We Shoulda Thought of It First

June thru November in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico means it's time to gear up for winds and rain during hurricane season. Our immediate goal is to make it alive and more or less intact through season's end --  preferably without spooking the snow birds and wilting that ever fragile flower, business confidence.

We worry a lot less about longer range threats such as rising sea levels -- even though federal Environmental Protection Agency sponsored researchers predict a one meter (39 inch) rise in the waters around our state by century's end. That sort of permanent storm surge is a long way off. So why worry when it's not even high tide?.

The coastal development business community of North Carolina is more far sighted, however, and they are taking action. Recent accounts in Charlotte newspapers -- and the Internet chatter they inspired -- tell us of their novel way out of this common future danger.

Channeling the legend of King Canute, the Tar Heelers are considering a law forbidding the ocean to rise by more than 15.6 total inches by 2100. Their solution is now before the state legislature.

Can this tale be true? Well, not exactly, but in effect, yes. The core of a bill recently circulated among North Carolina legislators puts one government bureau in charge of sea level predictions and then proceeds to tell it just how to do the math. It may use only the historic trend from 1900 to now.

Do math -- and pass legislation -- this way and you come up with 15.6 inches as the only lawful amount that the waters around you can grow in the next approximately 88 years.

Those pesky scientific models that factor in rising temperatures, declining sea ice, heated and thus expanded waters, melting glaciers and other trends that can cause the rise in sea levels to pick up speed -- in tech-speak to rise exponentially, rather than linearly, in an ever accelerating positive feedback loop -- would be legally available, but must be ignored when computing the official costs of coping with the deluge.

What a nifty way out of our problems!  The principles at work her must immediately be put to work by other coastal states and applied to other problems as well..  Here are more proposals for other useful laws we might enact, some gleaned from helpful Internet blogs commenting on North Carolina's innovative initiative. Readers no doubt can think of other applications. Why agonize over inconvenient truths when we can make them illegal?

1) The value of Pi shall be exactly the whole number 3.  Why suffer irrationality in mumbers?

2) The Beginning shall be deemed to have begun in 4004 B.C.  What other calenders?

3) While natural selection is just a theory, artificial selection shall be a lawful explaination for what 4-H clubs exhibit at the state's fairs.  What about those kids!?

4) By official count Man shall have one less rib than Woman.  Why count when you have read The Word?

As a 12th century tale teller told it, King Canute in regal robes, carrying his septre and wearing his crown, sat on his throne placed by the sea and commanded the tide not to come in. It did. He got his feet wet, and it is said that he was humbled by the result of his scientific experiment.  Humility often  follows an excess of hubris.


References:

1. Charlotte Observer, May 28, 2012. By Bruce Henderson

2. Scientific American Blog post and commentaries, May 30, 2012. By Scott Huler

3. The Likelihood of Shore Protection, Volume 2, East Central Florida, Feb 2010. By Tara McCue for the EPA.