This from the Washington Post Study: Warmer seas are rising faster and more along US East Coast than rest of the globe should help debunk the deniers but will it? Here in Mathews County we have hard core deniers who go at it with gusto. The Koch Brothers would be proud of the denial their money is buying among our townspeople. Our Virginia Attorney General spends tax dollars to support the Koch Brothers and the other deniers crusade to suppress the truth. Read on below for details.
Here is what they are finding. Note that their predictions have been exceeded by what is actually happening.
From Cape Hatteras, N.C., to just north of Boston, sea levels are rising much faster than they are around the globe, putting one of the world’s most costly coasts in danger of flooding, government researchers report.
U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990.
Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 2 inches. But in Norfolk, Va., where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, sea level has jumped a total of 4.8 inches, the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 3.7 inches, and in New York City, it was 2.8 inches.
Climate change pushes up sea levels by melting ice sheets in Greenland and west Antarctica, and because warmer water expands.
Computer models long have projected higher levels along parts of the East Coast because of changes in ocean currents from global warming, but this is the first study to show that’s already happened.
By 2100, scientists and computer models estimate that sea levels globally could rise as much as 3.3 feet. The accelerated rate along the East Coast could add about 8 inches to 11 inches more, Sallenger said.
Like so much of our current political "climate" the level of insane thinking among the American people is rising with the waters. The mass psychosis that money is helping spread is more terrifying than the climate events, terrifying as they are. Attacks on local government for even using the words "sea level rise" and associated concepts about Global Warming are not part of any healthy debate. There is a madness among us and it is going to make our ability to govern ourselves very limited. The coming elections will appear to be a battle ground but are they?
The society we live in is being propagandized on many many interlocking levels and there is big money behind it. Once a web of lies has been successfully implanted in the collective consciousness, even those who know they are lies accept them as part of some sort of "debate" and act like they demonstrate how free we are to disagree and talk about it. This misuse of media and democracy is hurting us deeply. Today we mat see SCOTUS exhibit still another example of what we can do to harm our society.
We are a sick people. Our Nation seems to have been damaged beyond repair and this denial movement is merely part of something much larger. I begin to wonder when the brown shirts might appear.
We have lived in our community since 1998. We see even moderate democrats afraid to be identified as such because of the social consequences. Local organizations operate in very clear ways to isolate the "liberals" and make sure they don't get accepted into the cliques. This is one aspect of the mass psychosis that is so disturbing. In a sick society being normal means being sick.
R. D. Liang wrote this poem in the 60s but it is even more real now:
Knots
They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
Update:Here's another diary today:
USGS: East Coast Sea Level Rise Accelerating, Gulf Stream Weakening