation that you make is really super important.

John Pacenti: 40:09

Tony then turns those clunkers into like hot rods. Well, that would

Tony Winton: 40:13

be fun. No.

John Pacenti: 40:15

So speaking of ticket, keep the skein independent.

Tony Winton: 40:21

Oh, well there's some very important notice. We're very, very, very important. We

John Pacenti: 40:26

are having a

Tony Winton: 40:37

great day.

John Pacenti: 40:38

Yes. I did not expect that soundbite I thought I was gonna get happy birthday

Unknown: 40:43

birthday.

Tony Winton: 40:46

We are having our third birthday at Miami Fourth Estate, the parent organization of our little newspaper and podcast. And if you'd like to join us, we're going to be gathering at Milland asa 630 Saturday night we'll have some cake and some coffee are more than welcome to join us. So

John Pacenti: 41:03

now we're going to be in the terrible threes, right? That's what they say.

Tony Winton: 41:07

I thought it was terrible twos. Yeah,

John Pacenti: 41:08

well, I was getting confused. Is it? bombs out there can tell us?

Tony Winton: 41:13

Yeah, I don't know. Some people would say it's time for us to go to preschool. Yeah, yeah.

John Pacenti: 41:18

Are you kidding? My daycare, man. Yeah,

Tony Winton: 41:21

that would be it. We need to need some grown up supervision. I guess that's kind of what it means. I don't know.

John Pacenti: 41:26

Yeah, it's probably true. So Tony, this has been an enlightening show. I appreciate our guests, Brian. We know that he had a lot of information, even if it's kind of apocalyptic.

Tony Winton: 41:43

Well, yes, apocalyptic. Everyone's headed for the apocalypse sooner or later. We're gonna have fun and we're gonna have some cake before we go. That's what we're gonna do.

John Pacenti: 41:57

This is John facente.

Tony Winton: 41:58

I'm Tony Winton.

John Pacenti: 42:01

Oh, smooth sailing everybody

Tony Winton: 42:03

are outlined dude. Okay. Bye everyone.

Unknown: 42:35

There