0 Reality Based Decision Making

I have a radical idea - "reality-based decision making".  I'm in favor of it, is the apparently radical part.

• Reality: Local sea level is rising, and the rate of rise has been increasing.  (Note, by the way, that this isn't true of all areas.  Global mean sea level is rising and accelerating, but some local areas are seeing a local sea level fall -- the land is rising faster than the water due to solid earth activity.  But the examples below come from areas where it is true.)
• Reality: This increases the area that can be affected by storm surge if nothing changes.
• Reality: It means some areas currently occupied will go below sea level if nothing changes.
• Reality: Those previous 3 mean that if nothing changes, more people will be affected, possibly killed, than already are, each year or decade.

Decision? Well, I don't know.  Of course I know what I prefer, but that's neither here nor there.  I live more than 30 meters (100 feet) above sea level.  No plausible storm surge or sea level rise for the next several centuries is a risk to my house.

Given those realities, it would be reality based decision making to respond:

• I don't care, let the low-lying areas drown.
• Let the buyer beware.
• We should rezone to have less property in the way of the storm surge.
• No new building in the areas that already flood more than once a decade.
• If anything bad happens, we'll declare a state of emergency and let taxpayers from the rest of the country bail us out.  Too bad, though, for the people who are killed.
• We'll build a dike to keep the water out.  After all, that's what the Dutch have done.
• The cost of response is greater than the value of the lives and property that would be destroyed, so don't respond.
• The cost of rebuilding after this predictable event destroys the area is good for the economy.
• ....

What isn't reality based decision making is to respond:

• You can't make any decision about sea level response for at least 4 more years (passed both houses in NC, might be vetoed by the governor)
• You cannot use your scientific understanding of the issue to make your projections for the future (only past trends were allowed by this bill) (this passed the NC senate, but did not pass both houses)
• Sea level rise is a UN Agenda 21 conspiracy
• Ice melt can't change sea level
• God won't let climate change hurt us*
• Delete reference to climate change from scientific reports.  "We stayed away from human-induced climate change, but we felt like we had to talk about sea-level rise," he said. "After all, it's been happening for 12,000 years. We were surprised the data on sea-level rise became a contentious issue."
•  ... your contributions here ...

* Whether this is a reality depends on your religion and religious faith, which is why I include it here.  Whether sea level is changing does not depend on your religion, merely on whether you can read water level records.

The reality-based responses cover the range of what political groups in the US have argued, I think.  I don't think acknowledging reality on sea level dictates your response.  It seems many, whether they agree with me or not on preferred response, disagree with that. 

In any case, I don't think that we're going to be making good decisions for ourselves and our posterity if we ignore reality.  It seems one motive for the unreal arguments and mandates is a desperate desire to get a particular result.  It's the school of "The ends justify the means".