Warning: Not Water Proof

Long-range projections suggest that by the end of this century large swaths of coastal land in North Carolina will be under the Atlantic. Sea levels are predicted to rise anywhere from 16 inches to three feet.

The report, "Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region," was prepared by the (Bush administration's) Environmental Protection Agency.

Rising sea levels might be especially disastrous to North Carolina, as some sections of the coast are slowly sinking, magnifying the effects of rising seas.

Tide-gauge readings in the mid-Atlantic indicate that relative sea-level rise (the combination of rising waters and sinking land) was generally higher -- by about a foot -- than the global average during the 20th century.

Apparently, the truth isn't debatable that sea-level is rising:

"Whether sea level is rising is not something scientists argue about it," [one of the report's authors] said. "It is. It's different than an argument about whether humans are causing global warming. We have directly measured an acceleration ... over the last two decades."

Are local governments going to institute planning decisions to accommodate these predictions? Not bloody likely. No more than mountain counties are going to plan for avoiding catastrophic landslides on steep slopes.