North Carolina tries to outlaw climate models

international | environment | other press Sunday June 17, 2012 14:15 by Poseidon

King Canute lives! But these guys actually think they can turn the sea back by denying it! Article at url.

Political satirist Stephen Colbert's solution to unfavourable climate science is simple: "If your science gives you a result that you don't like, pass a law saying that the result is illegal. Problem solved."

Legislators in North Carolina are apparently of the same mindset. When a state-appointed commission announced that North Carolinians could expect 39 inches of sea-level rise by 2100, the Senate responded with a bill that legally prevents the Division of Coastal Management from using the climate model that forecasts fast-rising sea levels. Instead, the legislators would like to see coastal management use only a linear model, which predicts a mere 8-inch rise by the same year.

Banned: sea-level rises

"This is unprecedented," says Orrin Pilkey, professor emeritus of geology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "It's the first time a law has dictated the shape of a curve."