Administration Proposes New Agency to Study Climate Change

[Scorpion 29]

Seems the Obama Administration will push the agenda through come hell or high water.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Monday proposed a new agency to study and report on the changing climate, which has drawn concern among many scientists in recent years.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.

"Whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat," Locke said Monday at a news conference.

Lubchenco added, "Climate change is real, it's happening now." She said climate information is vital to the wind power industry, coastal community planning, fishermen and fishery managers, farmers and public health officials.

NOAA recently reported that the decade of 2000-2009 was the warmest on record worldwide; the previous warmest decade was the 1990s. Many atmospheric scientists believe that global warming is largely due to human actions, adding gases to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

Researchers and leaders from around the world met last month in Denmark to discuss ways to reduce climate-warming emissions, and a follow-up session is planned for later this year in Mexico. But a U.N. report that preceded the conference in Copenhagen has been widely disputed after much of the data in it was found to have been gathered unscientifically.

"More and more people are asking for more and more information about climate and how it's going to affect them," Lubchenco explained. So officials decided to combine climate operations into a single unit.

Portions of the Weather Service that have been studying climate, as well as offices from some other NOAA agencies, will be transferred to the new NOAA Climate Service.

The new agency will initially be led by Thomas Karl, director of the current National Climatic Data Center. The Climate Service will be headquartered in Washington and will have six regional directors across the country.

Lubchenco also announced a new NOAA climate portal on the Internet to collect a vast array of climatic data from NOAA and other sources. It will be "one-stop shopping into a world of climate information," she said.

Creation of the Climate Service requires a series of steps, including congressional committee approval. But if all goes well, it should be finished by the end of the year, officials said.

In recent years, a widespread private weather forecasting industry has grown up around the National Weather Service, and Lubchenco said she anticipates growth of private climate-related business around the new agency.

[daninchardon]

Hey...it all adds up to that three letter word..."J.O.B.S"

[Scorpion 29]

Hey...it all adds up to that three letter word..."J.O.B.S"

That can be manipulated for the outcome you are seeking. Nothing like being reminded of where your paycheck is coming from.

[Ed Chagrin Falls]

What if this new agency uncovers scientific evidence to support the arguments that opponents of global warming have been making? They certainly would be scrutinized like no other agency studying the issue. Their work would also be subject to FOIA requests, unlike some of the work of individual scientists in this field.

[Scorpion 29]

What if this new agency uncovers scientific evidence to support the arguments that opponents of global warming have been making? They certainly would be scrutinized like no other agency studying the issue. Their work would also be subject to FOIA requests, unlike some of the work of individual scientists in this field.

The way in which this entire topic has been handled through the years, but more recently, it would have to be irrefutable. Especially when the push has been that it is humans that are causing the changes, not the natural cycle of the earth in relation with the sun and other such scientific anomalies.

[Ray from Maple]

What if this new agency uncovers scientific evidence to support the arguments that opponents of global warming have been making? They certainly would be scrutinized like no other agency studying the issue. Their work would also be subject to FOIA requests, unlike some of the work of individual scientists in this field.

Ed, this clown has grown government by 150,000 people in his first year alone. How much larger do you want government? Any spending from this point on should be for emergencies only, and not pandering to your support groups, and that's all this is.

[daninchardon]

I would argue that there is an inherent danger in having an agency or department dedicated to studying anything. Why would 5 or 6 thousand people, charged with studying the climate, all paid on average (not including benefits) $70,000 a year, despite any real intentions, find or determine something other than something that perpetuates the need for their jobs.

If they find that climate change is inevitable and as all change is, constant, and that man has a negligible overall effect on climate, and in so determining that, have no real recommendations other than to go on existing, which would prove their jobs to be terminable, do you really suppose they would be honest enough to severe the hand that feed them? (And are there any sincere people who still doubt that climate science is deeply tainted by agendas?)

In other words, their jobs are predetermined on Man Made Climate Change and so they would have no interest in approaching the subject to prove otherwise, immediately biasing the findings.