May 08. 2005 12:00PM
N.C. lawmakers address rising worry over global warming's impact
By MARGARET LILLARD
Associated Press Writer
Imagine a North Carolina stripped of the slender bracelet of the Outer Banks, its eastern farm fields turned to steamy coastland regularly battered by vicious storms.
Some state lawmakers who already have are beginning to worry. And some scientists say there's nothing imaginary about it: Global warming will cause dramatic changes like these, possibly within a hundred years, possibly within a generation.
The scientific community "wouldn't use the word theory for it any more," said William Schlesinger, dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.
That growing acceptance of global warming as more than mere theory has found its way to state government, where lawmakers are considering ways to help slow climate change and are trying to figure out how the state will cope with its effects.
"If what some scientists say is true, it will have tremendous adverse effects on the way we do things, the way we grow crops. ... If the water rises 16 inches on the beach, that would be devastating to our coast," said Sen. Charles Albertson, D-Duplin.
He is the primary sponsor of a measure that would create a commission to study the impact of global warming on North Carolina and make recommendations for pollution reduction and develop a climate action plan. Other bills also call for study, or attempt to address the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.
Scientists say global warming is caused by those gases - chiefly carbon dioxide - trapping energy in the atmosphere. The resulting rise in temperatures will lead to higher ocean levels, more intense storms and shifting climate zones, potentially making farmlands drier and deserts wetter.
Average atmospheric temperatures rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N.-organized network of scientists, said computer modeling predicts temperatures rising between 2.5 degrees and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.
In North Carolina, studies prepared for the nonprofit environmental group NC Warn predict that by 2100, average statewide temperatures will rise by 3 degrees to 13 degrees, precipitation will increase 5 percent to 25 percent, sea levels with rise between 10 and 27 inches, and hurricane intensity will increase by 10 percent to 30 percent.
Severe erosion could devastate the Outer Banks and the river estuary areas of the inland east as ocean levels rise and storms become more common. Even without the impact of rising sea levels, it's the nature of the Outer Banks to change - disappearing and reforming.
"If Christopher Columbus had come down here in the 1400s, he would not have found most of those barriers (islands) there," said Stan Riggs, a geology professor at East Carolina University who has extensively studied the state's coastline and estuarine areas.
Though it's hard to visualize the impact of global warming, Albertson said any visitor to the state's west can see the result of belated action on pollution in the form of leafless, dying trees on the mountaintops.
"Looking back at air quality in the mountains, if we'd gotten on that earlier, we could have taken some action," he said.
The commission described in Albertson's bill would include appointees from government, energy companies, agriculture and tourism organizations, environmental groups, and several scientists by name, including Schlesinger and Riggs. The panel would make recommendations by April 1, 2006, on pollution reduction goals that don't hamper economic development and would write a state climate action plan.
"I think this is an important first step but it will only be a first step," Schlesinger said. "It will begin to get us on the right route of thinking and planning, and the serious bites of the problem are yet to come."
Other legislation would take some of those "bites." At least five bills introduced so far would promote the use of alternative vehicle fuels such as electricity, biodiesel or ethanol.
Another measure would order certain state agencies and departments to make annual reports on their plans for coping with the impact of global warming. Sponsor Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said 27 other states - including Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama in the Southeast - have some form of such plans.
Some have created regional alliances to address pollution problems that don't respect state boundaries.
"I think that reality is we're getting such lack of leadership at the federal level, and the states have been taking it on themselves to make some attempts at reducing emissions and also planning," she said.
The debate about global warming at the national level has often focused on the economic impacts of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Schlesinger and others said states can demonstrate how to cope with environmentally conscious change without losing money.
"Solutions need to start locally and we need to see some success stories locally, and show that it can be done without economic problems," Schlesinger said.
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On the Net:
ECU-U.S. Geological Survey-N.C. Geodetic Survey research on coastal erosion:
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