From Slashdot and Networkworld
I suppose it’s natural for Washington to try and wrap issues up in a tidy legislative package for bureaucratic purposes (or perhaps other things more nefarious). But one has to wonder if we really need another government-led group, especially when it comes to the climate and all the sometimes controversial information that entails. But that’s what is under way.
Today the House Science and Technology Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing on the need for a National Climate Service that could meet the increased demand for climate information, the committee said.
The NCS would provide a single point of contact of information climate forecasts and support for planning and management decisions by federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; and the private sector.
“Climate affects all of us everyday in communities across the country. As our ability to understand and recognize climate cycles and patterns has grown, so has the demand for more information,” said Chairman Brian Baird (D-WA) in a statement. “It is in our best interest to structure a service that will utilize our expertise to deliver information that will not only support us nationally, but at the regional and local scale where adaptation and response plans can best be implemented.”
According a release from the committee, the hearing included witnesses from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Department of Agriculture, and other organizations that deliver climate services as well as witnesses who utilize climate information that is currently available.
NOAA describes the NCS as being the nation’s identified, accessible, official source of authoritative, regular, and timely climate information. That includes historical and real-time data, monitoring and assessments, research and modeling, predictions and projections, decision support tools and early warning systems, and the development and delivery of valued climate services.
One has to wonder though are climate issues, which can require nimble action in some cases really be served by what would likely end up being a huge governmental entity.
The ClimateScienceWatch.org site put the challenges this way:
The need to be able to translate the fruits of the good work of the IPCC [Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change], the US Climate Change Science Program, and other ongoing scientific climate-related research and observations into information that is usable, useful, timely and relevant to people whose lives and livelihoods depend on present and future climate conditions is what the drive to create US National Climate Service is all about. In collaboration with officials from other agencies and research institutions, NOAA has been engaged in a deliberative planning process for establishing an overall framework within the federal government that would spell out the respective roles and responsibilities of NOAA and other federal and non-federal entities, and provide a prescription for managing and operating a NCS.
Though the idea has been kicked around for years-for example, the National Research Council has issued two reports of relevance: A Climate Services Vision: First Steps Toward the Future (2001) and Fair Weather: Effective Partnerships in Weather and Climate Services (2003)-a consensus has still not been achieved on how best to design, operate, and fund such an entity, or even whether a National Climate Service as it is being currently framed is the right vehicle for meeting today’s needs.
So what do you think?
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Like we really need even MORE agencies falsifying data. We can barely keep up now.
Mike
Or do we need an “International Climate Service”? where ordinary folk in the muzzled regimes of Obama and Rudd and Brown can learn about the Czech or Polish – or – who next? Japanese? Russian? – views of AGW.
Wonderful idea but to give it credibility it should be contracted out to an independent body seperate from government; such as WUWT.
Anthony, why don’t you offer to provide the service at an appropriate fee, then no more need for Google trash ads? Oh well we can always dream.
Or perhaps Australia is starting to emancipate herself now, thanks to Plimer and JoNova and other authors there, getting the message out…
This just introduces an extra layer between the raw data and the politically adjusted AGW-conforming data. Its simply adding to the complexity of the climate data supply chain to make it even more difficult for the average person on the street to tell what is real from what is manufactured. Meanwhile, our taxes will be used to add this additional barrier to the truth. Thanks.
The climate centers on the above map should be perfectly adequate in serving the claimed purpose.
This would be the best way to gather, filter and fabricate the data that would support their Climate Change Policies. They would be able to keep a lid on their researchers since the government would be the official spokeperson. Also, this would be so big that they would claim to know-it-all and anyone else are wrong.
Independant research is the only research that is truely scientific.
Just what we need during these tough economic times…more spending on “climate services”!! Really? What the heck is NOAA doing, anyway? Isn’t this the NCDC’s job?
BTW…from the NOAA document
http://www.sab.noaa.gov/Reports/2008/NOAA_SAB_CWG_NCS_Review_Sep08_FINALtoNOAA.pdf
Guess who’s on the review team??
REVIEW TEAM MEMBERS
.
.
Heidi Cullen
The Weather Channel
Keep in mind that the climate service becomes unnecessary if AGW isn’t a problem, difficult to impossible to fix and dangerous. Any of those go away and we don’t need to fund it— so they wont.
I’m still amazed that the (other) CDC couldn’t delegate any responsibility for determining flu strains. All the samples headed for Georgia. Transit times + massive backlogs. Etc.
Definitely not. Almost all of the problems with AGW are the result of limited sources of funding, limited access to study publishing, limited access to mainstream media, and centralized bureaucracies that decide for the entire U.S.
A national climate service would simply be another choke point to repress data and ideas that were out of favor with whoever gained control of the service.
We need to emulate the founding fathers and push all government services down to the lowest practical level of government.
What is the need? If we can’t get it right with the agencies we have, what good will one more government service do us?
Ans. No need, no good.
I don’t really know what it would do or who it would help or if it would save money or cost money versus the status-quo.
So, I didn’t vote.
Still, I am skeptical that the NCS would not be independent and objective. I am skeptical that by putting all the eggs in one basket, the “truth” (whatever i may be) could be squelched.
Just as Rep Bachman put in a provison in one of the spending bills that said that groups under indictment couldn’t get govt funding from that bill (nailing Acorn until Barney Frank realized he’d screwed up), I have no problem with a national climate service provided that the bill requires all employees and grant recipients to employ the scientific method and sign an honesty pledge.
Imagine how much different the current debate would be if we simply required honesty and the scientific method from govt scientists!
Not even if, and especially if, it had the pope’s blessing.
More single line, fascistic groupthink, more data massaging; more ways to control the thoughts of the citizens; more deception; more bs. It’s perfect for the present government!
Makes me realise how lucky we are in the UK where we don’t have a climate, only weather, though it’s interesting to see that I’ve been invited in one of the ads to “help” the climate. Where do I start?
No.
We could with a Climate Adaptation Service to help with how best to adapt to climate changes!
More important would be to have a
Transportation Transition Service
to help with the looming critical issue of declining light oil and the need to transition transportation to other sources of fuel or energy.
realitycheck (16:29:24)
” Meanwhile, our taxes will be used to add this additional barrier to the truth”
I found it kind of comforting, however, that Anthony just got something out of the UK taxpayer when I clicked an advert on his site just moments ago.
i.e.
Climate Change Centre
One-stop centre for climate science Explore world-leading science
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk
I wonder just how much the UK government pays annually in click-through fees and why it thinks it needs to spend taxpayers money in such a way!
Graundian Moonbat will be in danger of succumbing to an apoplexy when he finds out that Neue Labour is bankrolling WUWT!
Maybe, someone should be asking questions in the Houses of Parliament.
Plea to WUWT readers – please feel free to visit the met office as often as you can. It’s a jolly good site and has lots of useful information!!
PS – Please don’t use the link I provided. Do it from the top of the page, if and when it’s available. Happy clicka-ching.
Sorry Way OT but check out new snow depth on our local ski field snow graph. Its the green line way over to the left shooting up like a space shuttle on take-off. Our Met service (historically quite accurate if a little conservative) are predicting another meter of snow during the next 7 days – unprecedented in my lifetime! Strange thing is we can’t blame the Gore Effect as its unlikely he even knows where we are. 🙂
http://www.nzski.com/report.jsp?site=mthutt
What do Montana and Hawaii have in common? Maine and West Virginia? Tennessee and Texas? Politics trumps science. There is no geographic or scientific justification for this scheme.
Who needs another organization promoting the IPCC BS.
Climate can’t be controlled by man and any one stating it can be controlled needs to be locked up in a mental institution.
The same goes for all those nerds that take such a tremendous effort to create a Global Government and the population control freaks.
They all belong behind the thick steel walls of a closed institution.
It’s a matter of them or us.
Wattsupwiththat?
Gee, as I am thinking about it the agricultural cooperative extension service probably has a keener sense of the conditions of the local climate than do any of the regional climate centers and they actually provide additional services as identifying insects, weeds, plant diseases and soil testing. They actually do something helpful for the citizens. I am not sure I can say the same for the NCDC.
Besides the first words out of their mouths is NOT “it’s because of global warming”.
I’m an acorn member so I voted twice.
“The need to be able to translate the fruits of the good work of the IPCC [Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change…”
Ho, ho, ho, they have to be kidding! This is all we need, an international political body influencing the climate information that Americans receive (and recommending how we are supposed to respond to it). This must be the product of a collective insanity. No thank you. The climate centers we already have are just fine.