Moving The Bomb Line On Climate Change

Yossarian has nothing on  the North Carolina legislature

This little news item ("Rising tide.  Damp Market."  The Denver Post, June 26, 2014) from North Carolina wins my first sporadically awarded Moving The Bomb Line Above Bologna prize in tribute to Yossarian doing just that in Catch-22  to avoid a suicide bombing mission.  It seems that back in 2011 North Carolina state officials, under the direction of a Democratic governor, released a study that showed the water levels on the coast rising 39 inches by the end of the century!  They were even in the process of creating a web site showing all the properties that would be inundated by the year 2100.  They figured North Carolineans could look at the handy web site as a guide to preparing for the future.

Well, one lobbyist for realtors and home builders, combined with plenty of Republican state legislators and assorted climate change deniers, set about to fight the report.  With the help of a newly elected Republican governor, North Carolina's legislator "took back" the report and instead released information for the next 30 years only.  According to the more limited study, coastal water levels would only rise by 8 inches.  The realtors were happy.  The Republicans were happy.  Together, they had managed to save 31 inches.  If that's not conservation, what is?

Let's be fair for a second.  It is hard to blame a homeowner or businessman living on the outer coast.  A web site guaranteeing the imminent destruction of your property and all the surrounding properties would most assuredly devastate your region's economy.  Good luck selling.  Good luck attracting tourists.  How long can you tread water?  I'm glad I live in the mountains where I only have to worry about avalanches, landslides, wild fires, and floods.

On the other hand, 97 % of the scientific community not employed by the Koch brothers agree that if we don't act now,  phenomena like the inundation of North Carolina' coast are inevitable.  Of course, they're probably inevitably no matter what we do, but hey, let's keep a good thought.  So, explain to me how acting to curb climate change, to limit our carbon footprint, to be sustainable, etc., etc., is going to cost us too much money.  How much is it costing to rebuild Atlantic City and the rest of the east coast after Sandy?  How many more times in the next 100 years are we going to have to rebuild it again?  It seems like acting now would be more cost effective.  If the 39 inch prediction is true, and the confidence is high, then $700 billion dollars of property will be below sea level in 2100 and an additional $730 billion will be at risk at high tide.

I know I don't understand about business (pause to genuflect here) and job creation and all that, but all those figures in the last paragraph seem like real money to me.  We ought to muster the political will to do something about it, something other than moving the bomb line and hoping nobody will notice.