Climate Science Watch

“The White House proposal that would move the country’s oceans and atmosphere agency — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — from its current home in the Commerce Department and fold it into the Interior Department, could severely undermine America’s climate and weather research efforts, as well as marine resource protection,” writes Climate Central senior science writer Andrew Freedman in a good opinion commentary.  “Worse, it comes at a time when climate change beseeches us to build those capacities.” Continue reading →

“How does it help us with the things we need from NOAA?” we said to ClimateWire, questioning the President’s proposal to subsume the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into the Department of the Interior. “Is it going to help those things or throw them into turmoil and create mischief on the Hill?” The proposed NOAA restructuring could be disruptive to carrying out the agency’s already challenging and sensitive climate change responsibilities. And it could make it less independent when, if anything, it should be more independent. Continue reading →

“I think we have a situation now where politics are driven by the limits that are set by concentrated corporate power,” CSW director Rick Piltz said as part of a discussion of President Obama’s record on the environment and the election campaign, on Al Jazeera English TV's series, Inside Story: US 2012.  The other panelists were Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress.  A webcast of the program, aired January 13, is posted online here.