After five years of work, the Legislative Commission on Global Change is preparing its final report and recommendations. The General Assembly should heed one of those suggestions and make the commission one of its permanent study panels.
Retired Winston-Salem attorney John Garrou, commission co-chairman, told the Associated Press that the permanent status is needed because legislators will need guidance on many of the long-term recommendations his panel will propose. There are also new federal-emissions regulations on the horizon, and the legislature will need the commission's guidance there, too.
A cacophony of politically charged pseudo-science has been raised over the climate-change question. The opposition has raised what are, at their truest level, a number of false concerns. Climate change is a scientific issue for which there is no longer any reasonable doubt. The world's community of climate scientists is overwhelmingly convinced that the planet is warming and that man's behavior is contributing to this.
Already, this misguided denial of a climate-change problem has led some critics to argue against the extension of the state panel on a permanent basis. The panel was created five years ago and has cost the state $80,000.
Whether the opponents raise their doubts for political or business interests, there is no denying the obvious evidence of global warming. Icebergs, the permafrost and glaciers are all melting at alarming rates. Sea levels are rising. The human eye can see these without use of complex scientific equipment or any spin from the naysayers.
Regardless of the debate on whether man or mother nature is causing this warming, North Carolina must be ready to react to its eventualities -- and that is where the commission comes into play. If ocean levels continue to rise, it will make no difference if man contributed or not. The Outer Banks will be overwhelmed and the state's beachfront will move considerably to the west.
North Carolina must prepare for climate change. The state's leaders will have to respond to any number of potential options regarding such change. A panel of this nature can be instrumental as they prepare to do so. Some of these changes will threaten our way of life, others might be beneficial to it.
Legislators have too much on their agendas. They cannot address all of the issues they face in the depth that is required. That is why the legislature asks citizens, some experts in a field, some not, to join these study panels. They provide a depth of policy study that is essential to the effective operation of the General Assembly.
Climate change is an issue of significant enough public concern to warrant a standing legislative commission. Legislators must understand that and act accordingly.
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