The UN influencing North Carolina’s sea level rise report?
We’ve reported extensively on the on-going saga with the Coastal Resources Commission and their, um, “struggle” to comply with the legislature’s instructions to produce a balanced, science-based sea level rise report. Some people’s eyes may glaze over in sheer boredom from this topic. But it’s very important to folks who own property along the coast. The contents of that sea level rise report will greatly influence property insurance rates and planning and zoning rules along the coast for years to come.
The environmental movement claims that dramatic sea level increases are in store for coastal North Carolina, and that dramatic restrictions on development need to be instituted. A number of scientists and global warming skeptics questioned their conclusions — claiming there was little to no scientific basis. The CRC sent a report to the GOP-dominated legislature basically parroting the environmentalist claims. The legislature sent it back with instructions to come up with something more science-based, and less political, by 2015. So, here we are.
The McCrory appointee heading the CRC has dragged his feet on including input in the report from people who don’t worship at the altar of Al Gore. John Droz, a North Carolina-based scientist, has been on top of the situation from the beginning. He’s been keeping the heat on CRC director Frank Gorham. Here’s his latest missive to Gorham:
[…].I attended yesterday’s (11/19/14) meeting of the CRC advisory Panel. It was an interesting gathering where they primarily discussed the 27± page first draft* of their 2015 NC SLR Report.On the one hand it was a well-conducted meeting, and I was favorably impressed by the sincerity and active participation of the Panel members.On the other hand, due to the makeup of the Panel (all but one are holdovers who authored the rejected 2010 NC SLR Report) there was little diversity in opinion. As has been repeatedly stated, it is not in the best interest of NC citizens or businesses to just have one perspective reflected in a report of this importance to the citizens of North Carolina.An example of this conformity is that all Panel members appear to be worshiping at the IPCC altar. In this and prior Panel meetings, the IPCC has repeatedly been held up as the gold standard — without a proper scientific assessment of the accuracy of their position. No Panel member has gone on record either opposing the opinions expressed by the IPCC, or even advocating that alternative scientific studies be included in their report! This is how the 2010 Report also went into the ditch, so apparently very little has been learned from that experience.
The main controversy happened when Panel member Rudi Rudolf made the heretical (but accurate) statement: that there is no scientific correlation between increased CO2 and SLR! This brought immediate condemnation (but no evidence) as blasphemy, from the most outspoken Panel members: Dr. Peterson and Dr. Riggs. Peterson complained that if one opened up that possibility, then one would have to question the whole IPCC position. Imagine that!I couldn’t but help to reflect on Ann Rice‘s famous quote: “To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner”. That appears to be what they are afraid of: “Don’t question anything about the IPCC, because that may lead to our entire house of cards collapsing.”This exchange came about as some vocal Panel members are clearly determined to show an accelerated NC SLR in their report. Since there is zero scientific evidence of accelerated SLR to date (despite increasing CO2), and they only have a 30 year window to work with, this presents the alarmists with a serious problem. Their recourse is to employ their most common tactic: an appeal to authority (which is a logical fallacy).They start with blindly accepting the four IPCC future scenarios — which all have an acceleration component (again with no empirical scientific basis). But that wasn’t enough. Just as they had done in the 2010 Report, the same Panel people stated that they needed to go further than what the worst IPCC case shows (i.e. to show more acceleration)!It’s hard to comprehend how the Panel can label the IPCC as the cat’s meow — and then in the next breath say that the IPCC is wrong…[…]On November 24th the Panel will have an updated draft version of their 2015 SLR Report ready for more public review. The next Panel meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 15th.—————[…]#1 – In my review of the minutes and transcripts of the Panel meetings to date, I saw nothing consequential about what the Panel said they learned, from their rejected 2010 SLR report. It would seem to me that this should have been thoroughly discussed at the very beginning. The point would be for the Panel to arrive at conclusions as to how the procedures and methodology for generating the 2015 SLR report would be significantly different from before — so that H819 type legislation would not be necessary again.#2 – The Panel should go on record stating that their 2015 SLR Report will be a true Scientific assessment, i.e. comprehensive, objective, transparent, and based strictly on empirical data. This was the crux of the problem with the 2010 Report, so this is not something to just assume.#3 – It would also seem that the Panel would have had a thorough initial discussion, as to what their expectations were for how their 2015 SLR report would be used by state agencies, counties, municipalities, etc. For example, is the Panel expecting their report to be the basis for state or local rules and regulations? I have not seen this clearly addressed.#4 – Despite assurances to the contrary, the Panel has not conducted all their important business before the public. For example, every meeting should have a detailed discussion as to what will transpire in the following meeting. That has rarely happened. At every meeting certain Panel members show up to put on a presentation — but the public has no idea as to why that particular presentation was decided on, how the presenter was selected, etc.#5 – Lastly, the repeated endorsement of the IPCC and their cohorts — to the exclusion of all other SLR research — is an unbalanced representation of the scientific situation.Frank, please let us know what can be done to fix this situation. The CRC Technical Advisory Panel has been on the wrong trajectory for five years now, and it needs to be nudged back to acting scientifically. You are in a position to correct that.[…]
As are Gov. Pat McCrory AND DENR Secretary John Skvarla.
You wrote;”A number of scientists and global warming skeptics questioned their conclusions — claiming there was little to no scientific basis. ”
A number can be one – against the overwhelming evidence of Climate Change. You also carefully pointed to scientists and global warming skeptics which conveniently avoids the relevant findings of the vast majority of climatologists. The vast majority of climate scientists know that there is significant climate change occurring and that IS and WILL Continue to affect development on our coast. I think the largest variable in this body of climatologists is how much of the climate change is attributable to industry.
It would appear to be that you are brainwashed by the POLITICAL ”science” of global warming / climate change, a belief that has also been characterized as a political ideology or a religion. Climate Scientology would seem to be the cult you belong to.
Although its disciples like to claim vast majorities of scientists on their side, the only actual survey ever done, of the members of the American Meteorological Society exploded that myth.
To school yourself on the real science involved, maybe you ought to pay attention to the renowned scientists who appear in this documentary originally broadcast on the UK’s Channel 4 TV, entitled The Great Global Warming Swindle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-m09lKtYT4
Your video would be significant to include a host of renowned climatologists or citations of peer reviewed research on the topic. I count 1 climatologist (Dr. Ball) in your Youtube propaganda piece. The piece refers to “a number” or “many” scientists without quantifying that amount or qualifying what type of scientists are doing the talking. It also ignores the fact the over 90% of the climate effects are in the oceans, NOT the atmosphere where the focus of this piece is. Mr. Wunsch does not address this fact in his segment.
Even Duke Energy, one of the biggest energy companies in the country, and other companies are planning for this reality.
http://www.duke-energy.com/environment/climate-change.asp
From Nov. 2012 through Dec 2013 2,258 peer reviewd climate articles by 9,136 authors, only one author rejected the premise of man-made climate change.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/14/climate_change_another_study_shows_they_don_t_publish_actual_papers.html
Where are the peer reviewed papers on the deniers side???
Is Climate Change driving an “industry”? Perhaps, but it will take that sort of effort to maintain our lifestyles.
Wow, you lefties know how to spin! A documentary broadcast on a major nationwide TV outlet in the UK is reduced to a ”YouTube propaganda film. The scientists interviewed include experts in many aspects of climate, and represent many major universities and institutions and a number were even on the IPCC. You must be using Common Core ”math” in your counting. Readers can watch the documentary to judge for themselves the quality of the experts.
And as to counting, I really do not care what a left wing ideological website like Slate counts. They are likely to employ Common Core ”math” as well.
You should take a closer look at the facts, not just a “Don’t bother me with the facts” piece that was found misleading.
http://www.durangobill.com/Swindle_Swindle.html
Leftwingers always find inconvenient facts to be misleading, and to them, if it is not ”politically correct” it is misleading.
It is like all of those phony ”factcheckers” who really just put a leftwing spin on things, like Snopes which is run by a couple of Scandanavian socialists or Politifact which is run by one of the most leftwing newspapers in the south and has been caught spewing quite a bit of fiction instead of fact.
Your link is to a dogmatic global warmist ideological site. Of course they are going to try to quibble with anything that does not fit their extremist agenda.
You would say that about any site that looks at the facts as opposed to head in the sand thinking.
When the very heading of your site uses the far left put down terminology used to try to belittle those who do not subscribe to their ideology, then your site outs itself as an extremist site.
You lefties throw around the term ”propaganda film” for a documentary aired on a major British TV outlet, but that is just your term in that instance.
Interestingly, that very term, ”propaganda film” was applied by a much more objective source, the British High Court, for another global warming film. The court used that term to describe Al Gore’s ”An Inconvenient Truth” which they also found contained multiple serious errors of fact and ruled could not be shown to school children without disclaimers of its nature and factual errors.
Yes, the truth is very inconvenient for you Warmist ideologues. I guess that is why the Climategate plumbers were so anxious to manipulate and falsify data and to ”hide the decline”.
This politicized dogma from the UN has always been crap, and they have been exposed on it, such as this item from a major German news magazine:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/feared-migration-hasn-t-happened-un-embarrassed-by-forecast-on-climate-refugees-a-757713.html
We learned in Climategate that the global warmists are charlatans who will manipulate data and suppress scientific opinions that disagree with theirs. This panel is a typical example of the species. And how did we get stuck with Frank Gore-ham, who organized an environmentalist pressure group in his former state of New Mexico and served as an officer of it, appointing this panel. The fox is appointing the guardians of the hen house. McCrory really screwed up in that appointment.
The words of the immediate past president of the Czech Republic, Dr. Vaclav Klaus, come to mind, when he described the global warmists as ”a budding totalitarian ideology that is the greatest threat to freedom, democracy, and prosperity in the world today”.
Unrecognized, by most, this mindset of weather kooks are aiding and abetting the teachings of Karl Marx. That being to rid the coastline of human habitation.
There is an island chain in the Pacific Ocean that the Global Warmists have used as an example of a country they have long claimed was in danger of going underwater from ”Sea Level Rise” due to ”Global Warming”. A group of scientists decided to examine that in detail using aerial photography from the WWII era with aerial photography of today. What they discovered was that instead of getting smaller, most of the islands has actually grown in size during that time.
The article on the study was in one of the British papers, The Telegraph if memory serves. I will try to find a link to it, as it shows the absolute foolishness of what this NC panel is purporting to do.
The Coastal Resources Commission asked the Science Panel to consider empirical data from the North Carolina Coast , not just UN Climate Change Computer Models and information from far-off Greenland and Antarctica, in considering their report on Sea Level.
On Thursday a Science Panel member wrote that recent FEMA funded LiDAR mapping of Base Flood Elevations in Dare county showing Real World Sea Level trends, were “Irrelevant” to the Science Panel’s considerations.
Shocking.
Not only does this ignore the CRC’s request that the Science Panel consider Real World data, but it also contravenes and impugns honest science.
Bill Price Pine Knoll Shores
It is the fault of Frank Gore-ham that these ideological hacks dominate this panel, as he refused to balance it, and it is the fault of Governor McCrory that Frank Gore-ham, who has been an organizer and officer of an environmental pressure group, is in a position to control who is on this panel. These appointments are more what one would expect from Barack ”Papa Doc” Obama.
Seems like you all are missing the real issue here. Why are our tax dollars being used to study this? Looks like our tax dollars are being used to offset someone else’s expenses. The insurance companies who will use this information to set their rates should be paying for this. Homeowners can choose the best performing insurance companies in the free market. Zoning commissions should quit trying to figure out what coastal property will be repossessed (or released) by the ocean and focus on the real role of zoning which is how the property is used.
If an individual builds a home or business on the coast, that individual alone should assume the risk. That individual should also bear the cleanup responsibility if the ocean takes a structure and there is a significant environmental insult. They can mitigate these risks through the purchase of insurance if they wish. Tax dollars should not be used to protect his/her investment or offset his/her responsibilities.
The NC Division of Coastal Management will not solve the global warming political debate no matter what conclusions they come up with.