This story is about why laws bowing to sea level worries will make signs like this at left more common in one Australian town.
I’ve seen stupidity from local city governments before, but this one takes the cake. Residents of a small Australian port city are being “squashed” by an old law that says rooftops can’t be higher than the local historic pub, while new building codes demand a 1.5 meter (~5 feet) upward offset to deal with “sea level rise”. Is it any wonder one resident says this?
“We’re sick to death of the climate change issue and how it’s impacting our community,” she says.
From the Australian:
Higher floors, lower roofs: the town being shrunk by climate change angst
PORT Albert, on Victoria’s southeast coast, is a pretty-as-a-picture fishing village that is at war with the science of climate change.
Residents in the village have been told that because of rising sea levels, new housing has to be built on stumps almost 1.5m above ground level, despite the fact many of the town’s original colonial buildings have withstood time and tide on ground level without ill effect since the 19th century.
At the same time, a heritage overlay in the village, introduced more than a decade ago, prevents roof lines being built higher than the roof of the local pub, which is claimed to be Victoria’s oldest continuously licensed hotel.
Residents have seen land values plummet by 38 per cent in the past year under the weight of the overlays. Investment in the town has stalled. And Port Albert Progress Association president Donna Eades says that, with rising floor levels and roof lines limited by the height of the pub, “the next generation of Port Albert residents will have to be pygmies”.
Ms Eades says Port Albert residents have been made the “guinea pigs” for rising sea-level predictions, while the charm and character of the historic township has been sacrificed to climate change fashion.
“We’re sick to death of the climate change issue and how it’s impacting our community,” she says.
h/t to WUWT reader Rosalind Smallwood. Full story here:
Let’s look at some nearby Sea Level Data. From Stony Point, Victoria, about 80 miles NW of Port Albert, courtesy of Australia’s BoM:
Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO71054/IDO71054SLI.shtml
Looks pretty darned flat for the past 20 years, doesn’t it?
Next we have Lorne Jetty, Victoria, about 150 miles NW of Port Albert:
Source: http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO71056/IDO71056SLI.shtml
Yes I can see why the local government of Port Albert is terrified of sea level rise /sarc
It may be that civil disobedience in building codes will become rampant there, which may be the last resort of many to this madness.
==============================================================
UPDATE:
Just to be sure, I plotted the data provided by BoM myself (from the source links I gave above) in the two graphs below and calculated the change in sea level rate using a polynomial curve fit for each station.
Lets take the worst case rate of Stony Point, Victoria with rate of 2.45 mm/yr.
The vertical offset required by the Port Albert town government is 1.5 meters, or 1500 mm.
At a rate of 2.45 mm/yr into 1500 mm, that result is 612 years for the offset to be met. If we use the lower rate from Lorne Jetty, the number rises to 1304 years.
It seems to me that all of the buildings built this century will be long gone before they need the offset required by the Port Albert town government.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I don’t suppose the town fathers would look too fondly if someone added an extra floor to the pub. Perhaps the whole precious building could be raise 1.5m on stilts as a show of faith in the new building code.
Here in New Hampshire we have a law that requires new construction to not interfere with the view of the State House dome from the interstate highway that goes through Concord. Or something close to that. Ah, from http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/the-view-or-lack-thereof-is-the-problem :
Dave Springer says @ur momisugly July 26, 2011 at 4:09 pm:
Well, Arkansawyers are plenty capable of defending themselves and sure don’t need any help from me–but I don’t believe there is (or ever was) such a law. The Arkansas Code is here (and searchable): http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/arcode/Default.asp
The Arkansas River is part of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System and managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps may have rules regulating the river level since they control the dams and locks.
OK S.
Jack up the pub 1.5m.
Jason says: “What in the world is happening in Australia? Have they too lined their aquaducts with lead?”
My theory is that the Germans used metagenic compounds in their poison gases in WWI.
I hope y’all enjoying the comedy show, we’re paying for it down here.
“Angst” is the perfect word here when it comes to climate change worries, well done.
James Sexton says:
July 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm
For the common, everyday walk of life man, Sea Level rise is nowhere to be found.
It might be more precise to talk of Sea Level creep.
My God that is so funny. I mean it’s not funny for the poor saps who live there, but I’m sorry, that’s stupidity at its funniest.
I suspect the the trendline added in the last two graphs is being boosted upwards becuse the start and ends of the graph happen to be going upwards. Just like the apparent upwards trendline of a sinewave that is going upwards at the beginning and end, when of a course a sinewave trendline is dead flat.
During the bicentennial year of 1988, Australians were asked to alter the Constitution to permit local government. 87 percent of Australians said, “NO!” The Hawke government immediately ignored the result of the referendum, introducing the Local Council Act the following year to circumvent both the Constitution and the wishes of the people.
Local government is not recognised in the Australian constitution.
========
From: Attorney General –
The Hon Robert McClelland MP
08 July 2010
Dear Mr Thompson,
I refer to your letter received on 10 June 2010 regarding the 1988 Referendum.
In 1988, four proposals to amend the Constitution were put to voters in accordance with section 128 of the Constitution. One of those proposals sought to give constitutional recognition to local government but the proposal was not carried.
The Constitution does not currently recognize local government. Any change to the Constitution to recognize local government would need to be approved by voters at a referendum. The Government will continue to explore reform, including constitutional recognition, to facilitate cooperation with local government.
Yours sincerely
Robert McClelland
Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
Telephone (02) 6277 7300
Fax (02) 6273 4102
======
http://www.larryhannigan.com/validbylaws.htm
Amazing.
rbateman says:
July 26, 2011 at 8:05 pm
James Sexton says:
July 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm
For the common, everyday walk of life man, Sea Level rise is nowhere to be found.
It might be more precise to talk of Sea Level creep.
==================================================
Yes, but even of that, I’m becoming more and more …….. skeptical. Sat data, we’re told matches well to physical readings……. guess what the sat instruments were calibrated to? And, they went off the rails, so they were recalibrated to models…….. As to physical readings, PSMSL had boasted of having over 2000 different locations, yet, when clicking on getting the data, 1277 stations are there…….???? Where’s the rest of it? Worse, when one looks at the geography, …….. well, its entirely lacking, except on the U.S. coasts. Which, as we are often reminded, isn’t reflective of the world. I’m not stating the sea-level hasn’t risen in the last 30 years, but I will state that there is no compelling reason to believe it has, either.
Why don’t these people replace their council? The thing I don’t see mentioned is what portion of that town’s population likes the current system. If its a majority, that’s tough beans.
Yes, the ordinance is stupid, but that may be a reflection of the population electing stupid.
They may yet lose their beloved pub. When the Endangered Species Act started getting enforced for bugs and lizards, many property owners plowed their properties to make sure the habitat was unsuitable for the species in their area so they wouldn’t lose the use of their land. At some point somebody is likely to say “it would be a shame if something were to happen to that pub”. The law painted a big target on it. Its the law of unintended side effects.
The best thing that town can do is replace the council and rescind that ordinance.
Panic! The sea level is flat-lining!!
Jason says:
July 26, 2011 at 3:50 pm
What in the world is happening in Australia?
No wonder. Folks there walk upside down and they don’t even notice it 🙂
Alienfood said:
July 26, 2011 at 7:37 pm
> Jack up the pub 1.5m.
Is Jack up the pub related to Bloke down the pub?
The proposed tax on certain carbon dioxide emissions (but certainly NOT all carbon dioxide emissions) is a wake up call to many Australians and we are certainly waking up. Opinion polling shows that more than 70% of respondents now oppose the governemt – but hey – whose counting?
– the next election is still two long weary years away.
BUT the sea level thinggy is the big sleeper, the huge elephant in the room.
Vast billions of dollars of water front property all around the country is in danger of (NO, not the ocean) – in danger of beauracratic red tape and intervention.
Property owners, both multi millionaire types who deserve to be punished (for being too successful) and mum and dad retirees too – none of these will be happy chappies when they realise what is happening to their major assets, courtesy of the caring government.
There are a growing number of other issues that our good all wise government are addressing. These will also boost its popularily greatly in a pecularly ausie NEGATIVE kind of fashion.
We may be stupid (to have given power to this great Green – Independent – Labor coalition).
We may be slow learners as well.
But we are not stupid.
We are standing in line, waiting for the polling booths to open.
We should rename the town Hobbiton!
Berényi Péter says:
July 26, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Jason says:
July 26, 2011 at 3:50 pm
What in the world is happening in Australia?
No wonder. Folks there walk upside down and they don’t even notice it 🙂
Its even worse than you think …
Half the time, their AC current is flowing backwards as a cosine wave.
And the other end of their magnets attract the opposite side of real magnets, not those uppity metric ones they’ve been trying to use.
But that’s OK, their hurricanes spin backwards and suck the sea level up away from the bottom of the ocean so their tides can only be measured going down and up every other time when they aren’t going the opposite way first.
A 1.5 meter vertical offset? So much for new buildings being “Handicap Accessible.” How much area does it take to put in a wheelchair ramp with more than a 1.5 meter rise? And hey, how steep will the steps be? I’m no midget, but I ain’t no high-stepping giraffe either. I also know people with bad legs, prosthetic legs, even replacement knees, that have problems with all but short steps. Did they even consider the misery and suffering they’d inflict now, to avoid what might be an annoying nuisance issue that’ll need eventual fixing many decades in the future?
James Sexton says:
July 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm
“The sat data is entirely suspect, and the mechanical measurements are inadequate. I’m saying the general sea-level rise, while accepted hasn’t been demonstrated. And it certainly hasn’t been shown recently. We’ve just generally accepted that because the sea-level did rise (at least what was known) it has continued mostly unabated. I think it needs demonstrated.”
I’ve tried to get this point across in a quite a number of comments here over the last couple of years, without a great deal of success it would seem, given the large number of comment threads devoted to arguing vociferously about whether GMSL is changing by 1.9mm, 2.6mm, 3.1mm. or some other statistician’s fantasy number. I’ve tried recommending that people review this document.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/J2_handbook_v1-3_no_rev.pdf
It’s the Data Products Handbook for the JASON2 satellites that provide the observations from which the sea level data are derived. I truly believe that anyone with a reasonably critical eye who spends enough time with it to even partially understand what happens to the raw altimeric ranges before they become sea level data will never again be tempted to look at those ubiquitous sea level graphs with anything but amusement or perhaps anger.
There at least 8 ostensible correction factors applied to the raw measurements, but if you read through thoroughly there are at least again that number of little bumps and klughes that sort of slide by in passing. Then if you delve into the main corrections you find that each is primarily model based with its own set inherent uncertainties. Even the lunar ocean tides, which are a phenomenon that has probably been monitored more thoroughly and at greater length than almost anything else in the natural world, other than the stars, are still not capable of being reliably predicted at the millimeter level. I particularly like this bit from the section on the inverse barometric correction 5.10.1
“The uncertainty of the ECMWF atmospheric pressure products is somewhat
dependent on location. Typical errors vary from 1 mbar in the northern Atlantic Ocean to a few
mbars in the southern Pacific Ocean. A 1-mbar error in pressure translates into a 10 mm error in the computation of the IB effect.
Note that the time varying mean global pressure over the oceans, P, during the first eight years of the T/P mission had a mean value of approximately 1010.9 mbar, with an annual variation around this mean of approximately 0.6 mbar. However, the T/P data products provided a static inverse barometer correction referenced to a constant mean pressure of 1013.3 mbar.
IB(T/P) = -9.948 ∗ (Patm – 1013.3)
Sea surface heights that are generated after applying an inverse barometer correction referenced to a mean pressure of 1013.3 mbar are therefore approximately -9.948*(1010.9-1013.3) = 23.9 mm lower than those that are generated after applying an inverse barometer correction referenced to a time varying global mean pressure, and the difference between the two sea surface heights has an annual variation of approximately 9.948*0.6 = 6 mm.”
T/P is Topex / Poseidon the early generation sats which were almost apples to oranges for the Jason generation sats. which makes constructing a single data set from all of them much like “Mike’s Neat Trick” of appending thermometer data onto tree ring proxies
Well of course this new ordinance is issued, it is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. After a few years or months the drummed-phony circumstances slip down the memory hole. Then before you know it, propagandists and bloggers like Joe Romm start spreading the new meme …
If things in Australia are following the blueprints used by liberal bureaucrats in the USA, then you can expect the builders and construction suppliers to jump on board (it helps their business) and they’ll send donations to the pols that pushed this idiotic measure. A nice incestuous arrangement, and much like the Carbon Trading scam there are possible unethical if not illegal conflicts of interest yet to be discovered.
Green Jobs! They’re gonna ram them down your throat whether you want them or not. Folks better wake up, you are in the midst of a
VelvetGreen Astroturf Revolution. And the revolutionaries want you to sleep through it.Raise the pub as suggested a couple of times above seems the best option, 38% x local property values would pay for it many times over I guess, shades of Abu Simbel and the Asswan High Dam. Electing a new town council with a small grasp of science would be an even better plan.
Here are the culprits (Wellington Shire Council). Have at ’em!!
Cr Jeff Amos, Mayor
22 Buckley Street
YARRAM 3971
jeff.amos@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Peter Cleary, Deputy Mayor
c/o 70 Foster St SALE 3850
peter.cleary@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Scott Rossetti
c/o 70 Foster St
SALE 3850
scott.rossetti@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Gregg Cook
P.O. Box 124
MAFFRA 3860
gregg.cook@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Jane Hildebrant
P.O. Box 92
STRATFORD 3862
jane.hildebrant@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Malcolm Hole
P.O. Box 212
HEYFIELD 3858
malcolm.hole@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Leo O’Brien
25 Desailly St
SALE 3850
leo.obrien@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Darren McCubbin
18 Harpley Court
LONGFORD 3851
Phone (H): 5149 7021
Mobile: 0458 006 486
darren.mccubbin@wellington.vic.gov.au
Cr Beth Ripper
4 Merrick Street
STRATFORD 3862
beth.ripper@wellington.vic.gov.au
Dave Wendt says:
July 26, 2011 at 10:26 pm
James Sexton says:
July 26, 2011 at 4:57 pm
I’ve tried to get this point across in a quite a number of comments here over the last couple of years, without a great deal of success it would seem, ……. I’ve tried recommending that people review this document.
http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/ml/ocean/J2_handbook_v1-3_no_rev.pdf
It’s the Data Products Handbook for the JASON2 satellites that provide the observations from which the sea level data are derived. I truly believe that anyone with a reasonably critical eye who spends enough time with it to even partially understand what happens to the raw altimeric ranges before they become sea level data will never again be tempted to look at those ubiquitous sea level graphs with anything but amusement or perhaps anger. ………
=============================================================
Dave, it was anger, at first, for me, now its bemusement. Skeptics uncritical of something so patently error prone. T/P, even by their own estimates was only accurate to 3cm…… I believe it was much more than that but even if the 3cm were true, we don’t have a clue as to where our GMSL was to compare it to where we don’t know where it is today! Jason 1’s problems have been well documented if not downplayed. Envisat’s sensors kept showing a lowering of the sea level so they re-calibrated to Jason’s sensors! Only to see that Jason is now showing a lowering of the sea level.
But, I see what you mean by not having a great deal of success. There is an interesting discussion about satellite sea-levels thread on my little untended blog. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/06/25/discussion-so-far/ Feel free to drop by and add your little jewel. I’m going to try and work up a coherent post about it, but its difficult to properly phrase all of the required information to show just how messy this all is, and then they come up with a 0.3mm adjustment? lmao!!! They can’t get within a mm much less a tenth of one!
Frank K. says:
July 26, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Here is yet another example of bad science driving public policy in ways that are truly hurting people. It boggles my mind that our climate elites don’t understand this…
I suspect they know exactly what they are doing. They just don’t give a flying fornication.