Science magazine 21st September:
Extracts from: Panel Gives U.S. Program Mixed Grades
An expert panel says the Bush Administration deserves “a pat on the back” for advancing the science of climate change. But the scientists assembled by the National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) have serious concerns about the management, funding, and emphasis of the $1.7-billion-a-year Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). President George H. W. Bush created the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 1990 to bring under one umbrella the government’s efforts to understand climate change. In 2002, his son reshuffled the climate deck to create CCSP. Last week, the NRC panel took the first outside look at that program and concluded, says chair V. Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, that its efforts to understand how and why climate has changed and to make predictions are “proceeding well.”
Ramanathan says he’s troubled by the program’s limited success in “assessing [climate change] impacts on human well-being and adaptation capacities.” Those assessments would require reliable forecasts of climate change at the regional if not the local level, Ramanathan notes, a capability the world’s climate modelers are still struggling with. But gauging impacts on humans and figuring out how humans might adapt to climate change will take far more than the $20 million per year now spent within the program on social science studies, the committee said. It will also take better communication between the program and business interests, other agencies, and the general public. For starters, 21 synthesis and assessment reports were due from CCSP by now, but only two have been delivered.
Lamna,
I think you are projecting about me projecting. They didn't cover that one in Psychology 100.
"Shouldn't funding be simply for climate research, whether caused by humans or not, whether warming (like the Arctic), or cooling (like most of the Antarctic)?"
yep it should and it is.
'Lamna, I didn't know White House staff got money from the IPCC. Wow!' - Louis
Apologies Hissink that was rather a lot of material for you to read in one go...
'A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.'
- New York Times, 8 June 2005.
"No, we know EXACTLY ( my emphasis) why Bush claimed he didn't ratify it ..."
Any source peer reviewed , implicit or explicit for THAT claim Lamna?' - Jim
'President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job'
- James Connaughton. Associated Press, 6 November 2004.
Which part of the White House statement was unclear to you Jim?...
'you might confuse climate with religion, and science with media consensus.' - Davey
You are projecting again Gam Esq...
Or a frivolous waste of valuable dollars on creationist ( or whatever smear is in vogue ) type research which doesn't conform with the stablishment position.
It seems that SJT has the same problem with mental muddles. Shouldn't funding be simply for climate research, whether caused by humans or not, whether warming (like the Arctic), or cooling (like most of the Antarctic)? I bet SJT and Lamna both confuse Luke with the Messiah, when, in fact, he's just a naughty boy 🙂
It appears that funding for science is OK, unless it is for AGW research, at which point it necessarily becomes a gravy train.
Lamna,
Going back a few posts, I think much US science is excellent. The existence of a science gravy train in the USA, and in Australia, is quite a separate issue. Try to keep your thinking untangled, or you will have unending trouble with scientific issues. For example you might confuse climate with religion, and science with media consensus.
What's this - sensitivity to reverse "framing".
Funding for new ideas is good but science shouldn't just throw money about like seeds in the wind. Normally new ideas are demonstrated in small ways intially and a case is built. Once the case get some momentum more money can follow - and at some point it becomes "an initiative" if it gets really big.
The 4AR leaves plenty of areas to be explored. But how do we divvy up valuable research resources. If it's simply to provide "a rebuttal" to AGW that isn't very scientific.
There really should be no "teams" - there is only one right set of answers - we need to find them.
This "evening things up" notion is not sensible if what you're evening up is poorly thought out rubbish.
On the other hand if someone has a reasonable hypothesis, that is not easily refuted and the scientist can demonstrate some plausible connection/process/mechanism - OK let's investigate it.
Luke , this constant framing of AGW scepticism as "equivalent to creation science" needs to be clarified lest it give the appearance of just another sneer at the anti-establishment.
Should scientific research into any alternative theories about global warming or Darwinian evolution or plate tectonics or GMO be banned/prohibited because it challenges the dominant, establishment position?
How do we progress and learn and adapt with that limitation?
"No, we know EXACTLY ( my emphasis) why Bush claimed he didn't ratify it ..."
Any source peer reviewed , implicit or explicit for THAT claim Lamna?
Or is it a sweeping generalisation?
Incidentally , wasn't it actually the US Senate ( 99/1 as I recall ) that wouldn't ratify Kyoto?
Were they all captured by eviloil as well?