Hatteras Lighthouse Rant

[Not suitable for work: environmentally hostile f-bombs]

1998 produced a slew of movies. Armageddon, Saving Private Ryan, There’s Something About Mary. Until looking it up, I had forgotten how many excellent films came out that year.

One, The Big Lebowski, was a sleeper at the time – but it has become the inspiration behind this post with a slight rewrite of Walter Sobchak’s rant about Shabbos:

Moving the Hatteras Lighthouse, Donny, was necessary due to coastal erosion. That means it wasn’t climate change, it wasn’t global warming, it’s not because I don’t fucking use paper straws, I don’t willingly accept auto-shut off features in cars, I don’t panic over rising sea levels, and I sure as shit am not surprised when ‘permanent’ structures on transient barrier islands have to be fucking moved!

What prompted this post was an article by CBS News on Twitter:

These are the same dolts who will insist that the Hatteras Lighthouse was moved due to “climate change – rising sea levels” and NOT the fact that… um… it was built (over a century ago) on land formed by – and STILL shaped by – hurricanes.

A few months ago, I had gotten spooled up when I came across the following quote in an blog post from the North Carolina Office of State Archeology:

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, for instance, was moved in 1999 to prevent it from falling into the ocean due to erosion from sea level rise.

This is why “trust the science” people get under my skin. Costal erosion. On a BARRIER island. Formed by centuries of storms.

They can be so damn dishonest. Have humans impacted climate? Sure. Not in the way morons like that think, though. [Considers flat earthers] Yawannaknowwhat? Figure it the fuck out.

Climate change (“rising sea levels”) was part of the idiotic justification for relocating the Hatteras Lighthouse in 2000… not the fact that barrier islands have ALWAYS been transitory due to wave action and erosion.

So, these “experts” will continue to spout off bullshit for every justification BUT the root causes… because… well… climate change.

The good thing is that the National Park Service did get it right:

Because of the threat of shoreline erosion, a natural process, the entire light station was safely moved to a new site where the historic buildings and cisterns were placed in spatial and elevational relationship to each other, exactly as they had been at the original site.

I get it.

Folks are genuinely concerned about the impact mankind is having on the environment.

However, the reactionary measures often proposed and equally enacted often muddy the waters as to causality and reality. Consider the stance of one very large corporations’ claims and commitments to “becoming resource positive” and “storing more carbon than we emit” versus the very same corporation’s acquiescence to not being “required to relocate to the Company’s headquarters,” necessitating flights three times a week on a private jet as part of the new CEO’s commute.  

“Hatteras Fucking Lighthouse.”

Oddly, this could be used with the same emphasis as the classic Bronx statement of disbelief: “Get the fuck outta here!”

 Example (from the Oregon Inlet Lifesaving Station on the Outer Banks):

Quit buying into the claims; do the research and share your results… you know, basic scientific inquiry. My KID can remember all the steps, for Pete’s sake… and she’s SIX:

1. Ask a question
2. Do background research
3. Make a hypothesis
4. Test your hypothesis with experiments and observations
5. Analyze results
6. Make a conclusion about your hypothesis
7. Share your results – OR – if false, make a new hypothesis and begin the process again.

Seriously, this is part of our bedtime routine – highly recommended for kids and adults… at negligible cost:

“Climate change…”

“Hatteras Fucking Lighthouse.”