Past sea lev­els and future pro­jec­tions. (Source: EPA)

North Car­olina may decide to deny global warm­ing sci­ence in a big way.

A new state law in the works would require esti­mates of com­ing sea level change to be based on his­tor­i­cal changes from the past, ignor­ing sci­en­tific stud­ies which indi­cate how lev­els are actu­ally likely to rise in the future.

A state-​​appointed sci­ence panel pro­jected that the sea level off the coast of North Car­olina may rise as much as a meter by the year 2100. The state leg­is­la­ture appar­ently didn’t like this idea, because it would affect coastal com­mu­ni­ties, tourism, most of the big cities in North Car­olina, and much of the state’s indus­try. Plus, it is con­trary to con­ser­v­a­tive ide­ol­ogy, which holds that global warm­ing doesn’t exist — but things wouldn’t be incon­ve­nient if it did — and it shouldn’t elicit any action on the part of humans in any case. (more…)