. . . just ill-advised.
A recent blog posting on SciAm states that North Carolina has declared sea-level rise to be illegal.
This could potentially be a brilliant solution, depending on your political persuasion and/or view of reality. Perhaps they can do the same for global warming.
Upon closer inspection of the legislation states something different.
(sourced from here)
It looks here like the legislation limits who can make projections about rising sea levels. Not that this isn't a serious issue--as it is possible that the "Division of Coastal Management", being a political body will provide sea level estimates that satisfy its client--but this is a far cry from declaring sea level to be illegal.
The legislation also limits the kind of projections which can be made. Never mind what the data may show, extrapolations have to be linear.
The penalty for such foolishness will be under-insured, ill-advised construction projects in soon-to-be-inundated coasts. The cure would normally be to make the General Assembly responsible--but that seems a little unfair as the penalties would simply be paid by the taxpayers of the state. Dumping the mess into the hands of the insurance companies could work--they at least have a lobby that might push the government to do the right thing (something the taxpayers lack), although they, too, would probably just get bailed out by the taxpayers.
No, the taxpayers are simply going to have to break out the torches and pitchforks.
A recent blog posting on SciAm states that North Carolina has declared sea-level rise to be illegal.
This could potentially be a brilliant solution, depending on your political persuasion and/or view of reality. Perhaps they can do the same for global warming.
Upon closer inspection of the legislation states something different.
(sourced from here)
It looks here like the legislation limits who can make projections about rising sea levels. Not that this isn't a serious issue--as it is possible that the "Division of Coastal Management", being a political body will provide sea level estimates that satisfy its client--but this is a far cry from declaring sea level to be illegal.
The legislation also limits the kind of projections which can be made. Never mind what the data may show, extrapolations have to be linear.
The penalty for such foolishness will be under-insured, ill-advised construction projects in soon-to-be-inundated coasts. The cure would normally be to make the General Assembly responsible--but that seems a little unfair as the penalties would simply be paid by the taxpayers of the state. Dumping the mess into the hands of the insurance companies could work--they at least have a lobby that might push the government to do the right thing (something the taxpayers lack), although they, too, would probably just get bailed out by the taxpayers.
No, the taxpayers are simply going to have to break out the torches and pitchforks.
This sounds like the precursor to the type of government stifling of inconvenient realities that we saw in Argentina recently when that government prosecuted those who reported inflation rates other than the official ones.
ReplyDeleteIt seems truth is the first casualty in more situations than simply war.