Lest anyone be surprised, an economic group seems to be making headway in influencing the North Carolina legislature to ignore reality and to substitute their own. In the complete spirit of anti-intellectualism, the people at NC-20 want to pretend their ignorance is considered just as good as anyone’s knowledge because they have *said* so. Unsuprisingly, this attitude is similar to the prevalent attitude in such states where science is also hated if it shows other dearly held delusions, like creationism, are wrong. 

The current SB 819 has the following text: (e) The Division of Coastal Management shall be the only State agency authorized to 10 develop rates of sea-level rise and shall do so only at the request of the Commission. These 11 rates shall only be determined using historical data, and these data shall be limited to the time 12 period following the year 1900. Rates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate 13 future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.

This means that these people have decided that scientists are wrong and they can make up their own methods of measuring sea level so they can officially ignore anything to do with global warming and its predictions of sea level rise.

This is rather reminiscent of the story of King Canute of Denmark. The king was sure that his power would stop the tidesfrom advancing (there is also some thought that he was trying to make a point about how only a god is powerful). And of course he failed. This king was at least smart enough to realize that there was some greater power than he had, though unfortunately he thought it was the Christian God, which is indeed as impotent as he was. The laws of physics are what control the tides (Bill O’Reilly’s amazingly stupid opinion not withstanding) and are what controls global warming. And natural laws don’t care what a bunch of willfully ignorant fools want to claim, no matter how much they might legislate or shake their bibles and pray at the encroaching seas.

I am of the opinion that they could be encouraged to be the idiots that they wish to be, but let everyone in those counties never again ask for or be qualified to receive any state or federal aid of any type. No hurricane assistance, no help from any branch, bureau or office that dares to use science to make decisions. If the science that informs those programs is not good enough for predicting the observed sea level rise, then surely it’s not good enough to predict hurricanes, to control the spread of disease, to breed better crops, etc. Surely such people would not want such aid *if* they are honorable and truly believe that science is not accurate or beneficial. Such people wouldn’t want be hypocrites? Right?

Well, we all know the answer to that. Yes, they are that hypocritical and are that dishonest, having no problem declaring that their lies are the truth in so many ways. We can hope that after being shown the facts, being ridiculed and demonstrated as hypocrites, they might change. But it’s not the way to bet.

Another excellent essay on just how ridiculous these people are:

NC Considers Making Sea Level Rise Illegal