See no climate change
Mighty mouse will save the dayWASHINGTON - The Bush administration is drastically scaling back efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gases.
However we can't blame it all on George BushThe reduced system of four satellites will now focus on weather forecasting. Most of the climate instruments needed to collect more precise data over long periods are being eliminated.
Instead, the Pentagon and two partners — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA will rely on European satellites for most of the climate data.
"Unfortunately, the recent loss of climate sensors ... places the overall climate program in serious jeopardy," NOAA and NASA scientists told the White House in the Dec. 11 report obtained by the AP.
They said they will face major gaps in data that can be collected only from satellites about ice caps and sheets, surface levels of seas and lakes, sizes of glaciers, surface radiation, water vapor, snow cover and atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Jerry Mahlman, a former scientist at NOAA who is now at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said he and other colleagues warned of problems as far back as 1995.
He compared the preparations for the satellites to a "planned train wreck."
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Maybe they could put Steve McIntyre into orbit.
That way everybody wins.
The US taxpayers save money on satellites, scientists like Hansen get him out of their hair and he
gets the perfect vantage point for taking pictures of weather stations.
Beam him up, Scotty.
It's clear that nothing is going to get done on climate change until Bush leaves office.
There are just too many political hacks appointed by Bush running the scientific agencies (torpedoing action on climate change at every turn) for any real change to come about.
The hacks might as well enjoy their last year in office because they are almost certainly going to be thrown out if a Democrat or even John McCain gets elected.
I'm not so bothered as long as our European satellites pick up the slack.
Assuming no one nobbles them.
Although obviously being made by pinko-commies they will read too high and exagerate everything.
Its fine with me. Actually its about time the Euros actually did some of the lifting, instead of just rearranging the deck chairs and calling it progress.
I understand that our rockets have been doing a fair bit of work for years. That we have been doing less than the USA is due to the lack of homogeneity.
The EU and a common currency should help with that.
so, Anonymous #2... stipulating, for argument's sake, that you are correct about nothing happening until Bush leaves office, do you stipulate that (based on the article just a few lines above your post), that nothing happened during the entire last term of the previous president, as well? If we can all agree that this problem hasn't been addressed for at least 12 years, spanning two administrations, one of which was had a dedicated environmentalist (dedicated from as far back as when his mom sang him to sleep about Union labels) as a VP, then why do you suppose that the NEXT administration will be more responsive?
Just curious.
Now now anonymice, we refer to each other by times, as in anonymous 9:05 AM. Please play nice with each other.
then why do you suppose that the NEXT administration will be more responsive?"
I don't, necessarily.
I said nothing will get done until Bush leaves office.
But that does not mean anything will get done immediately after he leaves office, either.
It may have been more clear if I had said "Nothing will happen while Bush is in office."
I'd say that is a pretty safe bet, given that there is only a year and a half left and he is still doing nothing (by design)
Anonymous 6:26pm says: fair enough, Anonymous 7:10pm. The only reason I brought it up is because you mentioned the political hacks put in place, specifically mentioning the current administration. Since you didn't spread that reason over the previous administration I was unsure if hack-to-enviro policy was a causal relationship, or merely an corrolation. There's no reason why both administrations couldn't be guilty of 'hackism,' but the dataset was incomplete.
Actually, when it comes right down to it, if I were Rip Van Winkle and woke up at some random time and said "Nothing will get done because of the political hacks in Washington", there would be a very high probability that I would be correct.
Does that answer your question?
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