Climate alarmism has real consequences. Unless the politicians pay it lip service then head the other way. For instance the California Coastal Commission just said the state must plan for 3.5 feet of sea level rise over 30 years. And if anyone believes them billions and billions of dollars will be spent on coastal protection, which means it can’t be spent on anything else. Like better fire management, or strengthening the energy grid, or the homeless, or tax relief so people don’t keep fleeing for greener pastures. If there’s one thing California cities don’t need right now, or the state as a whole, it’s this massive hole being punched in their budgets to deal with a menace that is not just a phantom, but a Canterville Ghost, far too absurd to frighten any sane person. So will anyone think to look at the tide gauge data?

Three and a half feet in 30 years is 14 inches per decade or 1.4 inches per year, or, for those outside the US, 35 mm per year. The actual tide gauge data shows the rate of rise at San Francisco, based on records going back to 1854, is 1.5 mm per year, and the graph shows no trend at all since 1980. Down at San Diego where the data begin in 1906 the rate is 2.2 mm per year and again shows no sign of acceleration.

So not 35 mm, more like 2 mm per year. And likewise not 3.5 feet in 30 years, more like 2.4 inches. But of course your garden-variety alarmist, quick to denounce skeptics for not being “climate scientists”, might retort that 3.5 feet is “possible” so we better act now. Yeah, anything is possible. Except, evidently, California public agencies making sensible decisions with public money.