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

Climate Change Preparedness

Commerce Department proposes NOAA Climate Service

Posted on Tuesday, February 09, 2010

On February 8, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) unveiled a major new proposal for the establishment of a NOAA Climate Service, a new office tasked with serving the nation’s increasing climate information needs. We support this initiative as a significant step in the right direction, while noting that it appears to leave aside, for now, the question of how the Climate Service office will ultimately coordinate with the full suite of federal activities relevant to climate change adaptation and preparedness planning.

Two whistleblowers who exposed misconduct further endangering Katrina victims are honored today

Posted on Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Two courageous individuals will each receive meritorious awards today for blowing the whistle on two separate instances of misconduct that put Hurricane Katrina victims in unnecessary jeopardy, reports Government Accountability Project colleague Jess Radack on the Daily Kos today. Maria Garzino, a mechanical/civil engineer and team leader with the US Army Corps of Engineers, will receive the Public Servant of the Year award from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for exposing the intentional installation of faulty pumps in flood-prone areas of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Dr. Ivor van Heerden will receive an award for civic courage for speaking out against systematic incompetence and negligence in planning and preparing for Gulf coast hurricanes, despite resistance from his former employer, Louisiana State University. Click on details for the crosspost.

California’s Adaptation Strategy shows leadership that Senate climate bill should follow

Posted on Friday, December 11, 2009

The final version of the 2009 California Climate Adaptation Strategy released last week puts forth a set of wide-ranging recommendations for managing and adapting to a set of difficult climate change impacts throughout the state. Meanwhile, a recent framework for climate legislation put forth by Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman does not address dealing with impacts at all. The US will put itself in a perilous position if California’s advice is not heeded: “To effectively address the challenges that a changing climate will bring, climate adaptation and mitigation…policies must complement each other, and efforts within and across sectors must be coordinated.”

Federal court: “Monumental negligence” at Army Corps further endangered Katrina victims

Posted on Thursday, November 19, 2009

Another powerful argument for a coordinated high-profile federal mission to raise preparedness for climate change impacts came last night with a federal district court decision holding the US Army Corps of Engineers liable for “monumental negligence” in its duties to maintain a key ship channel, leading to devastating flooding in some New Orleans neighborhoods. These failures amounted to a “man-made disaster” on top of a “natural disaster” (Hurricane Katrina) that resulted in the destruction of or significant damage to nearly every home in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish. Judge Stanwood R. Duval’s finding of misfeasance by the Corps, finding for several victim-plaintiffs, opens the door for billions of dollars in future civil claims against the government. Rather than appealing the decision, the Obama administration should: 1) promptly make good on its promise to provide billions more in aid to Katrina victims, and 2) actively engage the federal government in examining and elevating the nation’s overall level of preparedness for future extreme weather-related disasters and other climate impacts—- and in the process, limit tremendous future liability.

UN report identifies women in poor countries as among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts

Posted on Wednesday, November 18, 2009

A report released today by the UN Population Fund identifies gender inequities in vulnerability to global climate disruption. The report looks at the nexus of population dynamics, the welfare of women worldwide, and climate change impacts and adaptation and concludes that successful and lasting adaptation strategies must address these factors.

Climate change: Kids get it, Rush Limbaugh and other denialists don’t

Posted on Thursday, November 12, 2009

In a new video from the World Wildlife Fund, the children of WWF staff talk about the consequences of climate change, the importance of taking action and the need for U.S. leadership in reaching an international agreement at the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rush Limbaugh responded to the video with predictable denialist vitriol.

Report from a conference on Climate Change, State Resilience and Global Security

Posted on Sunday, November 08, 2009

Climate Science Watch attended a November 4 conference on Climate Change, State Resilience and Global Security, held at the Center for Naval Analysis in Alexandria, Virginia. At the conference a group of distinguished national security professionals provided perspective and engaged audience members in a type of “war game” scenario that imagined the roles of political and military leaders in a climate-disrupted future. The approach outlined by national security experts at the conference provided a sharp contrast with the current effort in Congress to enact sweeping climate and energy policy reforms.

GAO report makes case for national strategic plan to deal with climate impacts

Posted on Wednesday, November 04, 2009

The US needs “a national strategic plan that will guide the nation’s efforts to adapt to a changing climate,” says the Government Accountability Office, finding “a general lack of strategic coordination across agencies” in their efforts to adapt to climate change impacts, characterized as “preliminary.” We’ve been saying this all along, recognizing the serious shortcomings of a set of laudable but disparate and disconnected attempts by various government entities to deal with the myriad cross-cutting issues associated with climate disruption in the absence of an overarching, integrating framework. Federal agencies, states, and local communities generally lack the guidance, information, tools, resources, and opportunities for sharing lessons learned, GAO discovered, all essential for planning and preparing adequately for unprecedented weather and climate conditions. Both the Obama White House and Congress have so far failed to make sector-wide climate change adaptation preparedness a national priority. The time to remedy that is now.

California: “Going for broke” on climate policies? Or too broke to take them on?

Posted on Sunday, October 11, 2009

California, the quintessential trailblazer and laboratory for national environmental policy, was the first state to enact a comprehensive climate change bill. California’s grand emissions reduction agenda, however, will require funding, and right now California faces billions of dollars in budget shortfall in a crunch that’s not expected to turn around anytime soon. Political pressure to delay the ambitious measures called for in “AB 32” is mounting, but, California can’t afford to put off at least one major component of its climate plan: weaning itself from fossil fuels, says a new report. Doing so will cost money, as will dealing with severe water shortages and other climate impacts going forward. We wonder, what will be the federal role, if any, in helping California (and other states in a similar boat) get over this hump?

“Lessons learned” while building climate preparedness—notes from Chicago, Pres. Obama’s home town

Posted on Wednesday, October 07, 2009

If President Obama is looking for ways to formulate a national climate change strategy that extends beyond cap-and-trade, he has no further to look than his home town of Chicago, Illinois. Under the leadership of Mayor Richard M. Daley, a Chicago Climate Task Force created in 2006 produced an ambitious climate action plan that “is grounded in the science” and simultaneously deals with “mitigation” (avoiding unmanageable impacts by reducing heat-trapping pollution) and “adaptation” (managing unavoidable consequences of climate destabilization). Chicago now wishes to share its experiences with others, starting with the recent release of a “lessons learned” chronicle that mayors and governors, in fact all policymakers at all levels of government, can benefit from.

1000th US mayor signs climate agreement—but most still aren’t prepared for climate impacts

Posted on Friday, October 02, 2009

A total of 1000 US mayors have now signed their names to the US Conference of Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a milestone being celebrated in Seattle this weekend, where 60 mayors are attending the group’s Leadership Meeting. The three-pronged Agreement centers on cutting heat-trapping pollution emissions in their own cities and towns, while urging their governors and the federal government to adopt CO2 reduction targets. But it doesn’t call for planning or preparedness for climate change impacts. On the agenda is the economic recession and “green” economic recovery; this would also be a good opportunity for the mayors to talk about climate change impacts, and to learn from one another how they can best prepare and adapt.

Climate Security Index: Global climate disruption seen as a US national security problem

Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Climate Security Index, a new report by the American Security Project, links global climate change impacts and energy insecurity to US national security, concluding that these interrelated problems constitute a “clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.” The report says global climate change is projected to produce “insufficient water supplies, shifting rainfall patterns, disruptions to agriculture, human migrations, more failing states, increased extremism, and even resource wars,” all of which pose an urgent threat that must be addressed in national security policy. And, we would ask, what are the human security issues that must be addressed in the larger international policy context?

“The lesson from the Atlanta flood is that many Americans are unprepared”

Posted on Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Christian Science Monitor reported last week: “Atlanta flood: After drought, residents caught by surprise.” This is precisely the sort of headline that climate scientists have been warning us about when they talk about altered precipitation patterns as a result of global climate disruption. The 20 inches of rain that fell in a day and a half and deluged a wide swathe of the greater Atlanta area has, so far, taken 10 lives and inflicted an estimated $250 million in damages. It followed a two-year drought that severely threatened local water supplies. Citing “great hydrologic and climate uncertainty,” one expert quoted by CSM puts forth a new climate wisdom that has as yet to catch on widely: “We can’t necessarily count on what we saw in the past as the judgment of where storms are going to be in the future.”

“High science should meet up with civic science” for climate adaptation says former Holdren student

Posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009

“Himalayans needs climate change science to get its fingers dirty,” says a former student of John Holdren and research director of a prominent water conservation center in Nepal. In an interview with the UK Guardian Environment Network as part of an ongoing series of dialogues, Dipak Gyawali says the ecologic, geographic, social, and ethnic diversity of the Himalayas demands a “toad-eye view” of local conditions in addition to the “eagle-eye view” that satellite observations and computer modeling provide. Such “civic science” should meet up with “high science” more often, he argues.

Obama on 4th anniversary of Katrina: We must be more prepared for future disasters and challenges

Posted on Monday, August 31, 2009

“On this anniversary, we are focused on the threat from hurricanes. But we must also be prepared for a broad range of dangers,” President Obama said in his August 29 weekly address, on Lessons and Renewal Out of the Gulf Coast. Amen to that, and while he is using the language of preparedness planning and implementation, the President should start applying it to the threatened impacts of global climate disruption.

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