e: Dec2-6 climate conference

From: David E. Wojick (view other messages by this author)
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 11:09:00

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>Some on this list went to the Dec2-6 2002 conference on climate.
>Who was there? What did you say? What did they say? What's next?
>
>Pat
>
The following article sums it up pretty well. 1300 people talking and
nobody listening. You
can download the Plan and make your own comments at
http://climatescience.gov

My pitch was the beginning of a campaign. In the last few years a new
view has emerged, a revolution
really. Multiple natural variation mechanisms have been identified, any
one of which can explain
all of the 20th Century climate change. So GHG warming is now just one of
many plausible theories,
not an explanation. We need to sort this out before we take any action
whatever.

They gave me the counter argument that the models cannot explain the late
20th Century warming
without GHGs. So I pointed out that the models do not include the new
mechanisms, so that argument
is invalid. So are the models. They shrugged me off but I am gong to beat
them up with this.
Climate is a new game.

"Patchy", the IPCC's new head, embarassed himself, in my view. He gave a
keynote address using
a bunch of scare slides from the Union of Concerned Scientists. This to a
bunch of top real
scientists, who must regard the UCS as the green activists they are. Did
not speak well for
the objectivity of the IPCC. I predicted he would screw up like this.

I caught NSF head Rita Colwell saying something she shouldn't have, but
she made me promise
not to tell. She seems a nice lady.

The head of NOAA told me there will not be a National Climate Service.
Good decision.

David W

Bush Climate Change Plan Short on Details

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, December 6, 2002 (ENS) - Scientists and climate experts
applauded the Bush
administration's coordination of a three day workshop on global climate
change, but found its
draft plan for study of the issue short on priorities, details and
funding.

Without serious revisions, experts say, the plan is unlikely to provide a
strategy for policymakers
to adequately address the issue of climate change.

"By focusing so much on the uncertainties and on the costs of action, the
plan biases decision
makers toward inaction," said Dr. Susanne Moser, a scientist with the
Union of Concerned Scientists
(UCS) Global Environment Program. "This plan also shouldn't oversell the
ability of the research
community to overcome uncertainty, especially in the short term. We
should be honest about
how our work typically resolves some, and creates new, unknowns."

"This is a wonderful document but it is not a strategic plan," said
Berrien Moore, a professor
at the University of New Hampshire's Institute for the Study of Earth,
Oceans, and Space. "It
lacks an overarching strategy, but the plan and the meeting are
remarkable achievements in
themselves."

More than 1,300 climate scientists and experts attended the
administration sponsored meeting
to offer public comments on the draft version of a new strategic plan for
climate change and
global change studies. It was held in Washington, DC from December 3 to
5.

Further public comments on the plan, which was prepared by the 13 federal
agencies participating
in the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), will be accepted
through January 13, 2003
with the final version set for publication in April 2003.

Uncertainty and the cost of action remain key sticking points on how to
address climate change.
So far, the Bush administration has only called for voluntary measures to
reduce greenhouse
gas emissions.

Administration officials have repeatedly said further research on the
effects of global warming
and on humanity's influence on climate change is needed before sound
policy can be formed.
Its draft plan centers on reducing this uncertainty.

"We hope that this workshop and the strategic plan under discussion will
map out the strategy
by which these uncertainties can be cleared up or better understood,"
said U.S. Deputy Secretary
of Commerce Sam Bodman.

"There is a great deal we don't know or don't know well enough," added
William O'Keefe, president
of the George C. Marshall Institute. "We think there may be a problem but
we are far from understanding
the causes. Unfortunately, in the climate change arena, skepticism has
become a vice, not a
virtue."

Many environmentalists and scientists contend that the administration's
call for further research
masks a strategy that seeks to delay any substantive action on the issue
of climate change.
There is ample evidence of global warming, they say, but this
administration and its draft
plan on climate change are ignoring it.

"Do we have enough evidence to decide that aggressive action to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions
is appropriate? The rest of the world has answered yes and many states
and cities in this country
have answered yes," said Dr. Janine Bloomfield, a scientist with tne New
York based nonprofit
group Environmental Defense.

"Narrowing down uncertainties is a legitimate goal," added Donald
Goldberg, senior attorney
with the Center for International Law's Climate Change Program. "What is
not legitimate is
to use the existence of uncertainties as an excuse not to act. We all
know there are uncertainties,
there always are in science. If we could never act to avert an
environmental catastrophe until
we resolved all the uncertainties, then we would never act at all."

"This is not a delaying tactic," responded meteorologist Dr. James
Mahoney, assistant secretary
of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and director of the CCSP.
"Reasonable people can and
do disagree with the interpretation of the research on climate change,
but no one disagrees
that we need continued research on this issue."

Financial resources available to address potential climate change are not
infinite, Mahoney
added, and the administration wants to ensure its policies do not pose
undue burdens on either
the U.S. or global economy. This cautious approach, he said, should not
be misconstrued as
inaction.

"We may well find that the solutions we need to address global warming
are solutions that cost
trillions of dollars," he added. "When we look at major shifts in energy
use, one question
for a government that has the largest economy in the world has to ask is
'what will the effects
of these shifts be on our trading partners and within this country?'"

"We are greatly concerned that anything we might do in the U.S. economy
might impede the ability
of developing countries to sell to America," Mahoney said. "That is
always a relevant question."

"You can achieve almost anything today, it is just a question of how much
you want to pay,"
added Robert Card, undersecretary for energy, science and environment at
the U.S. Energy Department.

Card and other administration officials noted that the U.S. federal
government has spent some
$20 billion on climate change research since 1990, but must begin to
focus these resources
to provide better science on the issue. According to several experts more
resources are needed.

"Resources are limiting the rate of progress," said Dr. Richard Anthes,
president of the University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research. "We could justify one million times
the present computing
power worldwide."

Anthes and other conference participants repeatedly highlighted this need
for more resources
along with more clearly set budget priorities. They also found the draft
strategic plan needs
better integration among government and intergovernmental agencies and
programs, and a global
observation system, as well as improved modeling of regional climate
patterns.

The plan needs to include costs of inaction and costs of adaptive
measures to climate change
for comparison with projected costs of mitigation efforts, experts say.

Many participants agreed that there is enough evidence for actions beyond
voluntary measures
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, something the Bush administration
appears reluctant to
embrace. Critics point to the plan's failure to fully integrate findings
from the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change or from the U.S. Global Change Research Program's
National Assessment
of the Potential Consequences of Climate Change.

"When you read the plan, you definitely get the feeling that it is not
building on previous
work," Bloomfield said.

"The global models all point towards warming and not to any small
degree," Moser said. "There
is huge agreement on some of the global patterns that we are seeing and
on the human contribution,
even if there is a natural element. This report doesn't highlight that or
build on that at all."

Beyond the need to further incorporate the existing science, many experts
found the plan in
dire need of a more integrated international outlook. Goldberg, who
served on a panel that
reviewed the draft chapter on international collaboration, said there was
"no sense of how
the Bush administration is going to collaborate with other countries."

"It is entirely unfocused," he said. "Almost all of the chapter was a
recitation of things
that the United States has already been doing. You get the sense that
they didn't really sit
down and try to come up with a real, overarching plan that addresses all
of the objectives
in a cohesive, coherent way."

The administration now expects to digest the public comments with the aim
to release a final
version of the plan by April 2003. In addition, the simultaneous review
of the plan by a new
committee of the National Academy of Science's National Research Council
could offer further
insight into how seriously public comments are considered in the process.

According to National Academy of Science president Bruce Alberts, the
organization will review
both the draft and final versions of the plan, with a report expected in
September 2003.

The open process, repeatedly touted by Bush administration officials,
will let stakeholders
understand how their comments and suggestions were addressed. This is
could add further pressure
on the administration to take these comments and suggestions to heart,
said UCS' Moser.

I"It will be really, really difficult for the Bush administration to
completely dismiss and
ignore this. Many of the critical comments are on public record," she
said. "I still have my
doubts to the extent they will take all this to heart. But so many
comments on public record
will make it difficult to ignore."

"The openness of the workshop got everyone hopeful again that they could
have an influence
on this plan and that it is something that is not a done deal already,"
she added. "They'll
frustrate some of the best scientists in the country if they do not
respond to it in a constructive
manner."

--------- Forwarded message ----------
>From: "David E. Wojick"
>To: Debate
>Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 14:25:18 -0500
>Subject: My science milestone report is up
>Message-ID:
>
>Dear Listers, I have a new report just out--
>
>Wojick, David E., 2003. Uncertainties, Milestones and Issues in the
CCSP.
>An Assessment of the Strategic Plan of the U.S. Climate Change Science
>Program. December 2003. Online go to
and search on

>.
>
>My basic point is that the CCSP Strategic Plan gives many time-estimated
>milestones for resolving key scientific uncertainties. These must be
>resolved before we can determine whether or not humans are in fact
>influencing climate. This definition of milestones is a major step
>forward, for which the CCSP is to be commended. What remains is to
>network the critical dependencies between these milestones, to find the
>critical path to resolution. Then do the research to work thru that
path.
>
>
>Many of the key time estimates are "beyond 4 years," and some have to
>wait for others to be resolved along the critical path. Therefore, it
>will likely be a decade or more before the science is settled, one way
or
>the other. This in itself is an important finding. Comments welcome.
>
>Critical path scheduling is a well known project management method. it
>should be applied to climate research.
>
>Happy New Year,
>
>David W.
>
>David E. Wojick, PE, Ph.D.
>
>President
>Climatechangedebate.org
>
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>
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