<-There are not enough of these for this GOP run state legislature

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/05/30/nc-makes-sea-level-rise-illegal/


From the blog article:

The key language is in section 2, paragraph e, talking about rates of sea level rise: “These rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900. Rates of seas-level rise may be extrapolated linearly. …” It goes on, but there’s the core: North Carolina legislators have decided that the way to make exponential increases in sea level rise – caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists – go away is to make it against the law to extrapolate exponential; we can only extrapolate along a line predicted by previous sea level rises.

Which, yes, is exactly like saying, do not predict tomorrow’s weather based on radar images of a hurricane swirling offshore, moving west towards us with 60-mph winds and ten inches of rain. Predict the weather based on the last two weeks of fair weather with gentle breezes towards the east. Don’t use radar and barometers; use the Farmer’s Almanac and what grandpa remembers.


Actual bill: http://www.nccoast.org/uploads/documents/CRO/2012-5/SLR-bill.pdf

6/5/2012 1:40:59 PM

Colbert's take: “This is a brilliant solution,” Colbert said. “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying that the result is illegal. In fact, I think we should start applying this method to even more things we don’t want to happen. For example, I don’t want to die, but the actuaries at my insurance company are convinced that it will happen sometime in the next 50 years. However, if we only consider historical data, I’ve been alive my entire life, therefore I always will be.”

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/414796/june-04-2012/the-word---sink-or-swim?xrs=share_copy


[Edited on June 5, 2012 at 2:34 PM. Reason : .]

6/5/2012 2:31:57 PM

As I've said in the two other threads is that the one positive about them having their heads in the sand about this is that now they'd be less apt to respond hastily and irrationally and start constructing sea walls all over the place and destroy every beach in the process.

6/5/2012 3:21:38 PM

Rising sea levels destroy beaches too...

6/5/2012 3:23:08 PM

Which one destroys them quicker though and which one do we have the most direct control over?

6/5/2012 3:28:09 PM

Jesus fucking Christ

6/5/2012 9:17:34 PM

I thought this was one of those situations where vague wording meant a law MIGHT be interpreted one way, but they are straight up legislating scientific results O_O.

If Obama is a socialist, the state-level Republicans are fascists.

6/5/2012 10:03:19 PM

Can we make rain illegal too? Just for a while until my house gets built. Thanks NCGA!

6/6/2012 8:51:04 AM

This is disgraceful


However

Quote :

"Rising sea levels destroy beaches too..."

Yeah, but only one method is natural.

6/6/2012 8:53:41 AM

i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar

6/6/2012 7:33:47 PM

Seriously.

6/6/2012 7:58:35 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, but only one method is natural."

Uh, so? I don't care if it's hemlock or synthetic ricin, I am anti-poison.

6/7/2012 2:01:56 PM

after reading a non-inflammatory article from, well, something not a fucking blog, this isn't as bad as the thread title suggests, and parts of it even make sense.

1) No one is being prevented from making predictions about sea-level rise. Thus, there is no "ban"
2) They are defining a specific authoritative source for sea-level rise predictions for a specific purpose, namely economic planning. That makes sense, as you don't want to have to keep litigating what source to use. The state says which one is the source, and that's it.

Where they go wrong, I think, is in dictating how that source should make its predictions. I mean, hell, if you are going to do that, then you might as well legislate what the predictions are. Why designate some other source to say what you've already determined will be said in the first place?

I can appreciate the concern over not buying into the hype over sea-level rise, especially since the predictions of the past 20 years have been so strikingly wrong. it only makes sense to be cautious in economic planning and not declare whole areas flood zones on the basis of junk science. However, it also doesn't make any sense to hinder economic planning in the case that better and far more legitimate and compelling science comes out and make the state have to wait for a new law to be passed. Planning absolutely for a 1meter increase is absurd when, IIRC, the IPCC's latest crazy estimate is only 23 inches, and that's worst case.

Quote :

"caused by those inconvenient feedback loops we keep hearing about from scientists"

you mean the ones that scientists can't even prove exist and that they use as a basis for other unprovable and dire predictions that then let them go back and say "see, the feedbacks exist!"?

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/05/28/2096124/coastal-nc-counties-fighting-sea.html
from a far less inflammatory and sensationalist description of the bill and the circumstances surrounding it:

Quote :

"NC-20 says the state should plan for 8 inches of rise by 2100, based on the historical trend in Wilmington. The science panel based its projections on records at the northern coast town of Duck, where the rate is twice as fast, and factored in the accelerated rise expected to come later. Duck was chosen, the panel said, because of the quality of its record and site on the open ocean."

Sounds like someone is cherry picking. The question is simply "who?" I can't blame the legislators for wanting to set some source as the authoritative one.

6/7/2012 9:29:50 PM

So, correct me if I'm wrong, your argument is that at least they have one source to look at over a period of time so that the science will be more stable?

6/7/2012 11:06:38 PM

Quote :

"junk science."

Please show me your degrees in Meteorology and/or Oceanography, and which journals you have been published in, so that I may trust your opinion on what is junk science.

6/7/2012 11:32:08 PM

Quote :

"So, correct me if I'm wrong, your argument is that at least they have one source to look at over a period of time so that the science will be more stable?"

Not even close. My argument is that declaring some authoritative source for a policy goal is fine. Declaring, specifically, how that source should derive its info is pure folly

6/7/2012 11:41:30 PM

So you're legislating what one particular group says about something and basing your policy off of that?

6/7/2012 11:58:47 PM

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

Quote :

"i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar"

6/8/2012 7:57:17 AM

Quote :

"especially since the predictions of the past 20 years have been so strikingly wrong"

[citation needed]

Seriously I want to see these predictions that you're referring to here.

6/8/2012 8:47:22 AM

These men are to be forgiven. If sea levels do rise exponentially, everything east of Greenville will flood. You can't blame a politician for refusing to believe his entire district will cease to exist anymore than you can blame the citizens of Pompeii for sticking around to see how things turned out.

6/8/2012 10:32:07 AM

Quote :

""i'd rather see them make it illegal to build a house on a sandbar""

wouldn't that be stomping all over our liberties?

[Edited on June 8, 2012 at 10:49 AM. Reason : ^the thing is, they are rising exponentially.]

6/8/2012 10:49:19 AM

Quote :

"You can't blame a politician for refusing to believe his entire district will cease to exist anymore than you can blame the citizens of Pompeii for sticking around to see how things turned out."

Well, you kinda can. There's this thing that separates the past and the present called "history", which, when studied enough, you can learn from.

6/8/2012 10:51:29 AM

These individuals would argue that they are students of history...historical high water marks.

6/8/2012 11:23:51 AM

^^ Also, you know, modern fucking science.

"Hey I totally believe that this magic device I hold in my hand can let me watch live video from the other side of the world, but scientists say the water levels will rise? NONSENSE!"

6/9/2012 1:18:13 AM

Quote :

"[citation needed]"

citation: the past 20 years

6/11/2012 9:04:24 PM

checkmate burro

6/11/2012 9:13:00 PM

Quote :

" wouldn't that be stomping all over our liberties?"

of course, but it's the lesser of two evils

[Edited on June 11, 2012 at 9:30 PM. Reason : that's why i said "rather"]

6/11/2012 9:30:32 PM

I'm fine with rich people building houses on sandbars.
So long as I don't have to subsidize the rebuild when it gets washed away.
Oh wait...

6/12/2012 12:50:46 PM

Now that I reexamined the issue at hand, what they're doing seems reasonable. Going off historical data is a better resource than some "predictions" which have mostly proven inaccurate and alarmist thus far.

6/13/2012 9:11:17 AM

[citation needed]

Can someone show me the data showing "predictions proven inaccurate and alarmist" in the past "20 years"?

Because people keep trotting these out like facts and I haven't seen it. Exactly what predictions are you people even talking about?

6/13/2012 9:14:55 AM

Well let's see:

Quote :

"A state-appointed science panel warned sea levels could rise by more than three feet by 2100 and threaten more than 2,000 square miles of coastal land."

Well even the IPCC predicts only 7-24 inches. And the historical average is 2mm/year and that hasn't changed. Let's not forget that a prediction of 7-24" itself is already allowing for a large margin of error. Most climate scientists themselves have admitted that the climate models do a very poor job of corresponding to the current state. Or so say people like Trenberth and Schmidt. So why should the NC government waste any money by basing decisions off of them?

6/13/2012 11:29:42 AM

I'd like to see the studies referenced by all of these news articles to suggest that the IPCC isn't taking melting land ice into account but the Internet is bogged with the news articles and commentary itself. Does anyone know the name of the original "science panel"?

6/13/2012 11:43:34 AM

Good point. The references made in all the articles related to this are quite generic. Nonetheless the claims are alarmist.

6/13/2012 12:05:58 PM

Wake County's own Josh Stein had an "excused absence" from this vote. I am disappoint.

6/13/2012 3:43:18 PM

Quote :

" From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to just north of Boston, sea levels are rising much faster than they are around the globe, putting one of the world’s most costly coasts in danger of flooding, government researchers report. U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990. Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 2 inches. But in Norfolk, Va., where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, sea level has jumped a total of 4.8 inches, the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 3.7 inches, and in New York City, it was 2.8 inches. Climate change pushes up sea levels by melting ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica, and because warmer water expands. Computer models long have projected higher levels along parts of the East Coast because of changes in ocean currents from global warming, but this is the first study to show that’s already happened. By 2100, scientists and computer models estimate that sea levels globally could rise as much as 3.3 feet. The accelerated rate along the East Coast could add about 8 inches to 11 inches more, Sallenger said. [...] Sea level projections matter in coastal states because flood maps based on those predictions can result in restrictions on property development and affect flood insurance rates. Those estimates became an issue in North Carolina recently when the Legislature proposed using historic figures to calculate future sea levels, rejecting higher rates from a state panel of experts. The USGS study suggests an even higher level than the panel’s estimate for 2100. The North Carolina proposal used data from University of Florida professor Robert Dean, who had found no regional differences in sea level rise. Dean said he can’t argue with the results from Sallenger’s study showing accelerating sea level rise in the region, but he said it’s more likely to be from natural cycles. Sallenger said there is no evidence to support that claim."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/study-warmer-seas-are-rising-faster-and-more-along-us-east-coast-than-rest-of-the-globe/2012/06/24/gJQATELozV_story.html

6/24/2012 1:52:43 PM

Quote :

"By 2100, scientists and computer models estimate that sea levels globally could rise as much as 3.3 feet. The accelerated rate along the East Coast could add about 8 inches to 11 inches more, Sallenger said."

I would like to see which respected scientists actually believe that fearmongering 3.3 ft number.

[Edited on June 25, 2012 at 10:03 AM. Reason : k]

6/25/2012 10:03:14 AM

Just out of curiousity, i'd like to know what data you base the label "fearmongering" on.

6/25/2012 10:34:56 AM

Consider most predictions say anything over 10" is highly unlikely how is saying "up to 3 feet" not fearmongering? 10" would not have a large impact but 3' certainly would. Thus, fearmongering.

6/25/2012 11:04:54 AM

so you think they're trying to scare us into giving them more research money?

6/25/2012 11:14:09 AM

Documented 4.8 inches in 20 years and anything greater than 10" in another 90 is fearmongering? Even assuming no acceleration we're talking about another 21.6".

6/25/2012 12:55:38 PM

Quote :

"so you think they're trying to scare us into giving them more research money?"

Several "high ranking" warmists have admitted that inflating the figures for alarmist purposes is the best way to get the public behind them (as well as the money). This is nothing new, and nothing secretive.

^so the global average is 2mm/year and but you think the east coast is going to continually out pace that by a huge margin? Not gonna happen.

[Edited on June 25, 2012 at 4:03 PM. Reason : d]

6/25/2012 3:54:59 PM

Quote :

"Several high "ranking" warmists have admitted that inflating the figures for alarmist purposes is the best way to get the public behind them (as well as the money)."

can you provide the quotes?

6/25/2012 4:04:07 PM

Quote :

"^so the global average is 2mm/year and but you think the east coast is going to continually out pace that by a huge margin? Not gonna happen."

Not being a climatologist myself I don't know the mechanism why it *has outpaced* the rest of the world but I don't know why you would assume that it wouldn't continue to do so. Clearly some physical reason exists to cause the sea level rise in this region to be worse than the global average.

6/25/2012 4:18:15 PM

Mass of the body of water, currents and different elevations of oceans.

6/25/2012 4:50:08 PM

Quote :

"Not being a climatologist myself I don't know the mechanism why it *has outpaced* the rest of the world"

probably cherry-picking

6/26/2012 10:04:46 PM

Good Discusson here:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1597.html


And even more here:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1584.html



[Edited on June 27, 2012 at 7:08 AM. Reason : based off historic NC data, pretty cool]

6/27/2012 7:06:55 AM

6/28/2012 4:39:27 PM

fuckin morons passed the bill today

7/5/2012 11:07:53 PM