Richard G. Little: No practical approach to climate change in N.C.

As noted in the Oct. 2 Sunday’s Focus article “Dutch ideas could save the East Coast from drowning,” there are proven approaches for dealing with rising sea levels.

From a technical standpoint, this is not the equivalent of colonizing Mars; we know what to do, the real question is how to do it.

In a normal world, this is what we elect decision makers to do. However, as Orrin H. Pilkey noted in his Oct. 1 Point of View “The politics of sea-level rise,” things in North Carolina are far from normal.

Rather than looking for practical and comprehensive approaches that could be adapted as the situation evolves in the coming decades, North Carolina’s legislators have chosen to decree that the problem doesn’t really exist – a head-in-the-sand stance that will only pass a far more intractable problem on to future generations. Perhaps if they devoted less energy to who used which restroom they might be able to spend some time on a real problem.

This story was originally published October 8, 2016 at 6:00 PM with the headline "Richard G. Little: No practical approach to climate change in N.C.."