North Carolina's Outer Banks 'Ban' Rising Seas

By Dominic Waghorn, US Correspondent, Washington

Politicians in the United States have been accused of trying to make rising sea levels illegal.

When scientists in North Carolina predicted global warming will cause a rise of at least a metre by the end of the century in the seas off the Outer Banks it caused uproar among businesses and property owners.

The Banks are a 200-mile (320-km) long, narrow and very low-lying spit of land stretching into the Atlantic Ocean. 

They are hugely popular with holidaymakers and hugely vulnerable to global warming.

Willo Kelly says the science on the sea-level rise was biased

A metre's sea rise would inundate most of it. Just the possibility of it happening is a threat to property values. 

Householders, developers and the real estate industry pressured the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly to introduce a new law saying the 100-year prediction should be ignored and making it illegal to use it for planning purposes in the Outer Banks.

More condemned notices will appear in future, say environmentalists

Willo Kelly led the NC-20 consortium of local businesses lobbying government on the issue. 

She insists they were motivated by concerns the scientists were biased.

"They did not conduct scientific research," she says. "They did a literary review of the science that was out there on sea level rise.

Most scientists say US coast sea levels will rise by at least 100cm by 2100

"It appears they were biased. It seems to be cherry picked information. There was no conflicting science in their review."

But critics say the lobbying had more commercial and less altruistic motives, and was an attempt to safeguard property prices and local interests.

An overwhelming majority of scientists predict sea levels will rise by at least a metre up and down the coast of the US by 2100.  

One academic says the Outer Banks politicians are living in denial

One of them is Professor Orrin Pilkey, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences, at Duke University in North Carolina.

He says the people of the Outer Banks and their politicians are living in denial. 

It is impossible, he says, for politicians simply to legislate that a scientific prediction should be ignored.

A panel of scientists has been instructed to work on a new prediction

"All up and down the East Coast, Gulf Coast and West Coast it's all the same and still they stick their heads in the sands," he says.

The body responsible for coastal management on the Outer Banks, the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC), has struck a compromise. 

The slender barrier islands span much of the North Carolina coastline

Another panel of scientists has been instructed to work on a new prediction for sea levels in 30 years not 100. 

It will report every five years.

The deputy chair of the CRC, Renee Cahoun, insists there is no cause for undue alarm despite the ominous scientific forecasts

"I think we've seen changes on the Outer Banks back and forth over the past 100 years," she says.

The islands are close to where the Wright brothers made their first flight

"I'm saying that when you live here you have a lot better feel of what's happening locally."

But critics say what is on its way will be very different to anything the Outer Banks has thus far endured. 

They are warning a 30-year outlook could be misleading.

Nearly 58,000 people live on the Outer Banks

Sea levels are predicted to rise exponentially. 

The increase in levels is only expected to accelerate after 30 years. 

Coastal residents joined forces with climate sceptics to attack the science

Investors and prospective property buyers may end up misinformed if they are told about the risks only for the next three decades.

But the new law's supporters say a 30-year prediction will be easier for people to relate to and for local authorities to use for planning.

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