North Carolina Republicans Easily Solve Problem of Rising Sea Levels Due to Global Warming

They Vote Not to Recognize It – GOP Legislators Will be Drowning in Stupidity

There is some concern, well actually there is a lot of concern, that global warming will produce rising sea levels and that it is possible that the increase in sea level will permanently flood coastal areas.  North Carolina has a long coast, a really long coast and the threat of rising sea levels is a factor in the economic development of that area.

So the Republican legislators in North Carolina have found a unique was to defeat global warming and the threat of rising water to inundate low lying coastal North Carolina.

lawmakers passed a bill that restricts local planning agencies’ abilities to use climate change science to predict sea-level rise in 20 coastal counties. The bill’s supporters said that relying on climate change forecasts would stifle economic development and depress property values in eastern North Carolina.

So what does this mean.  Well it means that by law sea levels can only rise 8 inches between now and the year 2100.  Any rise over that amount would be illegal and thus could not occur.

The practical result of the legislation would be that for the purposes of coastal development, local governments could only assume that the sea level will rise 8 inches by 2100, as opposed to the 39 inches predicted by a science panel.

Hm a panel of scientists.  How could they know anything about climate science, it's not like they are a panel of political hacks who are experts in all areas, including global warming.

The measure next goes back to the state House, where it recently passed, to consider a technical change adopted by the Senate. Once approved there, it would override the 2010 conclusions of the state-appointed science panel. The panel said melting glaciers would result in pervasive flooding nearly 2 miles inland in parts of the state by the end of this century.

The Senate voted 35 - 12 to squelch those findings as unreliable and harmful to economic development.

“It’s becoming tough on any kind of economic development if we don’t start using common sense in some of this rule-making,” said Sen. Harry Brown, a Republican who represents coastal Jones and Onslow counties.

But the actual impetus from the bill did not come from legislators, it came from someone who probably knows even less about climate science then they do assuming that is possible,  an economic development director.

The push to rollback climate change science came from N.C.-20, a nonprofit that promotes economic development in the 20 coastal counties. The group’s chairman, Tom Thompson, is a Beaufort County economic development director.

It’s been a bad couple of weeks, so thanks North Carolina legislators for giving everyone a good laugh at your expense.  Yep, for once  you did something useful.