The Money Trail Global Warming Skeptics Lambaste Plan to Increase Funding for Climate Change Research
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14 February 2010
Global warming skeptics are agog that President Obama is seeking to dramatically increase federal funding for global warming research in the wake of the Climate-gate scandals that have emerged during the last three months.
The federal budget for 2011 proposes $2.6 billion for the Global Change Research Program, a 21 percent boost over 2010. It will bring funding to a level higher than under any administration dating back to 1989 -- when global warming first attracted federal budget funds.
In fact, critics note, overall climate funding is approximately as large as the entire federal government's budget was in 1932 -- $3.994 billion. (Additional money for climate science is apportioned to a number of federal agencies, like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.)
Critics are lambasting the Obama administration, saying it remains unfazed by the revelations of Climate-gate: doctored research statistics by British environmental scientists, attempts to discredit skeptics of global warming science, and disclosures that the U.N.'s own Nobel-Prize-winning climate science research was based on faulty research about the Amazon rain forest and Himalayan ice caps.
Some public policy experts are expressing outrage that the White House is seeking to boost global warming research funding. "Spending more money on research does not necessarily lead to concrete results," Norm Rogers, a senior policy adviser at the Chicago think-tank The Heartland Institute, told FoxNews.com.
He said tens of billions of dollars have been spent on climate research in the last 20 years, and there remains no consensus on the science.
Another expert, Professor Don Easterbrook at Western Washington University's department of geology, said the federal money "ought to be spent carrying out real research on the climate."
Easterbrook said most of the federal funds so far have been spent on what he terms "political science," which aims to find a manmade cause of global warming when there are any number of ways to investigate the causes of temperature change. These are political motivations rather than purely scientific reasons, he said.
"This is a travesty," he told FoxNews.com.
But other scientists applauded the proposed boost in federal money for climate research.
"Funding for neglected basic research in geophysics, climate, and allied sciences is welcome," said Dallas C. Kennedy, a physicist with a doctorate from Stanford University. Kennedy believes those fields have seen dwindling resources in recent years, and money spent on them will yield better science.
The administration's proposed changes include the creation of a new federal agency that will serve as a clearinghouse for climate-change data and resources. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke explained the potential benefits, saying "we'll discover new technologies, build new businesses and create new jobs."
Howard Hayden, a professor of physics at the University of Connecticut who runs a newsletter called The Energy Advocate, said he believes good data has been gleaned from 20 years of global warming research. "The data collection is useful and necessary," he said.
Another scientist, Dr. Mitchell Taylor of the department of geography at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., said funding priorities for the federal government need to be reshaped. There should be an "independent reconciliation" of the climate-change data that has been researched by the government and private institutions, he told FoxNews.com. He is calling for an independent body of experts -- including critics of the global warming hypothesis -- to sort through all the conflicting research.
What's more, he said, the government should re-frame research to look critically at the global warming hypothesis in light of the recent data and "investigate in a fair and balanced manner alternative explanations for climate change."
What, exactly, will the American taxpayer get for its global warming research dollars? The EPA is spending $43 million to implement the greenhouse-gas reporting rule, to perform regulatory work for the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gases, and to develop new standards for cars and trucks.
Research being funded at the National Science Foundation seeks to promote "discoveries needed to inspire societal actions leading to environmental and economic sustainability," according to an agency statement. The NSF's portfolio for global warming will reach $766 million.
NSF and EPA spokesmen in Washington did not return e-mails requesting additional comment on the increased spending. But a fact sheet from the White House Office of Management and Budget portrays the global warming funding as part of the Obama administration's new jobs-creation policy, which aims at making the U.S. "the world leader in developing the clean energy technologies that will lead to the industries and jobs of tomorrow."
Last year's budget provided $2.0 billion for the climate science program, a figure that doesn't include the half a billion in stimulus money that the White House directed to global warming, as Obama's science adviser recently told Congress.
"Investments in climate science over the past several decades have contributed to an improved understanding of the global climate," said John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in testimony before a House committee.
Comments
This is the symptom of a government administration in denial. They think that they can buy what they want with more money. They pretend that climate change is happening, hoping that everybody will assume that is must be.
How slanted do you think their findings will be when their paychecks are predicated with finding warming?
Remember, revenue from cap and trade are already listed in Obama's budget for next year. He's banking on it.
We have to do everything we can to can this move and the overall push to pass the disgusting, economy-killing energy/cap and trade bill. They want to call if energy security, but what they call it and what it is are two different things.
has been no warming since 1995.
So its all political and nothing to do with reality-
- watch the video Global Warming or Global Governance ?
on google or you tube video-
05/17/10 Examples of observed climatic changes:
Increase in global average surface temperature of about 1°F in the 20th century - is nearly twice that for the past 100 years.
Decrease of snow cover and sea ice extent and the retreat of mountain glaciers in the latter half of the 20th century
Rise in global average sea level and the increase in ocean water temperatures
Likely increase in average precipitation over the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, and over tropical land areas
Increase in the frequency of extreme precipitation events in some regions of the world
Examples of observed physical and ecological changes
Thawing of permafrost
Lengthening of the growing season in middle and high latitudes
Poleward and upward shift of plant and animal ranges
Decline of some plant and animal species
Earlier flowering of trees
Earlier emergence of insects
Earlier egg-laying in birds.
If the earth enters a warming cycle (as it has millions of times) then yes, you will get earlier bird migrations, leaf emergences, flowering, thawing of frost but it is all exactly a single phenomenon as a result of a warming trend. The alarmists always pile on and on and on.
Now that the earth has been slightly cooling for the last 12 years and projected to continue cooling for another 30, all these co-related phenomenon will go into reverse.
The alarmists will likely obsess over it and carry on with their ridiculous notions. I prefer to marvel at the incredible synchrony and dance of life on earth and admire its wonderful robustness.
Yes but only by a few TENTHS of a Deg. And its been cooling since 1998.
Some Astro Physicyst's say this solar cycle will last 25 yrs. The fingerprint of the sun is on earth's 160 year tempeture record.
Its the sun not Co2 so theres no need to tax freedom and prosperity.
www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html
Much of the observed 1 deg warming in the last Century was before any great amounts of man made Co2 began, Pre-1940.
Oh and ice in Greenland and Antartica are increasing not decreasing.
The Medieval Warm Period ( MWP ) or Medieval Climate "Optimum". Was several degrees warmer than today and has been "Re-Discovered".
theresilientearth.com/?q=content/medieval-warm-period-rediscovered
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