Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 14, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People -
Climate program of limited use
GOVERNMENT POLICIES HOBBLED RESEARCHERS
By Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times
A government-wide climate research program started five years ago by the Bush administration has clarified some scientific questions, an independent scientific panel has found. But in its report released Thursday, the panel said the program had been plagued by delays, and that it had not devoted enough money or effort to studying the effects of climate change, or to disseminating the findings to those who would be most affected.
The Climate Change Science Program, created in 2002 by President Bush to improve climate research across 13 government agencies, has also been hampered by governmental policies that have grounded earth-observing satellites and dismantled programs to monitor environmental conditions on earth, concluded the report, issued by the National Academies, the nation's pre-eminent scientific advisory group.
In a printed statement, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, the panel's chairman, said the program's basic scientific efforts had constituted "an important initiative that has broadened our knowledge of climate change."
Among other things, the report noted, the effort has helped resolve disputes over whether the earth's atmosphere is warming significantly or not, allowing scientists to compare data and agree that warming is occurring.
But the report cited more problems than successes in the government's research program. Of the $1.7 billion spent by the program on climate research each year, only about $25 million to $30 million has gone to studies of how climate change will affect human affairs, for better or worse, the report said.
John H. Marburger III, the White House science adviser, issued a statement Thursday thanking the science academies for the "thoughtful review," and saying that several issues highlighted in the report "are already being addressed."
The program was originally framed by Bush as a way to focus research on pressing issues and produce a broad suite of results in two to five years.
A major hindrance to progress, the panel's report said, is that the climate program's director and subordinates lack the authority to determine how money is spent.#
http://www.mercurynews.com/weirdnews/ci_6891368
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