INSTITUTE INDEX: NC still fighting the science of sea-level rise

Number of scientific papers that have been published this month reporting that the collapse of major Antarctic glaciers now "appears unstoppable" due to climate change: 2

Feet that seas would rise were these glaciers to melt entirely: about 6

Number of years that the process of melting could take: several hundred

Number of years to which the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission voted last week to limit the state's official forecast of sea-level rise: 30

Portion of the commission's membership that was replaced last year by order of the Republican-controlled state legislature following controversy over its science panel's previous sea-level rise prediction, with marine scientists and conservationists replaced with pro-development advocates: 2/3

Inches of sea-level rise the science panel previously predicted, setting off a firestorm of opposition from coastal real-estate interests including an economic development group called NC-20: 39

Number of NC-20 members who now sit on the reconstituted and shrunken Coastal Resources Commission: 1

Number of NC-20 members who have been nominated to fill one of the four current empty seats of the commission's science panel, which is charged with updating the sea-level rise forecast by next March: 1

Date on which Gov. Pat McCrory (R) appointed as the commission's chair Frank Gorham III, president of Sandstone Properties LLC, an oil and gas investment business: 10/15/2013

Year in which the North Carolina legislature passed a much-mocked bill that barred state agencies from considering the most up-to-date scientific predictions about future sea level rise: 2012

Year in which a scientific study reported that North Carolina was in a "hotspot" for rising seas: 2012

Factor by which sea level rise in the hotspot is expected to exceed rise elsewhere: 3 to 4

Number of North Carolina coastal counties that for the most part sit only a foot above sea level: 6

(Click on figure to go to source.)