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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump White House quietly cancels NASA research verifying greenhouse gas cuts
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/trump-white-house-quietly-cancels-nasa-research-verifying-greenhouse-gas-cuts?fbclid=IwAR1QT45Zsfa58eURjp9PHGSeNEUMFO_9QESyvuQ0F8QIkpTWPs4tmDKbd9YBy Paul VoosenMay. 9, 2018 , 2:00 PM
You can't manage what you don't measure. The adage is especially relevant for climate-warming greenhouse gases, which are crucial to manageand challenging to measure. In recent years, though, satellite and aircraft instruments have begun monitoring carbon dioxide and methane remotely, and NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS), a $10-million-a-year research line, has helped stitch together observations of sources and sinks into high-resolution models of the planet's flows of carbon. Now, President Donald Trump's administration has quietly killed the CMS, Science has learned.
The move jeopardizes plans to verify the national emission cuts agreed to in the Paris climate accords, says Kelly Sims Gallagher, director of Tufts University's Center for International Environment and Resource Policy in Medford, Massachusetts. "If you cannot measure emissions reductions, you cannot be confident that countries are adhering to the agreement," she says. Canceling the CMS "is a grave mistake," she adds.
The White House has mounted a broad attack on climate science, repeatedly proposing cuts to NASA's earth science budget, including the CMS, and cancellations of climate missions such as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3). Although Congress fended off the budget and mission cuts, a spending deal signed in March made no mention of the CMS. That allowed the administration's move to take effect, says Steve Cole, a NASA spokesperson in Washington, D.C. Cole says existing grants will be allowed to finish up, but no new research will be supported.
The agency declined to provide a reason for the cancellation beyond "budget constraints and higher priorities within the science budget." But the CMS is an obvious target for the Trump administration because of its association with climate treaties and its work to help foreign nations understand their emissions, says Phil Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. And, unlike the satellites that provide the data, the research line had no private contractor to lobby for it.
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BootinUp
(47,143 posts)Last edited Thu May 9, 2019, 07:48 AM - Edit history (1)
Dueling banjos.
hatrack
(59,584 posts)And by the time we get there, Earth will be nearly as lifeless.
C_U_L8R
(45,001 posts)Republicans are dooming their own children and grandchildren. And ours.
FailureToCommunicate
(14,013 posts)Just wondering
Grokenstein
(5,722 posts)They steal everything and wreck the place, and we clean up and fill the register back up; then some idiot lets 'em back in to steal everything and wreck the place, and we...well, you know the routine.
And then one day it doesn't work out that way.
Martin Eden
(12,864 posts)Soon they will no longer have a need for this earthly planet, as their residence will be in the Pearly Gated community.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)Owl
(3,641 posts)bigbrother05
(5,995 posts)They are banking on hitting the Lotto and don't want the kids to lose any money when they die.
They talk about small farms/businesses being lost to future generations but it's Big Ag & Walmart that are killing them.
Bottom line: They'll plan for something that's not going to happen but ignore the waves lapping at their ankles.
rickford66
(5,523 posts)rickyhall
(4,889 posts)2naSalit
(86,579 posts)Mustellus
(328 posts).. they are doing the cover up. The only thing they have any experience at.... so global warming is real.
If it wasn't real, this research would prove its not happening.
So.. see the real message here....
vlyons
(10,252 posts)The Evangelicals believe that Jesus will rhapsody them off to heaven and/or Jesus will come back to reign and rule. And the Oligarchs believe that they'll own Park Place and Boardwalk and all the RRs and utilities and just buy the best property on earth with the best water and warehouse plenty of food, oxygen tanks, and freon for their air conditioners. Problem solved.
mopinko
(70,090 posts)execs who are tearing down their agencies.
time for nancy to clamp the purse shut on these assholes.