Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise

[jimmy olsen]

Lolz, morons. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/virginia-residents-oppose-preparations-for-climate-related-sea-level-rise/2011/12/05/gIQAVRw40O_story.html

Virginia residents oppose preparations for climate-related sea-level rise

By Darryl Fears, Published: December 18

Over his long career as a public planner, Lewis L. Lawrence grew accustomed to the bland formalities of planning commission meetings in Virginia's Middle Peninsula, where forgetting to cover one's mouth while yawning through a lecture was about as rude as people got.

But lately, the meetings have gotten far more exciting — in a bad way, said Lawrence, acting executive director of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. A well-organized and vocal group of residents has taken a keen interest in municipal preparations for sea-level rise caused by climate change, often shouting their opposition, sometimes while planners and politicians are talking.


The residents' opposition has focused on a central point: They don't think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. When planners proposed to rezone land for use as a dike against rising water, these residents, or "new activists," as Lawrence calls them, saw a trick to take their property.

"Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man," said Donna Holt, leader of the Virginia Campaign for Liberty, a tea party affiliate with 7,000 members. "If they can find an end to their means, they don't care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it."

Outside of greater New Orleans, Hampton Roads is at the biggest risk from sea-level rise of any area its size in the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The water has risen so much that Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities high and dry.

The area has historic geological issues. A meteor landed nearby 35 million years ago, creating the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater. And a downward-pressing glacial formation was created during the Ice Age. These ancient events are causing the land to sink, accounting for about one-third of the sea-level change, scientists say.

This geology is lost in local meetings, where distrust of the local and federal governments is at center stage.

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

"My professional credentials have been challenged," said Lawrence, who holds degrees in municipal planning and provides professional and technical planning advice to municipalities throughout the peninsula. He said he has heard whispers behind his back after meetings: "I've been brainwashed. I've been called a dupe for the U.N."

The uprising began at a February meeting about starting a business park for farming oysters in Mathews County, Lawrence and other planners recalled. The program to help restore the Chesapeake Bay oyster population was slated for land owned by the county, but it was shouted down as a useless federal program that would expand the national debt. The proposal was tabled.

[Martinus]

This is the kind of anti-intellectual, neo-luddite attitude that the today's right is gleefully stoking and encouraging, instead of trying to contain it, so we will see more and more of it. It has always been there to a degree, but now thanks to mass communication, this type of moronic vocal minority can effectively grind the democratic process to a halt.

[Richard Hakluyt]

"And a downward-pressing glacial formation was created during the Ice Age. These ancient events are causing the land to sink, accounting for about one-third of the sea-level change, scientists say."



The glacier is now gone so the land should now be rising, I expect this is just a basic error in reporting though.

Ah yes, the glacial limit was, in fact, north of the Chesapeake area; this will have depressed the land covered by the glacier thus raising the land to the south.

We have similar confusions in the UK; Scotland is still rising while the south is sinking. Brighton, for example, lost the South Street area to the sea back in 1400 or so.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I saw this article. Hilarious and sad.

[CountDeMoney]

Let 'em flood.  It's appropriately Biblical enough for them.

[The Larch]

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

The mind boggles... 

[Martinus]

What's funny though is that tards like Tim call these people morons, but end up voting for these morons' enablers.

[Ideologue]

Looks like I'll get to see the camps built after all.

[Neil]

When planners redesignated property as a future flood zone, activists said officials were acting on a hoax. They argued in meetings and on Web sites that local planners are unwitting agents of Agenda 21, a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 that the activists see as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States.

The mind boggles... 

Yeah, anybody who believes in a shadowy conspiracy these days is just a goof.  The UN doesn't exactly keep their wealth redistribution agenda a secret.

[Valmy]

At least they have the decency to say the officials are victims of the conspiracy and not agents of it 

[Tamas]

This is what you get when the moderate right shields the lunatic far-right. They think they can control the mob and use them as fodder and support, but at the end the mob will prevail and the counry, or in the better case the side they are on, will be in ruins.

Leading Republicans need to stand up against idiocies like this one and draw a line. But of course, since the common Republican doesn't appear to mind the Tea Baggers that much, said Republican leaders would lose more votes (the votes of the idiots) standing up against the idiots, than if they keep silent or support them (in which case they lose just about zero).