EnviroWonk Has Some Bathroom Reading For You :

In what we hope will be the first in a continuing series of federal documents open for public comment, we invite you to take a look at the 800-page pdf that the U.S. Climate Change Science Program released this week on Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region.

For those of you who have never been bored/drunk enough or obligated by academic assignment to take part in a review of federal documents before, here is a quick primer.

1. Read document looking for inconsistencies/missing information.

2. In a *constructive* manner, point out said failings and how they should be remedied.

3. Sit back and bask in the glow of civic duty fulfilled, which one typically only feels after voting or making a citizen’s arrest.

Don’t be intimidated. The report is surprisingly easy to read, with most of the prose no more sophisticated than: “A rise in sea level implies that land that is now barely above sea level will end up below sea level if no shore protection measures are taken to prevent it from being submerged.”

And there are lots of colorful pictures throughout.

First and foremost, yes, please do download the document and participate in the comment process. Which room in your home you choose to use as a library is none of my business. It’s none of the federal government’s business, either, an observation that won’t be as uncomfortable after January 20, 2009 as it is now.

Second, I thought I was the funny/snarky person writing on e+e issues. With Samantha Hulkower writing things like this, I’ll have to kick my game up a notch. (Now where did I put that salmon of enlightenment… ?)