AL Legislators Refuse To Authorize Sea Level Studies, Even Mentioning "Climate" In Planning Process
When Kevin Harrison warns Alabama lawmakers about rising seawater that government scientists project will swamp the state’s bridges, ports, and highways in coming decades, he’s careful to avoid the words “climate change.” There are “naysayers about that particular topic,” says Harrison, transportation director of the South Alabama Regional Planning Commission. Instead he points to weather models showing an increase in the frequency of hurricanes and floods but sidesteps the touchy subject of what causes them.
Even as the federal government’s new National Climate Assessment cautions that storm surges may one day leave coastal communities such as Mobile under as much as 25 feet of water, state leaders persist in saying global warming is a sham and resist spending money to prepare for it. Trip Pittman, a Republican state senator who represents Baldwin County on the east side of Mobile Bay, calls federal research on climate change “bad science” and “fear-mongering.” Spending millions based on such predictions doesn’t make sense, he says. “What are the costs of us going on these crusades, these environmental crusades?” says Pittman. “We’ve elevated environmentalism into some kind of religion.”
EDIT
It’s unclear how Alabama can best protect itself from rising water, because the state hasn’t authorized a study of possible solutions such as levees or storm water drainage systems. The Transportation Department study is expected to include recommendations. In the meantime, Harrison says he’ll add millions of dollars to his next budget request to begin raising or reinforcing vulnerable bridges and roads. That money may be hard to come by. As chairman of the state senate’s education budget committee, Pittman directed money to the University of Alabama in Huntsville to fund research by John Christy, a climate scientist who has testified before Congress denouncing claims of man-made climate change. Christy, who is also Alabama’s official climatologist, says it isn’t worth fretting over. “We count the tornadoes, we count hurricanes,” he says. “None of those are increasing. Floods are not increasing.” Governor Robert Bentley, who didn’t respond to requests for comment, hasn’t taken a strong position on climate change, allowing the majority of legislators who deny it’s a problem to take the lead on the issue.
Alabama’s politicians can question the existence of climate change, but they won’t be able to avoid its effects, says Ben Raines, executive director of Weeks Bay Foundation, a conservation group in Baldwin County. “People here are already dealing with a more extreme climate and with sea levels that are on the rise inundating properties more and more frequently,” he says, citing flash flooding and tornadoes that ravaged the state in April. Politicians “are just going to have to deal with it, whether they like to or not.” Tropical storms in 2009 and 2011 caused extensive damage. Since then, shoreline erosion and flooding have intensified.
EDIT
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-22/alabamas-climate-change-deniers-refuse-to-save-the-state
= new reply since forum marked as read
