While crazed, bath salt-riddled zombies are eating people’s faces and the sanctity of heterosexual marriage continues its apocalyptic death spiral into the scary gay abyss, some people are worried about silly, trivial things like oh, I don’t know, the ocean crashing through their living room and turning their houses into floating pieces of wood and rubble.
Good thing the Republican understand these concerns and have taken it upon themselves to attack the real, terrible crime against humanity: science.
State lawmakers ran into a problem this year when recommending a study on rising sea levels and their potential impacts on coastal Virginia.
It was not a scientific problem or a financial one. It was linguistic.
They discovered that they could not use the phrases “sea level rise” or “climate change” in requesting the study, in part because of objections from Republican colleagues and also for fear of stirring up conservative activists, some of whom believe such terms are liberal code words.
Yes, that is right. The great State of Virginia has decided to combat the threat of rising sea levels by taking the words “sea level rise” out of its report on rising sea levels (shhhh!) because, duh, “sea level rise” is “left wing.” Apparently, so is having a brain and firm grasp on reality.
Looks like Virginia has some steep competition from its demented, half-wit step child North Carolina, which also didn’t like its pending environmental doom, and figured closing its eyes, covering its ears, and signing some bullshit outlawing YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH would make it all magically disappear, like the gays.
From Hampton Roads:
State Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, who insisted on changing the “sea level rise” study in the General Assembly to one on “recurrent flooding,” said he wants to get political speech out of the mix altogether.
He said “sea level rise” is a “left-wing term” that conjures up animosities on the right. So why bring it into the equation?
“What people care about is the floodwater coming through their door,” Stolle said. “Let’s focus on that. Let’s study that. So that’s what I wanted us to call it.”
Got it, people? “Sea level rise” is being renamed “CATASTROPHIC FLOODING” because it is less Al Gore-ish sounding and thus won’t offend your delicate sensibilities even though it is the EXACT SAME THING and will still happily deposit you and your entire poorly built, non-hurricane proof beach house to its new location in the middle of the freaking Atlantic.
Everyone knows the ocean has a strong liberal bias!
Laura Mc-Kay, state director of coastal zone management programs said at each stage of the studies the state has altered its verbiage. At first, McKay said, the studies were about “climate change.” Then they were changed to “sea level rise.” Now they are about “coastal resilience.” And while the studies themselves are slightly different, McKay said, political sensitivities played a role.
“It’s kind of silly,” she said. “But the reality is, some of the phrases just really send people screaming. We want to use language that doesn’t alienate people.”
Just drowns them instead. Haha just kidding. Everyone knows hope floats.
[image via Wonkette]