Year 4, Month 1, Day 5: You Only Gave Me Your Invitation

The Delaware News Journal agrees that we have a problem:

Croze is one of the many citizens, scientists, academics, public officials, business owners and environmentalists we’ve interviewed during our six-month investigation on the impact climate change and rising sea levels are having in Delaware.

We pursued this story because it’s clear that Delaware, which is sinking and has the lowest elevation of any state in America, is highly exposed to sea level rise.

We stayed with it because coastal communities demanding government intervention at taxpayer expense is quickly becoming an important public policy debate – one infused with hope for solutions, heartbreaking loss and unsettling predictions that would dramatically change the lifestyle we cherish in a landscape blessed with beaches, tidal estuaries and marshes rich with wildlife.

The overwhelming majority of scientists say climate change is real, as does Gov. Jack Markell and Colin O’Mara, secretary of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

They start to call out the mis-informers, although there is still a bit of false equivalency in the piece. Sent December 30:

As one of the states most vulnerable to rising sea levels, Delaware is a perfect example of the importance of including climate change in debates on state development and sustainability policy. Only by recognizing scientific reality can our lawmakers craft legislation that is more than political theater.

For a counter-example, just look at several other East coast states whose politicians have decided that dramatic posturing is more important than the future of their constituencies. Earlier this year, North Carolina passed a law prohibiting estimates of sea level rise from using anything other than historical climate data, effectively banning measurements that recognize the accelerating global warming which climatologists predict. Such willful ignorance highlights climate change’s importance as an educational challenge as well as an environmental and moral issue. The misinformation propagated by petroleum-funded think tanks and a complaisant media has delayed meaningful action on this issue for far too long.

Warren Senders