When a storm destroyed Xerxes the Great’s bridge across the Hellespont in 480 BCE, he ordered that the sea be flogged with chains. Now, the North Carolina legislature is playing Xerxes. Some North Carolina legislators do not like the estimates of the rise in sea-level caused by global climate change, so they are considering making a rise in sea-level illegal, or at least, any predication of such a raise. A law is working its way through the North Carolina legislature that would require government planning boards to only use predictions of sea level rise based on linear projections from 1900. The increased rise in sea-level due to climate change would not only be ignored, but would be illegal for land use planning.
Coastal N.C. counties fighting sea-level rise prediction
Continue reading