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| Global warming updates |
Itsdb |
06/01/07 |
In my paper today the AP painted Bush's announcement to press for "a global target for reducing greenhouse gases" as Bush doing a 180. Another AP article revealed (surprise) that environmental groups were quick to criticize Bush's plan.
Friends of the Earth president Brent Blackwelder called the proposal "a complete charade. It is an attempt to make the Bush administration look like it takes global warming seriously without actually doing anything to curb emissions."
National Environmental Trust president Philip Clapp said, "This is a transparent effort to divert attention from the president's refusal to accept any emissions reductions proposals at next week's G8 summit. After sitting out talks on global warming for years, the Bush administration doesn't have very much credibility with other governments on the issue."
And, Daniel Weiss, climate strategy director for the liberal Center for American Progress, said the Bush administration has a "do-nothing" policy on global warming despite U.S. allies' best efforts to spur U.S. reductions.
Alrighty then, he hasn't done a thing yet and it's already a "complete charade" and a diversion - but at least he intends to bring China and India into the discussion.
What's more intersting is NASA Administrator Michael Griffin's interview with NPR yesterday. Greg Easterbrook recently criticized NASA in Wired magazine:
Here are NASA's apparent current priorities: (1) Maintain a pointless space station. (2) Build a pointless Motel 6 on the moon. (3) Increase humanity's store of knowledge by studying the distant universe. (4) Keep money flowing to favored aerospace contractors and congressional districts.
Only one priority of four correct! Worse, NASA's to-do list neglects the two things that are actually of tangible value to the taxpayers who foot its bills — research relevant to environmental policymaking and asteroid-strike protection.
Griffin responded in the interview:
MR. INSKEEP: Well, I guess he is arguing on one level that - simply that there are other priorities out there. Are there priorities that you've had to cut in the last couple of years as you've reoriented toward the moon and other things that you've regretted having to cut?
DR. GRIFFIN: Well, we have not cut any major priorities. Again, the regrets would always be that there are things left undone that we could do. But I think we've got the best 16-1/2-billion-dollar space program that we could have. But 16-1/2 billion dollars will buy many different kinds of space programs. The question is, in a democratic society, who gets to choose. Unfortunately for Greg, it's not him.
MR. INSKEEP: One thing that's been mentioned that NASA is perhaps not spending as much money as it could on is studying climate change, global warming from space. Are you concerned about global warming?
DR. GRIFFIN: I am aware that global warming - I am aware that global warming exists, I understand that the bulk of scientific evidence accumulated supports the claim that we've had about a one degree Centigrade rise in temperature over the last century to within an accuracy of about 20 percent.
I'm also aware of recent findings that appear to have nailed down - pretty well nailed down the conclusion that much of that is manmade. Whether that is a long-term concern or not, I can't say.
MR. INSKEEP: And I just wanted to make sure that I'm clear. Do you have any doubt that this is a problem that mankind has to wrestle with?
DR. GRIFFIN: I have no doubt that global - that a trend of global warming exists. I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with. To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had, and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.
First of all, I don't think it's within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown. And second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings, where and when, are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I'm - I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take.
MR. INSKEEP: Is that thinking that informs you as you put together the budget - that something is happening, that it's worth studying, but you're not sure that you want to be battling it as an army might battle an enemy?
DR. GRIFFIN: Nowhere in NASA's authorization, which of course governs what we do, is there anything at all telling us that we should take actions to effect climate change in either - in one way or another. We study global climate change - that is in our authorization. We think we do it rather well. I'm proud of that. But NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, "battle climate change."
I love it... |
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 06/02/07 10:49 am:
more evidence of global warming climate change in Argentina Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 06/02/07 1:10 pm:
Did a little comparison of the two men:
Dr. James E. Hansen
* B.A., Physics and Mathematics, 1963, University of Iowa
* M.S., Astronomy, 1965, University of Iowa
* Ph.D., Physics, 1967, University of Iowa
Michael Griffin:
* Bachelor's degree in Physics from Johns Hopkins University
* Master's degree in aerospace science from Catholic University of America
* Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland
* Master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California
* Master's degree in applied physics from Johns Hopkins University
* Master's degree in business administration from Loyola College
* Master's degree in Civil Engineering from George Washington University.
Maybe that's why he's the boss and not Hansen...
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