The Sun Rises in the East Because: Global Warming!

I was getting the kids a haircut today.  While waiting I came across one of the most incredible stories I’ve ever seen.

See, a reporter got a “scoop”, or whatever it it’s called when an idea for a story pops into your head, went down to investigate the same story, gathered facts, typed up a report and then MADE UP A CONCLUSION.

Serious.

The whole story talks about the facts of the situation and the reporter, Leslie Kaufman, simply made up her own conclusions.  And this is the NY Times.

So, when you look at the title of the article, you immediately resonate with a community that is facing the angry oceans:

Front-Line City in Virginia Tackles Rise in Sea

My God!  They are courageous.  And it just gets worse for our hero’s:

NORFOLK, Va. — In this section of the Larchmont neighborhood, built in a sharp “u” around a bay off the Lafayette River, residents pay close attention to the lunar calendar, much as other suburbanites might attend to the daily flow of commuter traffic.

If the moon is going to be full the night before Hazel Peck needs her car, for example, she parks it on a parallel block, away from the river. The next morning, she walks through a neighbor’s backyard to avoid the two-to-three-foot-deep puddle that routinely accumulates on her street after high tides.

For Ms. Peck and her neighbors, it is the only way to live with the encroaching sea.

As sea levels rise, tidal flooding is increasingly disrupting life here and all along the East Coast, a development many climate scientists link to global warming.

Let’s review.

1. In Norfolk, VA residents have to be aware of the lunar cycles that impact the tides.  Especially dangerous is the full moon as the tide is high.
2. The sea is encroaching.
3. The sea level is rising.
4. Tidal flooding is occurring, disrupting life for the residents.
5. Many scientists link this to Global Warming.

Let’s see if Leslie’s crack reporting gives us any insight into the situation:

But Norfolk is worse off. Situated just west of the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, it is bordered on three sides by water, including several rivers, like the Lafayette, that are actually long tidal streams that feed into the bay and eventually the ocean.

Like many other cities, Norfolk was built on filled-in marsh. Now that fill is settling and compacting. In addition, the city is in an area where significant natural sinking of land is occurring. The result is that Norfolk has experienced the highest relative increase in sea level on the East Coast — 14.5 inches since 1930, according to readings by the Sewells Point naval station here.

Holy SHIT!

We are all, every last one of us, facing a catastrophe that is of such a magnitude that we need to pass massively destructive economic laws.  We must take wealth created by one society and give it to others.  We have to DO SOMETHING!

Oh.  Oh wait.

That’s not at ALL what Leslie reported.

Let’s review:

1. Norfolk is border on three sides by water.
2. One of those water bodies is actually a tidal stream that is impacted by the tide.
3. Norfolk is built on a marsh.
4. In order to build Norfolk, they had to use fill.
5. Now that fill is settling and compacting.
6. The city is in an area where significant natural sinking of land is occurring.

So, the intrepid reporter seems to have done some decent investigating.  We have a TON of facts.  And after reading ’em, I’m lead to and nearly convinced of the conclusion.  It would seem that Leslie is too:

Norfolk has experienced the highest relative increase in sea level on the East Coast — 14.5 inches since 1930

Check that out.  She wants us to believe that the sea rises along coastal areas asymmetrically.  That is, Global Warming is worse in Norfolk than in say, New York, or Boston, or Wilmington.

The rest of the story speaks about people who think that the reason they are being flooded is that the sea is rising.  Never occurs to them to read Leslie’s piece and discover that they are sinking.  predictably, the debate between these morons city leaders, is asinine and gave me the shakes.

Global Warming.

Jeepers.