Virginia Waters Down Report On Impacts Of Climate Change After Tea Party Complaints

[ProSense]

Virginia Waters Down Report On Impacts Of Climate Change After Tea Party Complaints

By Rebecca Leber

Earlier this year, Virginia’s legislature commissioned a study to determine the impacts of climate change on the state’s shores. After Tea Party complaints, lawmakers approved the report on condition it strike the words “climate change” and “sea level rise” from the title.

This week, Virginia released its analysis, under the title “Recurrent Flooding Study for Tidewater Virginia.” The report discusses the threat of flooding and rising sea levels to coastal Virginia, but gives less notice to the causes of climate change.

State Delegate Chris Stolle (R), a climate denier himself, deemed terms like “sea level rise” “liberal code words” and insisted on cutting them from the report’s description. The Virginia Tea Party originally slammed the study as “more ridiculous studies designed to separate us from our money and control all land and water use.”

The science backing climate change is noncontroversial. Even the modified report recognizes the reality of the changing climate:

Sea level rise in Virginia is a documented fact. Water levels in Hampton Roads have risen more than one foot over the past 80 years. The causes of this rise are well understood and current analyses suggest the rate of rise is increasing.

- more -

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/01/15/1448711/virginia-waters-down-report-on-impacts-of-climate-change-after-tea-party-complaints/

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[Scuba]

1. "Science" is a liberal code word for non-believers! I've heard 'em saying it, right in pubic!

[Downwinder]

2. Let the teabaggers fall off the edge

of their flat earth.

[ProSense]

3. Delete the word

No more reality.

They're nuts, Jim.