That was the message sounded by U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell on Wednesday night, when she gathered some climate experts to discuss findings from the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis report.

Mucarsel-Powell was joined by Caroline Lewis, the founder of the CLEO Institute, as well as local journalist Mario Ariza and Dr. Frances Colon, an American science diplomat and environmental policy expert.

The effects of climate change — in the form of flooding, above average storm strength and frequency and continued degradation of the environment — are already being drastically felt in Miami-Dade and Monroe County, and Mucarsel-Powell said that they are already past the point of no return in parts of the Florida Keys.

“As we see sea level rising, our water infrastructure, our septic tanks, are leaking fecal content into our water,” she said. “That’s why Miami Beach and Key Biscayne had to close beaches. This is completely failed leadership by the county mayor here in Miami-Dade of not making the investments to replace those septic tanks into sewage.”