Legislative proposal would actually tell scientists which data they can and can’t consider on rising sea levels

Since as far back as the Scopes Trial (and probably even Galileo), the debate over science has been at the crux of numerous political and cultural conflicts between progressives and conservatives. For a variety of reasons – fear, greed, ignorance and religious orthodoxy to name just a few – many (but certainly not all) conservatives have frequently resisted science and the advances it has brought about in comprehending the universe and our place in it.

Whether it’s modern day religious fundamentalists who claim that dinosaurs and humans once roamed the earth together or conspiracy kooks who remain convinced that fluoridation and vaccines are monstrous Communist plots, head-in-the-sand beliefs and attitudes are hard to eradicate. Still, despite the frequency with which this phenomenon continues to rear its head, it’s always a bit of a shock for caring and thinking people to confront it face to face.

Sadly, North Carolina has recently become the home to yet another and example of this frustrating phenomenon and it is one that will make your head spin: It concerns the matter of the sea level rise that can be expected to occur in coming decades along the North Carolina coast and a disturbing effort by conservative ideologues to deny and hide the truth and forbid honest scientific inquiry.

Measuring our rising seas

As most people who pay attention to the news are aware, the earth’s atmosphere is gradually warming. As a result, sea levels are rising slowly but measurably as ocean ice melts and ocean water heats and expands. For a state like North Carolina, with a huge coast line and large sounds, this has obvious and serious implications.

Given this hard reality and the huge importance of coastal areas to the people who live there and the rest of North Carolina, smart people in and around state and local government made the common sense decision that to try and get a handle on the facts surrounding the matter. To do this, the state Coastal Resources Commission empowered a panel of scientists to study the matter and make findings.

Two years ago, the Science Panel (which included an impressive combination of respected university professors, former and current members of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other experts) presented a document entitled “North Carolina Sea-Level Rise Assessment Report.” The report looked at a wide variety of data and predictions and concluded that the best estimate of sea level rise between now and the end of the century is around one meter (39 inches). Here’s how the report puts it:

“The research concluded that a range of 0.80 meter to 2 meters is a more plausible range than the figures presented by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. A 2-meter rise is considered very unlikely, but still possible, and could only occur with rapidly accelerated and very high rates of warming and ice sheet melting. 12

A one meter (39 inch rise) is considered likely in that it only requires that the linear relationship between temperature and sea level that was noted in the 20th century remains valid for the 21st century (Rahmstorf, 2007). This level of rise is consistently encapsulated within all of the projections reviewed, and is not located at the upper or lower extremes of the projections. Given the range of possible rise scenarios and their associated levels of plausibility, the Science Panel recommends that a rise of 1 meter (39 inches) be adopted as the amount of anticipated rise by 2100, for policy development and planning purposes.”

Now note that the panel wasn’t dogmatic, confrontational or ideological about its conclusions. The final words of the report put it this way:

“Predicting sea level rise in North Carolina for the next century is now and will be for an extended period, an inexact exact science. Immediate actions should be guided by what we know best, the historical sea level and storm records combined with reasonable safety factors. With improvements in data collection, climate science and modeling, sea level decadal to century-scale predictions should improve in the future. The Panel recommends a general reassessment of the planning predictions every five years or more frequently should any significant breakthroughs develop.”

In other words, the panel did what all good scientists do. It looked at the data and presented its best assessment with a caveat that constant reexamination of the facts and date would be important going forward. Its findings were also consistent with findings emerging around the world in a wide variety of scientific studies.

Running afoul of the global warming deniers

Though the Science Panel’s findings were possessed of obvious validity and critical importance to North Carolina’s future, they had one huge shortcoming: they didn’t comport with the desires and beliefs of global warming deniers on the ideological right – especially a group of such people who had in recent years taken control of a coastal economic development coalition known as NC-20.

NC-20 is a private nonprofit made up of county managers and volunteers that is dedicated to promoting economic development in 20 coastal counties. Unfortunately, NC-20 has also fallen under the sway of one of the nation’s most active global warning deniers – a real estate broker, long-retired aerospace industry employee from New York and self-appointed climate expert who owns property along the coast named John Droz. Droz, who is listed on the NC-20 website as the group’s “Science Advisor,” recently drew international attention for his role in a secret, corporate-funded “subversion” effort to foment opposition to wind energy. NC-20 contends that there is no acceleration whatsoever underway in sea-level rise.

At Droz’ urging, NC-20 went to war against the Science Panel’s findings and recommendations. According to the group’s own website, the group launched a military-like lobbying effort against the report and prevailed upon the Coastal Resources Commission to have the report’s recommendation effectively quashed.

Legislating against science

Unfortunately, merely blocking the Science Panel’s report wasn’t enough for NC-20. With the return of the Republican-controlled General Assembly for the 2012 legislative session, NC-20 is attempting to take the offensive and affirmatively dictate to the state exactly which science data it may consider in making sea-level rise predictions – namely the data approved by people like John Droz.

In recent days, General Assembly staff was directed by conservative lawmakers to develop a bill that would actually tell the Science Panel how to do its job. As summarized by journalist Kirk Ross in a recent article for the online newsletter of the N.C. Coastal Federation:

“The proposed bill would limit forecasts for future sea-level rise to what the ocean along the N.C. coast did last century. Using that standard, the state would plan for rise of about 12 inches by 2100.

Determining the rate would fall to the N.C. Division of Coastal Management. Language in the bill says the rates ‘shall be limited to the time period following the year 1900’ and that ‘(R)ates of sea-level rise may be extrapolated linearly to estimate future rates of rise but shall not include scenarios of accelerated rates of sea-level rise.’”

You got that? An economic development group with an obvious self-interest in assuring that large tracts of land remain available for development and are not included by planners in potential flood areas (a group that relies on the “expertise” of one of the nation’s most notorious global warming deniers), is advancing a bill to tell a group of respected, credentialed scientists and engineers the data that they’re allowed to examine and use in planning for one of the most important environmental issues to ever confront our state! It’s simply amazing.

Going forward

Earlier this week, the anti-science directive – which was prepared as an amendment to an unrelated measure that’s already passed the House and that resides in the Senate Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee – was scheduled to be heard today, Thursday May 17. Subsequently, the meeting was cancelled and, presumably, rescheduled for next week.

In the days to come it will be morbidly fascinating to see if the anti-science forces are able to prevail. If they do, we can rest assured that somewhere the persecutors of John Scopes and Galileo Galilei will be smiling.

In a perfect world, this would be the legislative session where the leaders of the Republican General Assembly would take a break from their extremist agenda of the last 16 months and focus on the state’s actual problems instead of their narrow ideological pursuits.

They’d open up the budget process that has been conducted in secret in the last several weeks, and take an honest look at Governor Bev Perdue’s proposal to raise the sales tax to restore some of the devastating cuts to education they made last year and to replace disappearing federal funding for education that has kept 5,000 teachers in the classroom.

They’d spend some time with the proposal by the coalition Together NC to raise more revenue than Perdue’s sales tax increase by also adding a new tax bracket on millionaires to fund a restoration of the damaging cuts to human services, environmental protections and the criminal justice system. The proposal also calls for an increase in the state Earned Income Tax Credit to offset the regressive nature of the sales tax.

If the stars were aligned, lawmakers would take their time with this budget, their primary task this summer, and stop their attempts to make it harder for people to vote and easier for gas companies to drill .

They would work with Gov Perdue to respond to the federal government’s ruling that the state is improperly warehousing people mental illness in rest homes instead of providing services for them in their communities.

They’d recognize the racial bias that infects our capital punishment system and give up their plans to try to repeal the Racial Justice Act and instead spend time working on the bipartisan consensus developing around programs to help ex-offenders reenter society.

They would come to their senses and rethink the agreement to allow live dealer gambling at the Cherokee casino in return for a share of the profits, further tying the level of funding for public schools to how much people gamble, a disturbing practice that began with the predatory state lottery.

And they would step in and stop the transfer of public school dollars to out of state for-profit virtual charter school companies set to begin this fall and instead find a way to restore funding for programs like NCPreK and Smart Start that give at-risk kids a better chance to succeed.

If this were indeed that perfect world, lawmakers would reinstate important and popular programs they abolished last year like the N.C. Teaching Fellows and the state drugs courts.

They certainly would rethink their assault on women’s privacy and reproductive rights.

If lawmakers were guided by facts and compassion, they would creatively address the state’s debt to the federal government for unemployment insurance without cutting benefits to workers or making broad generalizations from sketchy claims about fraud.

They would abandon the insane idea of allowing loaded guns in bars or allowing finance companies to jack up the interest rates on emergency loans to members of the military and struggling families.

There’s more that would happen in a perfect world this summer at the General Assembly if reason and responsibility prevailed over right-wing ideology, but all that would be a good start.

The chances of it actually happening—less than the proverbial snowball’s.

But a guy can dream.

Location! Location! Location! One of the first rules of creating a successful business is ensuring that it is located in the proper place. While it is, for many reasons, unwise to compare schools to private businesses, location can also mean a tremendous amount in the quality of education a student receives.

The renewed “neighborhood schools” movement is troubling. In the 1970s, the “freedom of choice” movement was a backlash to Brown v. Board of Education and integration of schools. In those years, the choice movement was often driven by racial prejudice. This new movement is wrapped in the guise of both protecting children from onerous travel and real estate values.

What the neighborhood schools movement does not take into account or willfully avoids is the issue of segregated housing patterns. There are obviously wealthier areas of the state than others. There are also obviously wealthier areas within various school districts. While federal Title I money provides a supplement for poor schools and state funding aids low-wealth districts and disadvantaged students, they do not fill the gap.

As a practical matter, given the housing patterns in North Carolina, a “neighborhood schools” approach basically tells children that because their parents are poor, they are not worthy of a high quality education. Because of the way the state funds schools, wealthier districts get more resources and more experienced teachers. And schools with more resources generally have higher success – at least with respect to standardized test scores.

Recent studies show that integrated schools narrow the racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps. Last year, a Century Foundation report entitled “Housing Policy is School Policy” studied an area of Montgomery County, Maryland which uses “inclusionary zoning.” Inclusionary zoning is a system that helps assure that people of different income levels reside in the same neighborhood. The Century Foundation reported that the achievement gap is narrowed in the schools when poorer students learn with their more affluent peers.

A report released by the Brookings Institution also illustrates the importance of integrated housing. The report shows that where there is integrated housing and integrated schools, the achievement gap narrows. The report also studied the Raleigh-Cary area in North Carolina. It found that even where there is not integrated housing, the achievement gap narrows when there is a concerted effort to integrate the schools such as the Wake County assignment policy that promoted socioeconomic integration. The Raleigh-Cary achievement gap is likely to be worse in areas where there are “financial and regulatory barriers” to integration. Sadly, of course, Wake County currently has a confusing school assignment policy, which does not seem to have achievement of low-income students as a high priority.

The bottom line from these studies is clear: If students can only go to school where they live, their access to opportunities is diminished. Defenders of the “neighborhood schools” approach argue that if people are able to afford property in affluent areas and pay more in property taxes they are entitled to benefit and send their children to the high quality schools. The implication of such an argument however, is that it’s “tough luck” for the children who through no fault of their own live in poverty or in areas their parents can afford.

This simply cannot be a fundamental principle of our public education system. Education is not supposed to be just for the affluent; it exists to support the common good.

A child should not be foreclosed from opportunities because they live in a depressed area of foreclosed homes. Children living in public housing should not suffer poor public schools. Poverty is not a choice even though some see it as an aspect of the sin of sloth. Even if one believes the ridiculous proposition that people are responsible for their own poverty, they surely cannot believe the children should also suffer.

North Carolina counties should consider inclusionary zoning to encourage better neighborhoods and more diverse and successful schools. School districts in the state should also consider assignment policies that create diverse schools, which the research shows lead to high quality schools.

To punish children because of their parents’ poverty is only punishing the entire state. Children should not suffer because of supposed “sins of their father.” The truth is that if we only allow students access to great schools because of their zip code, our entire state will suffer. That, indeed, would be a sin.

Christopher Hill is the Director of the Education and Law Project at the North Carolina Justice Center.

A largely unreported decision made last Tuesday could have a dramatic impact on public education in North Carolina as soon as this fall, diverting millions of dollars from local school systems to a shady out-of-state corporation and opening the door to the next stage of dismantling traditional public schools.

The ruling by Administrative Law Judge Beecher Gray paves the way for a non-profit run by the company K-12 Inc. to open an online charter school in North Carolina in August that’s expected to enroll as many 1,750 students and collect $18 million of funding from traditional public schools with little accountability over how the money is spent.

And that’s just the beginning. K-12 and similar for-profit virtual charter school companies are expanding in states across the county with aggressive marketing campaigns, emboldened by weaker charter school laws passed by conservative state legislatures.

Sarah Ovaska with NC Policy Watch reports that Judge Gray ruled last week that the State Board of Education acted improperly by not considering an application for a charter that K-12, Inc. submitted in February through its nonprofit NC Learns.

Gray ‘s ruling didn’t just order the board to consider the application, it seemed to actually grant the charter to NC Learns to open this fall, much to the delight of its lawyer, Republican state Senator Fletcher Hartsell from Cabarrus County.

Hartsell was instrumental in convincing his local board of education to partner with K-12 and in return the Cabarrus County school system will receive a small percentage of the funding that the company receives for each student.

The state board is expected to appeal the judge’s ruling in Superior Court and the General Assembly could always change the law to stop the profit-making off of North Carolina students, but don’t count on that.

Hartsell is a powerful senator and K-12 employs a battalion of well-connected lobbyists with ties to key Democrats and Republicans. The Republican legislature last year not only completely lifted the cap on the number of charter schools, lawmakers included a provision in a budget bill to allow virtual for-profit schools to operate outside the state virtual public school structure.

Gray’s ruling and the push by out of state for-profit companies to run online charter schools is an extraordinarily important story for two reasons, the spotty record of virtual education overall and the questionable practices of K-12, Inc.

An audit of K12’s virtual charter in Colorado found the state paid $800,000 to the company for students who never enrolled or lived out of state. The company faces a lawsuit charging that company officials misled investors and the public about the quality of education it was offering.

If that’s not enough, a news story about the company’s efforts to set up a virtual school for Tennessee reported that K12 outsourced grading of papers to India until publicity about it forced the company to end the practice.

This is the company that is preparing to collect millions of public dollars in North Carolina with little or no accountability for how the money is used.

Other for-profit companies are also watching the case and the law carefully, ready with their own schemes to make money off of public schools.

North Carolina desperately needs a full and open debate about the wisdom of turning public education into an online profit center and somebody needs to take a long hard look at K-12 too.

That debate and investigation better happen quickly. The dismantling of public schools is about to begin. The cash registers are K-12 are warming up.

New poll shows strong support for election reform and concerns about casino gambling, fracking, hospital practices, repeal of consumer protections and impact of Amendment One.

With state lawmakers returning to Raleightomorrow afternoon to begin the 2012 legislative session, NC Policy Watch is happy to announce the release of the latest edition of its Carolina Issues Poll. This month’s poll quizzed 600 voters throughout the state between May 11 and 13 with respect to their attitudes on a host of timely issues that figure to be on the front burner at the General Assembly in coming weeks. Questions in the poll were developed by Policy Watch staff and then vetted and posed to registered voters by the nationally recognized, Raleigh-based polling firm Public Policy Polling. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4%.

Here are the results:

In keeping with similar results elsewhere, North Carolina votes expressed significant support for moving away from the state’s hyper-partisan legislative redistricting process and strong concerns about the flood of “Super Pac” money that has been inundating the electoral process.

Q1 Under current law, state legislators are responsible for drawing the maps of the districts that they and members of congress represent and in which they stand for election. Do you support or oppose a proposal advanced by election law reform groups that would turn this job over to an independent, nonpartisan commission?

Support ………………………………………………….. 47%

Oppose ………………………………………………….. 27%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 26%

Q2 In 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled that corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals can spend unlimited amounts of money to directly influence the outcome of elections without disclosing it to the public. Since then, more and more candidates are relying upon so-called “Super PACs” funded by such groups and individuals to fund their campaigns. Do you think this is good or bad for our state?

Good idea ………………………………………………. 10%

Bad idea…………………………………………………. 82%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 8%

Another issue that the General Assembly seems likely to consider during the short session is gambling. According to legislative leaders, lawmakers will consider a bill that would ratify an agreement with the Cherokee Tribe to bring casino-style gambling to the Western North Carolina. A proposal to deal with the state’s ongoing controversy surrounding video poker and “sweepstakes” machines may also be on the table. On these issues, voters have real concerns.

Q3 North Carolina has long prohibited casino-style gambling with live dealers in the state. Large, out-of-state gambling corporations would like to change this, however, and are lobbying state officials and the Cherokee tribe to introduce casino gambling for the first time. Do you support or oppose the introduction of casino-style gambling?

Support ………………………………………………….. 38%

Oppose ………………………………………………….. 53%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 9%

Q4 Another controversy related to gambling centers around the video poker and so-called “sweepstakes” machines. Do you think the state should or should not be able to ban such machines in order to protect public health and safety?

NC should be able to ban them …………………. 55%

NC should not …………………………………………. 37%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 9%

A major controversy that has arisen in North Carolina policy circles in recent weeks concerns the issue of nonprofit hospital practices. A week-long series of reports coauthored by reporters for Raleigh’s News & Observer and the Charlotte Observer revealed, among other things, that many large, nonprofit hospitals with charity care policies have not informed their patients of the existence of these policies. Many have also continued to use aggressive debt collection practices in pursuing old debts, including placing liens on people’s homes. The new poll shows that voters strongly disapprove of both practices.

Q5 Currently, every nonprofit hospital inNorth Carolina has a policy that spells out who is entitled to free or reduced-price care if they are too poor to pay their bill. Many of these hospitals, however, do not inform all patients of these policies. Do you think that hospitals should be required to inform all patients of their policies for free and reduced-price care, or not?

Hospitals should be required to inform all patients of their policies for free and reduced price care……………………………………………………….81%

They should not …………………………………….. 12%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 7%

Q6 Current law allows hospitals to place liens on the homes of people who are unable to pay their hospital bills. This can make it impossible for the homeowner to sell or refinance, and can lead to foreclosure. Do you think hospitals should be able to place liens on the homes of people who are unable to pay their hospital bills, or not?

Hospitals should be able to……………………….. 14%

They should not ………………………………………. 77%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 9%

On another timely health care issue, voters of all stripes voiced strong support for retaining two key components of the Affordable Care Act – the federal health care reform law sometimes referred to as “Obamacare.”

Q7 Under the federal health care reform law known as the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, and parents may enroll their children in their family coverage until they reach age 26. Opponents of the law want to repeal these protections. Do you think these protections should be repealed, or not?

They should be repealed ………………………….. 24%

They should not ………………………………………. 65%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 11%

Last year in the General Assembly, industry lobbyists succeeding in advancing a bill though the House of Representatives that would repeal key provisions of a 2010 law known as the Homeowner and Homebuyer Protection Act. The bill, which is pending in the Senate, would severely limit protections against abusive practices found in foreclosure “rescue,” “lease with option to buy” and “contract for deed” transactions. Voters have grave concern about repealing these consumer protections.

Q8 In 2010,North Carolina adopted new laws designed to protect vulnerable homebuyers and homeowners from businesses who convince people to sign over the titles to their homes without any upfront payments. Businesses engaged in this industry claim the rules are too burdensome are now lobbying state lawmakers to repeal these consumer protections. Do you think these protections should be repealed, or not?

They should be repealed ………………………….. 17%

They should not ………………………………………. 55%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 28%

Yet another issue likely to be taken up by lawmakers in the coming weeks is fracking – the controversial procedure under which water and chemicals are injected underground to free up natural gas deposits. Here again, voters support a cautious approach.

Q9 Fracking is a controversial practice in which large amounts of water and chemicals are pumped underground under high pressure to unlock natural gas deposits. Opponents worry about a number of serious potential impacts on nearby communities and the environment. Supporters say these concerns are overblown. Do you thinkNorth Carolina should legalize fracking now or wait for more health and safety studies before proceeding?

NC should legalize fracking now………………… 31%

NC should wait for more health and safety studies………….63%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 6%

Finally, in the aftermath of the recent passage of a state constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, there is new evidence that voters failed to understand the full impact of their action. When asked whether they thought it a good change that cities providing health insurance coverage to unmarried couples would likely have to halt the practice, a narrow plurality sad “no.” This result stands in sharp contrast to the final 61-39 approval that the measure received at the polls.

Q10 Now thatNorth Carolina has adopted a constitutional amendment banning state recognition of “any domestic legal union” other than a marriage between a man and a woman, employees of some cities may no longer be able to get health insurance coverage for their unmarried partners. Do you think this is a good change or a bad one?

Good change ………………………………………….. 43%

Bad change…………………………………………….. 44%

Not sure …………………………………………………. 13% 

To read the entire poll, as well as the crosstabs, click here.