This is reminiscent of communist Russia with their disastrous five year plan, which while the plan encouraged industrialization, damaged Soviet agriculture to such an extent that it didn’t recover until after the Second World War. The plan was considered by the Soviet leadership so successful in this sense that the second Five-Year Plan was declared in 1932, lasting until 1937. (source: Wikipedia)
In the same vein, the US opens a new line of attack in the AGW battle, which I expect to damage both industry and agriculture:
Administration Releases 10-Year Global Change Strategic Plan
The Obama Administration today released a 10-year strategic plan for research related to global change, identifying priorities that will help state and local governments, businesses, and communities prepare for anticipated changes in the global environment, including climate change, in the decades ahead.
The Plan—released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which for more than 20 years has coordinated Federal global change research— was developed collaboratively by more than 100 Federal scientists. It reflects extensive inputs from stakeholders and the general public, as well as a detailed review by the National Research Council, chartered by Congress to provide independent expert advice to the Nation. The Plan will be implemented through the USGCRP and the 13 Federal departments and agencies it represents.
“Human actions are altering the atmosphere, the land, and our oceans, placing new pressures on the Earth’s ecosystems and threatening the health and economic welfare of our Nation and the world,” said Tom Armstrong, Executive Director of the USGCRP. “High-quality and well-coordinated research is essential if we are to better understand and predict future changes, develop strategies to minimize our vulnerabilities, and adapt to changes that can’t be avoided.”
Federal research under the USGCRP has for two decades focused largely on detailed documentation of specific environmental changes by satellite and other Earth-observing technologies and the development of sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s climate system to predict how such changes will manifest in the near-term. In the ten years going forward that emphasis will expand to incorporate the complex dynamics of ecosystems and human social-economic activities and how those factors influence global change. By including these added dimensions, USGCRP-sponsored research will generate information of unprecedented practical use to decision-makers in a wide range of sectors including agriculture, municipal planning, and public works.
“It is no longer enough to study the isolated physical, chemical, and biological factors affecting global change,” Armstrong said. “Advanced computing technologies and methods now allow us to integrate insights from those disciplines and add important information from the ecological, social, and economic sciences. This new capacity will deepen our understanding of global change processes and help planners in realms as diverse as storm water management, agriculture, and natural resources management.”
The Strategic Plan describes four key goals for the USGCRP during 2012 – 2021:
- Advance Science: Advance scientific knowledge of the integrated natural and human components of the Earth system, drawing upon physical, chemical, biological, ecological, and behavioral sciences.
- Inform Decisions: Provide the scientific basis to inform and enable timely decisions on adaptation to and mitigation of global change.
- Conduct Sustained Assessments: Build a sustained assessment capacity that improves the Nation’s ability to understand, anticipate, and respond to global change impacts and vulnerabilities.
- Communicate and Educate: Broaden public understanding of global change and support the development of a scientific workforce skilled in Earth-system sciences.
Work towards these goals will help the USGCRP fulfill its Congressional mandate to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change,” as called for in the Global Change Research Act of 1990. To achieve these goals, USGCRP is developing an implementation strategy that will draw in part upon its expertise in conducting National Climate Assessments—broad assessments of global change impacts across U.S. economic sectors, the latest of which is currently under development.
In combination with USGCRP’s expanding communication and education activities, the new scientific findings and decision-support tools expected to emerge from the Strategic Plan will empower a broad range of stakeholders to make more informed and effective decisions as they prepare for and respond to the many dimensions of global change.
To learn more about USGCRP please visit: http://library.globalchange.gov/us-global-change-research-program-factsheet
http://www.globalchange.gov/whats-new/689-new-usgcrp-strategic-plan-for-2012-2021
I have to say, this is honestly terrifying to me and will provide the pretext for even more draconian energy regulation by the Federal Govenment in the future unless a new administration and Congress get elected, and return to science and reject the religious dogma of the climate change establishment. The threat to our American way of life, which has made the United States the greatest country in the world, is real and imminent.
“The threat to our American way of life, which has made the United States the greatest country in the world, is real and imminent.”
Chuck L
Yes but to those who follow that religious dogma, the American way of life is bad. They believe that other ways of life are much much better, particularly the European way, so unless you make a good living be prepared to watch soccer and drive an electric car. The way of life of Americans is just soooo bad.
Curiousgeorge says:
May 1, 2012 at 6:43 pm
152 pages, 32 MB of BS. Lot’s of pretty pictures. Lot’s of “Goals and Objectives”. One pie chart about how they are going to divvy up $2.18billion. Nothing that anyone with a clue about Strategic Planning would recognize. Note even a lousy Milestone chart. Basically a wish list and job security. Improve this, assess that, communicate the other thing. This will sit on a shelf and collect $2.18 billion dollars of dust. Paid for by US Taxpayers. Gee, thanks y’all.
——————————-
No problem, George…………We just borrow the money from China. They’ve got lots of money.
Centrally Planned Economy – how to bring a country to its knees without firing a shot.
The 12 people that form the core of the National Research Council’s committee on Climate change:
Not one of them with a background in business, economics, finance or engineering.
Realistically, you’d need a 10,000 to 100,000-year plan if you want to deal with global climate change; and then what are you going to do about it anyway?
10-year plan? Pure hubris. It would be more useful to pay those people to dig holes and fill them up again. At least the soil would get aerated, eh?
Don Keiller says:
May 2, 2012 at 3:35 am
http://thegwpf.org/images/stories/gwpf-reports/goklany-public_health.pdf
Good article:
Given this, Figure 1, also based on WHO (2009), not surprisingly
shows that global warming ranks second-last based on global mortality
(panel on page 28) or last based on the global burden of disease, i.e., lost
DALYs (panel on page 29).
This is nothing but a massive self interested money grab.
The entire four point plan, a remedy pretending to have a problem, is essentially a call for funding with a ginned up sense of need, urgency and priority.
All of it is the same bureaucrat speak commonly used in funding decisions to justify every department and program and policy.
$. Advance Science: Who would be against that? Who’s science? Any science? Illegitimate science? Of course. More money to our into every manufactured need to monitor and report on all things.
$. Inform Decisions: Versus uninformed? “Provide the scientific basis” means compile anything academia and bureaucracies can dream up and call it science.
$. Conduct Sustained Assessments: Oh yeah that’s vital. Who will do that? The same people advancing the science will also be in charge of helping the “Nation’s ability to understand” it.
Wow, that’s like a quasi-peer review/sharing and guidance system that can’t go wrong.
$. Communicate and Educate: Perfect. This way the same people will handle any challenges, shape the public view and decide who will be among the tax funded scientific workforce.
Sometimes the only adequate response to something like this is a two word expression that would get snipped. Hint: A single finger. And not thumbs up.
I’m pretty sure that most people here recognize that this and similar initiatives, plans, etc. are tools which are designed with political power as the ultimate goal.
What should be understood, is that political power is never ‘given’. It is always taken. Sometimes thru trickery and deception, sometimes thru brute force, but always taken.
What US policies have done is to send manufacturing from the US to China, where costs are lower and pollution is higher. The US now sends a large amounts of cola to China to provide energy for this manufacturing.
Along with this manufacturing has gone the jobs. However, the pollution has returned from China to the US, via the wind. US CO2 levels are at record highs – but now they are being created in China using US coal, providing employment for Chinese and unemployment for Americans.
typo:
The US now sends a large amounts of COAL to China to provide energy for this manufacturing.
Reuters) – U.S. coal exports to China could more than double to over 12 million tonnes in 2012 thanks to depressed freight rates and a fall in domestic demand in the United States, the chief of top U.S. coal exporter Xcoal Energy & Resources said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/us-coal-idUSBRE83I0AK20120419
How come if the US is worried about energy security they are sending their coal to China? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use domestic coal in place of oil from the middle east?
As the EPA shuts down coal plants in the US, US coal demand drops and the coal is shipped to China where it produces CO2 which the wind carries back to the US. How many US jobs does that coal represent? How much has the EPA policy reduced global CO2 production?
Combining climate science modelling which fails to track the past or accurately forecast the future with models from sciences and liberal arts (including the “dismal science” of economics) can only result in models of such overreaching complexity that falsification is impossible.
If you have enough stopped clocks one is accurate every minute of the day.
BTW, that fugitive Strong was in Canada, interviewed as if nothing happened at the UN… protections?
Rep. Darrel issa (House Oversight Committee), drop everything else and follow the money from here! $2.18 Billion must lead down a lot of rat holes.
This seems like a good program to defund if we ever get a government that will have a budget.
If someone is a “Federal Scientist”, He is a shill.
Friends:
I write to thank everyone who has replied to the question in my post (at May 2, 2012 at 2:14 am).
My post explained that I failed to see any change in US policies and expenditure(s) in the “Strategic Plan” except for altered wording and, therefore, the “Plan” seems to be a presentation of existing policy with an adjustment of wording for use prior to the coming election.
Hence, my question was;
“So, can anybody tell me what is being altered by this “Plan”, please?”
Understandably, several people seem to have thought my question was rhetorical because they gave a reply which was most clearly expressed by Bill Tuttle (at May 2, 2012 at 3:13 am): his reply said to me;
“You missed the point. The plan doesn’t alter anything — the plan needs to *be* altered.
Altered all the way down to nothing…”
Of course, I agree with that poiint which I did not miss. Indeed, I have been fighting the AGW-scare since the early 1980s (i.e. before many readers of WUWT were born). And I am sure that e.g. Bill Tuttle knows I agree with it, so his answer (and similar answers from others) must have been posed as a rhetorical response to what was thought to be a rhetorical question.
But my question was genuine and not rhetorical.
At May 2, 2012 at 5:28 am ‘klem’ posted the only comment which addresses the issues I explained and summated with my question. He writes;
“I must be out of date but I hear them use the term ‘global change’ rather than ‘global warming or climate change’. The term ‘global change’ is a much broader term, it can include change of anykind, like social, economic, political, not merely environmental change. Organizations which broaden their mission statement or broaden their business definition, usually do so because they are unable to reach their earlier targets or see a larger market for their business, and must innovate to reach them. But this change in terminology has a hint of policing or surveillance, as well as implied intervention built into it. I’ve never noticed this before.”
Thankyou ‘klem’. That is how I interpret it, too. If we are right then publication of this “Strategic Plan” has importance.
That importance is expressed by ‘Chuck L’ whose post at May 2, 2012 at 5:58 am begins;
“I have to say, this is honestly terrifying to me …”
Simply, few are aware of the implications of this “Strategic Plan” and similar policies in other countries (notably EU countries). But the publication of this “Strategic Plan” provides an opportunity to raise the public’s awareness of the implications.
Therefore, publication of this “Plan” provides an opportunity for all who value freedom to unite in raising that awareness both in the US and elsewhere. I hope we will do that. And I hope we will avoid the attack-dogs of the American extreme-right preventing that unity as they often do on WUWT.
Richard
Mac the Knife says:
OK. November is approaching rapidly. We must spend the months between in re-doubled efforts to defeat Obama and his socialist cadres in the coming election.
I think this counterpoint to that sentiment is worth considering: 5 Reasons Why Conservatives Should Root For a Romney Defeat
I did not want to go off-topic too much, so I wrote up a blog post on my blog on the Copper wars if anyone was interested in discussing the regulation/deregulation and what I meant by my post earlier. I did it rather quickly, so its slightly choppy, and I used the book I read awhile back for most of it. (source wise) I did get a couple details wrong since it was so long since I read it in my posts above, so please forgive me.. http://benfrommo.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/copper-wars-and-the-case-for-sensible-regulation/
In any case, I agree that anything we see nowadays is over-regulation and that is where the direction of the conversation should be going, namely as to the point of this 10 year plan seen here. Its nothing but a way for people to justify spending more taxpayer monies on a 10 year plan that will become yet another 10 year plan that fails miserably, costs money and will probably destory industry and agricultural if it acutally achieves anything.
But heck, this plan is nothing cost wise. We already give away over 100 hundred billion a year in subsidies for sunbeams and wind turbines (which fits into the pockets of the robber barons as me and Gail were mentioned earlier….) and the only thing to be concerned about with this plan is the actual objectives and whether its just another waste of money or whether its actually going to take away our freedom. That takes some reading in other words.
Here’s a theory to explain the tenacity of the CAGW narrative in spite of substantial contrarian evidence.
CAGW may not be a stratagem for leftist control and taxation as is often expressed here and elsewhere. Rather it may represent a symptom of a worldwide political and societal shift to the left. The reason for this shift to the left is probably a consequence of the comfortable lifestyles brought about by the economic affluence of the last century, especially of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Think about it. What preoccupies the individuals of an affluent society? There are no immediate concerns. Thought – and activism – can be devoted to long-term concerns and to our fellow man. The well-off can not only afford to, but must, appear altruistic and utopic. More so in the public sphere, such as in academia and in politics. Public figures need worthy causes to show off their sanctimonious greatness. After all, opportunity calls. The precautionary principle, saving the planet and generally caring for the less fortunate become imperious. As for the less well-off, they develop a sense of entitlement. They want a share of the wealth i.e. other people’s money. Therefore, affluence leads to socialism. Never mind that capitalism brought about the affluence in the first place.
So what will bring CAGW down? The downfall of socialism will kill CAGW. Socialism fails when money runs out, as it always does. Money is already rapidly running out in the social democracies. As socialism fails, over the next 5 to 10 years, concerns will shift to more immediate and basic needs (food, warm shelters, jobs, health and education). Proper climate science alone won’t kill CAGW because doubts, however small, on the human contribution will persist. The precautionary principle will apply until more basic and more immediate concerns take over.
Does this mean we’re wasting our time trying to set the record straight? Absolutely not. We have to denounce the very notion of using Science for ideological purposes. The credibility of Science depends on it.
Whoops. They forgot to tell the public that they got to comment!
@ferd berple says:
May 2, 2012 at 8:01 am
“typo:
The US now sends a large amounts of COAL to China to provide energy for this manufacturing.”
Both statements are correct.
mods – incorrect italic closing alert on H.R. comment #2 to ferd. Not sure what I missed.