Oh my. I've been waiting for this to happen for almost fifteen years.
Not the "(((they))) are controlling the weather to wipe out Christian Republicans" and all of the other conspiracy shit, no. What I've been waiting for is the storm that would wipe out coastal homes in North Carolina, and I've been waiting since 2012.
Because in 2012, the North Carolina General Assembly passed Replacement House Bill 819, which, being blunt and sarcastic, tried to outlaw sea level rise.
More technically, in order to keep the high valuation of beachside developments and properties from crashing due to the accurate fact-based assessment that they'd be worthless in a few decades due to climate change, as "beachfront property" is worth a lot, but "underwater property" is not...
Well, to keep those properties and investments from having to face that reality of their future residents being shellfish and tidal pools, the General Assembly made it illegal to use science-based models to predict how high sea level change would go over the next century. Instead, they mandated that a simple linear increase based on historical data would be used--saying that the sea level would change by only 8 inches (20 cm) by 2100... instead of the 3 feet (1 meter) that climate science was predicting. That way, all of those pricy developments on the Outer Banks and beachfronts would maintain their high assessed worth... at least until the sea and storms showed up and said to the General Assembly, "What, are you going to arrest the ocean?"
And, just as predicted back in 2012, the insurance companies are taking one look at this and going, "Nuh uh".
As that article I linked up above notes at the close...
In short, HB819 proposes a number of potentially far-reaching changes that may result in unintended consequences for coastal property owners, local governments, insurers, emergency managers and other organizations and agencies.
And now those consequences are here.
