Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumNorth Carolina leaders were outraged by climate predictions. So they changed them.
Following up on this: NC Environmental Agency Removes Climate Change Info from Website
On N.C.s Outer Banks, scary climate-change predictions prompt a change of forecast
By Lori Montgomery June 24 at 7:37 PM
NAGS HEAD, N.C. The dangers of climate change were revealed to Willo Kelly in a government conference room in the summer of 2011. By the end of the century, state officials said, the ocean would be 39 inches higher and her home on the Outer Banks would be swamped.
The state had detailed maps to illustrate this claim and was developing a Web site where people could check by street address to see if their property was doomed. There was no talk of salvation, no plan to hold back the tide. The 39-inch forecast was a death sentence, Kelly said, for ever trying to sell your house.
So Kelly, a lobbyist for Realtors and home builders on the Outer Banks, resolved to prove the forecast wrong. And thus began one of the nations most notorious battles over climate change.
Coastal residents joined forces with climate skeptics to attack the science of global warming and persuade North Carolinas Republican-controlled legislature to deep-six the 39-inch projection, which had been advanced under the outgoing Democratic governor. Now, the state is working on a new forecast that will look only 30 years out and therefore show the seas rising by no more than eight inches.
Comments are piling up quickly at the WaPo website.
From the slideshow:
Nags Head, N.C., seen in June, is part of the state's Outer Banks region, which has become a flashpoint in the debate over global warning. In 2010, the science panel of the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission concluded that sea levels along the coast could rise anywhere from 15 to 55 inches over the coming century. (Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post)
grilled onions
(1,957 posts)There will be no flood....there will be no flood....
FBaggins
(26,727 posts)Upgrade and resell as they become beachfront property.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)Let 'em drown...silly bastards...
woodsprite
(11,911 posts)but there is no way I'd buy a house down at either place - even in retirement. Maybe if I could get a small piece of property that I could legally take our fifth wheel down to and hook up to sewer, water, electric, etc. FL is too far, but NC isn't that far from us (8 hrs). I'd even consider leaving it down there, letting my SIL and BRO use it when we weren't, and only hauling it home if a hurricane was coming.
Short of that, it's campgrounds for us until we can't physically do the work involved. We don't tow our camper a lot, but we're planning for it to be our vacation/future retirement home. I always wanted some beachfront property, but with the predictions, it looks like we may not have to move to have it.
Six wks until we're down there again and all I can think about is sifting sand and shells on Ocracoke
arcane1
(38,613 posts)It will probably be gone before I can visit again
dballance
(5,756 posts)When I was a kid we'd visit my grandmother's farm outside Elizabeth City, NC and then we'd head to the coast for a few days. That meant the Outer Banks. It wasn't so developed then as it is now. We would always stay in some cabins along the beach. It is a beautiful place. I will be sad to see it drowned in the coming years.
pscot
(21,024 posts)These folks are moronists.
SDjack
(1,448 posts)maps and making their own. It's simple to do. Assume that melting of all ice fields and subsequent warming of the oceans will raise the sea level an average of 216 feet. Add a storm surge of 50 feet to get the conservative estimate of water penetration inland, for a final elevation of 216 + 50 = 266 feet. Take this year's flood map and draw the 266-ft elevation contour. All land east of that contour will eventually be claimed when all ice is melted and that water warmed and expands. A coarse estimate, but good enough. (My house, purchased in 2013, is at elevation of 356 feet.)
Nihil
(13,508 posts)The only law that needs to be set up is the one that prevents the state/country from
bailing out the morons who want to deny reality.
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)We endured Jessie Helms, for crying out loud. When is enough enough? They keep gerrymandering so they can stay in charge. No amount of fighting back seems to stop them here. We could use some help from the national Democratic Party down here.