How I "Made Sea Level Rise Go Away"!

A short story behind the story

Some readers may be surprised that I’m more than a pretty face. Through persistence, invaluable help from allies, and dumb luck, I’ve had some influence on a wide variety of issues, on local, state, and national levels. A reward for this is that I’ve been repeatedly targeted by anti-science, anti-citizen, anti-American parties.

What’s interesting, is that none of the targeting involves an accurate recounting of the relevant facts. This is a short summary about such a recent case. This example is about a major state’s legislative process, where I was a player. The scene is 2012, and North Carolina legislation about Sea Level Rise (SLR) had just became law.

Once that happened, the S hit the fan, as alarmists were outraged that Real Science took precedence over their political science. The “audacity” of our NC law became national news — even warranting a major hit piece by Colbert on late-night TV!

There are two major sagas here: 1) how this law came about, and 2) what happened after it was passed. Part one is a fascinating tale, but it is too long to cover today. If I get inspired (and have the time), I may write about that in a future episode.

Re #2, a LOT happened after the law was passed, and this commentary is about just one interesting part — where I again became a target (because I was instrumental in the NC SLR law being written and passed).

I’m writing about this now as Left-wing alarmists continue to bring this up. For example, this lengthy hit piece appeared March 12, 2024. It attempts to tag me on a few different matters, but my Teflon shield ensures me that none of them will stick, any more than their slings and arrows have in the past. (BTW, the author here, Ms. Burns, did not contact me, so there is not even a pretension of any fact verifications.)

As part of her ammunition to discredit me, she referenced this well-known article in Scientific American (September 2013):

The first thought that comes to mind is “one lies and the other swears to it.” In any case, today’s brief commentary is about how that article came about…

In early 2013, I received a phone call from a contract journalist, who I did not know. He said that he had been hired to do an in-depth report about my role in bringing about this unique North Carolina SLR law. I asked him several questions and he seemed to be on the up-and-up. He requested an in-person interview.

Since he was three hours away in Raleigh, I invited him to come and visit us on the coast, promising that we would provide a very good lunch. A week or so later he did come and we had a cordial and productive four-hour session (including a superb home-made lunch). I requested that he send me a draft of what he was proposing, so that we could discuss any factual errors. He agreed to do that. Things were going well!

A week or so later he sent me the draft of his report. I thought that he had written an interesting, accurate, and informative story about my involvement with this NC law. I suggested a few minor edits, which he agreed to make. Still going OK!

A few weeks later he contacted me with the news that his editor had rejected his submission! I asked why and he said that the editor didn’t think that it was controversial enough… Hmmm, so for an article about what happened, the facts are not what will be reported… I asked him what he was going to do, and he said that he wouldn’t get paid unless he scrapped what he had written and started over…

So what eventually got published was version #2, where he injected things he knew were not accurate, just to make the editor happy. (For example, he wrote that I “spends much of his time quietly and effectively plying the halls of power in Raleigh…”) The reality is that I go to Raleigh about once every 3 years, and stay for just a few hours. He also did not send me any drafts of version #2 to comment on.

Fortunately, the article still has some remnants of truth in it — which is a credit to the journalist. In many cases (e.g., with Ms. Burns) we are not dealing with writers whose goal is to be objective and factual, but rather activists promoting undeclared agendas, posing as journalists.

It’s fascinating that the media continues to bring up matters where I was successful over ten years ago. Don’t they realize that it’s embarrassing to them to refresh people’s memory about their past failures? (E.g., despite all their alarmist rhetoric about the NC SLR bill, here we are 12+ years later, and what harm has it caused? None!)

Since the Left is generally adept at PR, it would seem that they would realize that they should move on. Yet they don’t!

What they are EXTREMELY concerned about (and they can’t help themselves) is that there will be more educated, critical-thinking citizens. That is the single greatest threat to their plans to promote unscientific, anti-American ideology.

Towards that end, take much of what you read in mainstream media about Science-related matters, with a very heavy dose of salt.

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Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:

My Substack Commentaries for 2023 (arranged by topic)

Check out the chronological Archives of my entire Critical Thinking substack.

WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.

C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.

Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.

Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2023 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?

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