Sea. No Evil.

June 14, 2012 8:57 AM

"If your science gives you a result you don't like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved."

On June 12, 2012, the North Carolina Senate approved HB 819 by a 34-11 vote, requiring North Carolina's Coastal Resources Commission to base predictions of future sea level rise along the state's coast on a steady, linear rate of increase - thereby prohibiting state agencies from using projections of accelerated sea-level rise due to global warming in drafting coastal development rules. This follows Texas' deletion of references to climate change and sea level rise in a 2011 report on Galveston Bay and pressure in the Virginia General Assembly to replace references to sea level rise with "recurrent flooding" in a recently-commissioned study.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has responded with a contest to identify other problems the state faces that the Senate might outlaw next.

posted by jhandey (67 comments total)

I seem to remember reading long ago that sometime in the 19^th century, an American state passed a law specifying that π = 3. Can anybody confirm or debunk this?
posted by brokkr at 9:02 AM on June 14, 2012

I seem to remember reading long ago that sometime in the 19th century, an American state passed a law specifying that π = 3. Can anybody confirm or debunk this?

Indiana Pi Bill
posted by jquinby at 9:04 AM on June 14, 2012 [8 favorites]

I seem to remember reading long ago that sometime in the 19th century, an American state passed a law specifying that π = 3. Can anybody confirm or debunk this?

As far as I know it's never actually happened, but it's been close a few times.
posted by kmz at 9:05 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

I seem to remember reading long ago that sometime in the 19th century, an American state passed a law specifying that π = 3. Can anybody confirm or debunk this?

The Indiana Pi Bill. Introduced, but failed.

on preview: curse the scientifically faster fingers of jquinby! I'm gonna get a bill passed!
posted by scody at 9:06 AM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

I guess everybody likes pi.
posted by kmz at 9:06 AM on June 14, 2012

You might be thinking of Alabama as well, although that was a hoax.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:07 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

As Rebecca Black once sang, it's pi day, pi day, gotta get down on pi day.

I think, anyhow.
posted by jaduncan at 9:08 AM on June 14, 2012 [4 favorites]

[Newton] was really just a very savvy politician who succeeded in pushing his Laws through committee before all the other scientists.


Yep, Galileo and Kepler get no credit for their drafts, for example. It wasn't until 1687 that Newton made Gravity the law (and not just a good idea).
posted by bonehead at 9:09 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:10 AM on June 14, 2012 [37 favorites]

I guess I'm first to mention that King Canute didn't let his ministers get into this kind of nonsense.
posted by ocschwar at 9:18 AM on June 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it.

Well, I have never seen it and it does not sound very plausible.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:19 AM on June 14, 2012 [42 favorites]

If you don't mind, I've some seafront property that I have to try to sell to the members of those legislatures.
posted by Skeptic at 9:22 AM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it.

You may have been experiencing a mild hallucination brought on by exposure to Tennessee.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:23 AM on June 14, 2012 [21 favorites]

I seem to remember reading that this bill was overturned? Was that my imagination?
posted by rebent at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2012

Yeah, I've had the Tenneseizures before.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2012 [12 favorites]

doctor_negative: "Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it"

I've driven through it, too, and that still doesn't categorically disprove it being a hoax.

At *best* it's an elaborate practical joke.
posted by notsnot at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

So yes, this is idiocy, but isn't there a way around it?

The slope of a line is dependent on which points you use to draw your line, right? Just pick the historical data points (most likely the last couple of years) so that line approximates the real curve.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:26 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

This has to be one of those bills drafted by some idiot's clerk that everyone signs along party lines without actually reading.

please
posted by pcrsweetness at 9:30 AM on June 14, 2012

Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it.

You may have been experiencing a mild hallucination brought on by exposure to Tennessee.

I drove from Manchester, TN to Enterprise, AL a few years back. I thought I might have hallucinated the tremendous Confederate battle flag on the side of I-65, but I later found photographic evidence.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:35 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has responded with a contest to identify other problems the state faces that the Senate might outlaw next.

SEA NO EVIL CONTEST: As the N.C. Senate prepares to vote on the infamous bill to outlaw scientific methods to measure sea-level rise, we offer the Sea No Evil Contest. List some of the other problems facing the state that you would like to see the Senate outlaw. Unemployment? No problem. Senators can simply pass a law requiring that the unemployment rate can only be calculated using historic employment figures from the 1950s. Air pollution? Easy. Pass a law requiring that pollution can only be measured by the sniff test. If you can’t smell it, it ain’t there. You get the idea.

We’ll shop the best suggestions to a state senator who we hope will offer them as amendments to the bill when the Senate votes on it. We’ll also throw some swag to the winners. T-shirts, free memberships. That sort of thing.

That's a classy way of calling out the stupidity of the (potential) law.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:35 AM on June 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

Sadly, this seems rational to me.

Consider the decision for North Carolina: they either accept the liberal estimate (~39") for sea level rise, and then have to bear the costs for putting in place the flood control to handle a three foot sea rise (very expensive for them) or they accept the conservative estimate (~8") and put in place the flood control for that (much cheaper for them).

If they with the liberal estimate and they're wrong they will have massively overspent on something of the same magnitude of the Afsluitdijk that they don't need. If they go with the conservative estimate and they're wrong the Federal government will come in and pay to clean up the mess.

It seems pretty stupid to build adequate flood control when you're going to get a massive infusion of other people's money when there's a flood.
posted by elsp at 9:35 AM on June 14, 2012 [20 favorites]

Having lived in Alabama for a while, I think it's actually a lefty-engineered scheme to try and show conservatives the logical results of all their policies only to their surprise and horror the conservatives actually loved it. Basically it's The Producers of states.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 9:39 AM on June 14, 2012 [9 favorites]

If any state has a motivation for covering up its sea level issues, it's North Carolina. The Outer Banks, which should never have been developed in the first place, are doomed; attempts to stabilize what by nature should be a migrating sand bar, albeit a large one, are by definition futile. But that slender strip of sand represents a huge cash cow for the state, and nobody wants to point out to prospective investors or tourists that the cow is running out of places to graze and will soon be swimming.

There's no way around facts and water... silly legislation aside, the argument will be moot when it becomes impossible to keep Route 12 open any more (and that time draws nigh). Things are happening quickly.
posted by kinnakeet at 9:39 AM on June 14, 2012 [5 favorites]

It seems pretty stupid to build adequate flood control when you're going to get a massive infusion of other people's money when there's a flood.

Plus, free housing in a super neato place like the Superdome!
posted by Flunkie at 9:41 AM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Alabama is real, unfortunately. Bielefeld is a hoax though.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:51 AM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's against the law to mention that shark that's eating folks off Amity Island, too.
posted by birdhaus at 9:57 AM on June 14, 2012 [4 favorites]

Good point about it being expensive for the state to build proper seawalls. But I'm curious, is there a law saying that government must protect private property from the elements?
posted by Triplanetary at 10:06 AM on June 14, 2012

As Kinnakeet points out, this bill is about propping up real estate values. It's not about controlling carbon emissions. Skip the partisan cheap shots and save your indignation for something that matters.
posted by nixt at 10:08 AM on June 14, 2012

is there a law saying that government must protect private property from the elements?

A law obliging government to pass specific kinds of laws would be more of a constitutional thing I guess.

Lawmakers like deciding things by themselves, so I doubt it's made very specific in any country, but for the case of the US the preamble to the constitution states that the US is founded, among other things, to "promote the general Welfare". Keeping people and their houses from being flooded might fall under that definition.
posted by Cironian at 10:15 AM on June 14, 2012

Consider the decision for North Carolina: they either accept the liberal estimate

Calling the estimate based on science the "liberal estimate" isn't doing anything to help the situation, although it certainly throws the central problem into sharp relief.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:18 AM on June 14, 2012 [19 favorites]

The federal government needs to tell North Carolina that there won't be any potential federal aid unless North Carolina builds for the higher level.
posted by pracowity at 10:18 AM on June 14, 2012

And GOP takes one more baby step toward becoming a cargo cult.
posted by R. Schlock at 10:22 AM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't understand. Once NC double-secret-banned the gays from marrying, shouldn't that have appeased the Recurrent Flooding Spirits and brought the sea back down to decent, godfearing levels?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:25 AM on June 14, 2012 [7 favorites]

Calling the estimate based on science the "liberal estimate" isn't doing anything to help the situation, although it certainly throws the central problem into sharp relief.

As Mr. Colbert himself has pointed out on more than one occasion, reality has a well-known liberal bias.


As for why they should suck it up and accept the "liberal" estimate, it's good to remember that Nature tends to live up to the potential threat in the end. Everyone bitched that Kotaku Womura was wasting money at the time as well. Nobody's bitching about it now, however.
posted by barc0001 at 10:27 AM on June 14, 2012 [11 favorites]

If you don't mind, I've some seafront property that I have to try to sell to the members of those legislatures.

Looking at the list of senators who voted for it, I'd be shocked if some of them don't already own beachfront property.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:32 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

elsp: It seems pretty stupid to build adequate flood control when you're going to get a massive infusion of other people's money when there's a flood.

And no one wants to pay more money for flood control measures when their back yards are still dry.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:45 AM on June 14, 2012

Consider you're a politician. A bunch of guys with PhDs come in and tell you that if you don't undertake an expensive modification to Project A that you'd be hosed. Seriously and totally hosed with people dead.

A few other guys with PhDs come in and say "ignore those commies, they're just doing social engineering it's not gonna really be that bad." I mean, these guys are scientists, too. Sort of.

Now, regardless of the facts, which overwhelmingly favor the first bunch of guys -- who do you WANT to believe?

And welcome to faith-based America.
posted by chimaera at 11:01 AM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

You see, the legislature says the sea level isn't rising. So you are legally prohibited from using that approaching coastline from making a decision about purchasing this beachfront property. WAIT WHERE ARE YOU GOING COME BA--glub glub glub
posted by JHarris at 11:10 AM on June 14, 2012

"...how high's the water, Momma?...."

"....that ain't water, it's liberal propaganda, but it's four feet high and risen'...."
posted by mule98J at 11:24 AM on June 14, 2012 [9 favorites]

I'm reminded of a pre - Monty Python Cleese sketch.
"Is this blackmail?"
"Blackmail is such an ugly word. Let's call it fishpaste."
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:26 AM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's not SC, but probably similar: My wife and I recently visited Dauphin Island, Alabama, another overgrown sandbar, which was cut in half by Hurricane Georges and the west end of the island was scraped clean and salted by the storm surge.

So they filled in the gaps and rebuilt the road, and what's left looks exactly like a narrow strip of the Sahara desert; even today nothing grows in the salted soil, so it's sand from one side of the island to the other. There are no businesses to speak of out there, no attractions, no nature, no nothing except sand, salt water, and telephone poles.

(Note this is in contrast to the east end of the island which was spared the worst and has some restaurants, parks, and nature areas.)

And yet, people are rebuilding on that west end wasteland, by the dozens. There is still no protection from the sea but there is also no shade and it's a 3 mile drive to do anything but sit out on the sand. And there are probably more houses and camps out there now than there were before the hurricane. WTF PEOPLE? Y SO STUPID?
posted by localroger at 11:31 AM on June 14, 2012

Step 1: Refuse to learn of, or from, the past
Step 2: Ignore, and misinterpret, the present
Step 3: Completely fucking deny the future

Mission accomplished - you are now a legislator.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:33 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

In 480 BC, Xerxes whipped the sea for being uncooperative. 2500 years later, North Carolina's legislatures maintain that proud tradition.
posted by adamrice at 11:40 AM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sorry, but I've lived in Virginia all my life and I'm about to get nasty....

deep breath..

I'm sick of all you dumb rednecks down in Richmond with your misogyny, homophobia, and Tea Party bullshit. But you know what? Go ahead and pass your dumb far right wingnut legislation. Go ahead and elect Ken Cuccinelli to the Governors Mansion.

And you know what? We'll get Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William, Loudon all together and secede. From you. Then we can go down to Stafford and give all the hicks in White Oak and Hartwood 72 hours to pack their shit and go south. We'll wave goodbye to them as they cross the Rappahannock, and then blow all the bridges behind them. Sorry New Yorkers, no Virgina / Myrtle Beach for you anymore but I hear Delaware is pretty nice.

And then all you dumbass hayseeds can go bathe in your own tobacco spittle and have a big inbred hoedown.

(sorry to everyone else. I'm actually not that much of a radical. But being from here can get very frustrating sometimes. And I don't really even consider myself a liberal but compared to most of the dipshits in the legislature I might as well be Che Guevara.)

ok whew.. I need a mojito now.
posted by smoothvirus at 11:43 AM on June 14, 2012 [4 favorites]

smoothvirus:

Careful now. Not everybody down south is a hayseed. I live in Tidewater ( I'm old enough that I refuse to call it Hampton Roads). I was born here, but I lived in NoVa for 25 years, too. While I certainly liked the politics better up there, my positions haven't changed just because I live here now.

This is IMPORTANT shit. An 8 inch rise in the ocean means my neighborhood is OK. A 39 inch rise means most of my fucking city is underwater. Politics trumping science here is ludicrous, a travesty, and dereliction of duty, IMO.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 11:55 AM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Careful now. Not everybody down south is a hayseed.

True - subtract the actual legislature, and Richmond is more interesting and culturally rich than Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William, and Loudon combined. Be careful what you wish for, smoothvirus.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:00 PM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

It's irritating as all hell, too, when I hear all these conservatards praise St. Reagan 'cause he was so pragmatic and realistic. You know, he was full of "wisdom" like "trust, but verify". If we just had more sensible leaders like him, this country would be so much better.

But present them with something sensible like "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst", and all you hear back is birds chirping.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 12:02 PM on June 14, 2012

Careful now. Not everybody down south is a hayseed.
I know, I know.. Actually it was NoVA, Richmond, and the Tidewater that elected Obama in '08.

I grew up in Stafford, and for a while I even commuted from Spotsylvania to DC. I finally decided that I'd be much happier as a single guy "in the city" and so, I fled.

So yes I am myself an example that you can at least get some non-hayseeds out of a county where they throw people in jail for opening a store that sold girlie mags.
posted by smoothvirus at 12:16 PM on June 14, 2012

It's irritating as all hell, too, when I hear all these conservatards praise St. Reagan 'cause he was so pragmatic and realistic. You know, he was full of "wisdom" like "trust, but verify". If we just had more sensible leaders like him, this country would be so much better.

Anyone who, like Reagan in 1966, says:

"I think, too, that we've got to recognize that where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees -- you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?"

is neither a pragmatist nor a realist, but a circus clown.
posted by blucevalo at 12:29 PM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

Some clever entrepreneur has a great opportunity here to sell certain homeowners "house bubbles," which allow your beachfront home to become an underwater home. Or push button homes with little red buttons.

In all seriousness, a student of mine used to live on Majuro. Many houses on the atoll are raised up on bricks or cinder blocks. After one particularly heavy storm, she woke up and it looked like her house was floating (not her house, just an example of atoll flooding).

Since regular flooding (and eventual submersion) are going to be ways of life along the coast of North Carolina and since taking action for the general welfare and common good seem to be antithetical to its politicians, homeowners would be advised to look to Majuro's experience and rebuild their houses accordingly.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:34 PM on June 14, 2012

Heck, the Dutch have floating houses. Might be a little too European and socialist, though.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 12:47 PM on June 14, 2012

Sea nomads, then.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:02 PM on June 14, 2012

Indianans should make a special state pie that's missing a 4.5 % sliver.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:03 PM on June 14, 2012

I live in Tidewater ( I'm old enough that I refuse to call it Hampton Roads)

I grew up there, and I won't call it "Hampton Roads", either. It's just wrong, on every level.
posted by jhandey at 1:17 PM on June 14, 2012

Watching this video makes me hate Americans.
posted by 13twelve at 1:30 PM on June 14, 2012

In Canada, we just fire the scientists when their results don't mesh with the government's policies/ideology and hope that no one notices their studies as a result. But to actually outlaw the use of their data? Well, I guess we'll be borrowing that method pretty soon, too.
posted by asnider at 1:54 PM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

Alabama is not a hoax, I've driven through it.

Well, I have never seen it and it does not sound very plausible.

The truth is, from the Georgia state line all the way over to Tupelo, Mississippi, there's nothing but a vast chasm from which crawls talented college football players and sweaty white guys in cheap suits who want to discuss your personal relationship with Jesus.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 2:10 PM on June 14, 2012

jquinby: "I seem to remember reading long ago that sometime in the 19th century, an American state passed a law specifying that π = 3. Can anybody confirm or debunk this?

Indiana Pi Bill"

If you read your own link, you'll see that the bill did not specify "π = 3".

The rumor is urban myth, according to Snopes.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:15 PM on June 14, 2012 [1 favorite]

The World Famous ha I don't speak Italian, so I'd probably struggle to fall out with Italians over it.

Its probably a difference in my British sense of humor and the way political satire is broadcast on our tv networks compared to American taste/sense of humor/satire. Which is a polite way of saying I watched most of it, found nothing remotely funny or entertaining and just wishing he'd get to some sort of point rather than trying so desperately hard to be funny.

In general I'm not xenophobic. Honest!
posted by 13twelve at 2:18 PM on June 14, 2012

The House bill said: "Historic rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise unless such rates are from statistically significant, peer-reviewed data and are consistent with historic trends"

Which seems to leave a loophole for someone to justify acceleration based upon AGW as long as they have enough historical data (which I grant may be impossible given the need for region specific justification rather than the NC coastline as a whole).
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:19 PM on June 14, 2012

It will be interesting to see how insurance companies react to all this. At some juncture, soon, they will be moving away from these markets. They are motivated from an actuarial basis, not an ideological one, and their actions will be very indicative. I have been thinking that the insurance and reinsurance companies have some heretofore unseen cataclysmic events on the horizon, the kind that could extinguish a reinsurer. Will be interesting to see they respond. A "tell", as we say at the card table.
posted by jcworth at 6:25 PM on June 14, 2012

"Which is a polite way of saying I watched most of it, found nothing remotely funny or entertaining and just wishing he'd get to some sort of point rather than trying so desperately hard to be funny. "

All this means is that you don't find Stephen Colbert Funny. My complete and total dislike of Lee Evans does not make me hate all British people.
posted by rubyrudy at 6:36 PM on June 14, 2012 [2 favorites]

A 39 inch rise means most of my fucking city is underwater.

Hey Benny Andajetz, I would have posted this (plus map) earlier but WashPo's search is horrid. Your region is facing more trouble than rising waters, you also have sinking land.

The area has historic geological issues. A meteor landed nearby 35 million years ago, creating the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. And a downward-pressing glacial formation was created during the Ice Age. These ancient events are causing the land to sink, accounting for about one-third of the sea-level change, scientists say.

This geology is lost in local meetings, where distrust of the local and federal governments is at center stage.

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

Except New Orleans, nowhere in the US has as many challenges as Tidewater when it comes to rising sea levels. The tea party nonsense is sad and unhelpful.
posted by peeedro at 10:15 PM on June 14, 2012 [3 favorites]

In other North Carolina legal news: Scores in N.C. are legally 'innocent,' yet still imprisoned
posted by homunculus at 12:04 PM on June 15, 2012 [2 favorites]

Okay, hang on just a minute:

In other North Carolina legal news: Scores in N.C. are legally 'innocent,' yet still imprisoned
posted by homunculus

You cannot let all these people out of prison. Too many jobs depend on their incarceration. Besides that, your little liberal hearts should bleed for god-fearing American workers, not convicted criminals. Anyhow, if you let these guys out, they won't be able to get jobs, because it's well-known that anyone with a prison record can't get work, and they'll surely resort to a life of crime.

Leave well enough alone.
posted by mule98J at 11:07 AM on June 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

A 600-mile stretch of the U.S. East Coast is experiencing rates of sea level rise that are three to four times greater than the global average, and accelerating. From Boston, Mass. to Cape Hatteras, N.C. seas have risen 2 to 3.7 millimeters per year since 1990, compared with a global average of 0.6 to 1 millimeters per year, as reported in Nature. The observation is based on tide gauge data that confirms earlier computer model projections.
posted by stbalbach at 12:35 PM on June 25, 2012

Rising sea levels cannot be stopped over the next several hundred years, even if deep emissions cuts lower global average temperatures, but they can be slowed down, climate scientists said in a study on Sunday.
posted by homunculus at 3:03 PM on July 3, 2012