ClimateScienceWatch

Promoting integrity in the use of climate science in government

Climate Science Watch is a nonprofit public interest education and advocacy project dedicated to holding public officials accountable for the integrity and effectiveness with which they use climate science and related research in government policymaking, toward the goal of enabling society to respond effectively to the challenges posed by global warming and climate change. See Details

U.S. Global Change Research Program

The public interest calls for knowledgeable, independent investigation of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, through which federal agencies coordinate $1.7 billion in annual support for research on climate and global change.

Climate Science Watch guide to climate reports

Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The sheer number, depth, and breadth of the climate science assessments and U.S. government program reports released each year can be daunting, so we prepared an annotated guide to clarify the distinctions among some of the key reports: State of the Climate 2009; America’s Climate Choices; Fifth U.S. Climate Action Report; Our Changing Planet; Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States; U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change; and Climate Change 2007: Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

President Obama’s FY2011 Budget has 21% funding increase for USGCRP climate science research

Posted on Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Alongside major new investments in clean energy development, President Obama’s FY2011 Budget proposes $2.56 billion in funding for climate and global change research conducted under the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) umbrella. This $439 increase over the FY2010 level brings climate research funding to a level higher than under any previous administration dating back to 1989.

Climate change endangerment to human health: Where is the Obama Administration’s plan?

Posted on Saturday, January 23, 2010

While the public health community has made strides toward understanding the significant and complex threat to human health posed by climate change, a strategic federal program of research and decision support is not yet in evidence. Expediting the development, funding, and implementation of the needed action calls for leadership from the White House and the U.S. Global Change Research Program and should be reflected in the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Will Obama’s FY2011 budget fund essential new climate change research priorities?

Posted on Monday, January 18, 2010

Will the President’s forthcoming Fiscal Year 2011 budget request for the U.S. Global Change Research Program demonstrate a commitment to essential new research priorities? The National Research Council identified key research needed for understanding and responding to the implications of climate change for extreme weather and climate events and disasters, sea level rise and melting ice, freshwater availability, agriculture and food security, human health, and managing ecosystems. The Bush Administration, driven by its politics of downplaying the reality of human-driven climate change and the seriousness of potential impacts of climatic disruption, failed to move the USGCRP to a focus on impacts and response strategy research. The Obama Administration science policy leadership should be moving expeditiously to demonstrate that it is undoing this damage and backing it up with new funding priorities, before another year goes by.

US Global Change Research Program: Budget reporting impedes meaningful oversight

Posted on Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The US Global Change Research Program is in serious need of an overhaul if it is to meet today’s data and information needs associated with preparing for, mitigating, and building resilience to a troubling set of climate change consequences. Just under $2 billion in federal funding goes to support climate and global change research in the agencies and departments participating in the USGCRP. The National Academy of Sciences has put forth thoughtful recommendations for updating the program’s research elements and priorities, but, as far as we can tell, the program has not begun to substantially re-direct its research agenda and budget. Moreover, an examination of available budget materials, especially the annual report to Congress, Our Changing Planet, reveals reporting practices so unclear and inconsistent as to defy meaningful oversight. This first post in a new CSW investigative series about the USGCRP begins to diagnose the obstacles to reform, and makes recommendations for improving government accountability.

Part 2: John Holdren Senate testimony on new directions for climate research and information service

Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2009

In July 30 Senate testimony, President Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren addressed the need for new directions for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, national climate change assessment, and the development of a National Climate Service—all along lines we have been advocating.

Part 1: John Holdren Senate testimony on climate change science and policy

Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2009

In July 30 Senate testimony on the relationship between climate research, assessment, and policymaking, President Obama’s science and technology adviser John Holdren presented the kind of articulate, rational, mainstream perspective that we have been accustumed to hearing from him for many years. The reality of his views and actions gives the lie to the cynical and paranoid attempt to vilify him currently circulating in some of the right-wing online media and blogs.

House climate bill gives White House science office lead role in guiding climate research & services

Posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009

We talked with Climate Wire about how the “Adapting to Climate Change” subtitle of the House-passed Waxman-Markey climate change cap and trade bill is an improvement over how the bill started out in its earlier discussion draft form—in putting the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed by John Holdren, in the lead role for reforming the U.S. Global Change Research Program and for designing the framework for a new National Climate Service, and in creating revenue streams from emissions allowances to help fund a set of new programs to enhance preparedness and adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

MIT modeling study doubles earlier projected warming, poses challenge for impacts research

Posted on Friday, May 29, 2009

“The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth’s climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago — and could be even worse than that,” says MIT’s statement about a new study published in the Journal of Climate. The study, funded by the U.S. Global Change Research Program through the Dept. of Energy, underscores the urgent need for policy action, and also for a major research effort on the likely impacts and consequences of this magnitude of climate change. Serious support for such research is not happening now, and poses a challenge for the science leadership of the Obama Administration in restoring the credibility of the federal climate research program.

White House science & budget offices must lead in revitalizing federal climate research

Posted on Monday, April 27, 2009

Stronger leadership from the White House and Congress is urgently needed to revitalize and reform the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), to ensure that we have the scientific underpinnings for dealing effectively with the growing climate change threat. This 20-year-old, $1.8 billion program is now suffering from leadership neglect, parochialism within the participating agencies, and a slow recovery from the insults and injuries of a two-term, Bush-Cheney administration that talked up the need for science but then walked all over the people who were making honorable contributions to our understanding of Earth’s highly complex climate system and how human activity is interfering with natural processes. (For example, by censoring communications and cutting budgets at a time they needed to be growing.) We’re now left with a dysfunctional family of research programs and initiatives, all competing with one another for funding and recognition. While the White House is necessarily focused on cap-and-trade, green jobs, and renewable energy, we wonder, who is steering the multiagency climate science ship? It obviously needs a rudder, sails, and a crew and captain; it should not be left to drift. Part of the formula that worked in the past was an alliance between OSTP and OMB, and a 1990 law specifying product and process. Is this the right formula to get us back on course? We argue, cautiously, that it is—with some adjustments.

Public comment period closing for US gov’t report on climate change impacts in the US

Posted on Thursday, February 26, 2009

Tomorrow is the deadline for public comment on a report many were surprised to see initiated under the Bush White House: “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.” An about-face from the typical Bush administration reluctance to connect the dots between fossil fuel emissions and climate disruption, this easy-to-read report spells out our current understanding of the myriad consequences for US residents of loading Earth’s atmosphere with greenhouse gases. This is CSW’s “last call” to our readers for submitting comments due Feb. 27, and a heads up that, when completed, this document should be on President Obama’s must-read list. See details.

Economic stimulus bill update: Funding for climate science at NASA and NOAA is retained

Posted on Sunday, February 15, 2009

The $789 billion economic stimulus bill that was expedited through the House and Senate and negotiated in a joint conference committee February 12 retains some funding for Earth observation and climate science programs: $170 million for NOAA to address “critical gaps in climate modeling and establish climate data records for continuing research into the cause, effects and ways to mitigate climate change,” and a portion of $400 million for NASA for Earth observations from satellites.

Questions for John Holdren Senate confirmation hearing to head Office of Science & Technology Policy

Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Climate Science Watch would like Senators to ask John Holdren a number of questions about climate science leadership under the Obama administration at his February 12 confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Dr. Holdren is special assistant to the President for science and technology and director-designee of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Economic stimulus bill climate change science provisions for NASA and NOAA

Posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The economic stimulus bill (H.R. 1) that passed by a wide margin in the House of Representatives January 28 and its Senate companion that passed today by a vote of 61-37 both contain appropriations that will (barely) begin to save federal Earth observing programs essential to understanding how the climate is changing. Let’s use this opportunity to build support to bring back “Mission to Planet Earth.”

Greenwire: “CLIMATE: In its final days, Bush admin released long-awaited studies”

Posted on Friday, January 30, 2009

“This is the endlessly delayed process; all of these things were at least one and a half years overdue—in some cases more,” said Rick Piltz, director of the watchdog group Climate Science Watch. “It really undermined the credibility of the federal climate change science program under the Bush administration.”

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