Tuesday Energy Blogging: Spooks and enviros re-join forces
Posted by: Donna
Well whaddya know, the CIA might be useful after all. From the NYT:
The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.
The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.
Of course there’s carping about it from the usual suspects:
Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the C.I.A. opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, “not spying on sea lions.”
Now, with the intelligence world under fire after the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day, and with the monitoring program becoming more widely known, such criticism seems likely to grow.
Blah blah blah…I’d rather they spend money on this than on those ridiculous panty peeping machines. However, as it turns out, this info sharing doesn’t cost anything.
Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the monitoring team, said the program was “basically free.”
“People who don’t know details are the ones who are complaining,” Dr. Cicerone said.
So there’s that. And:
“Director Panetta believes it is crucial to examine the potential national security implications of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels and population shifts,” Paula Weiss, an agency spokeswoman, said.
Climate change has national security implications? Who knew?
Seriously, read the whole piece.
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Of course the Goopers are going to pooh-pooh it. If the CIA…the CIA …is concerned about security in regards to global warming, then the wheels come off the denial bus. The Repubs are starting to run out of issues to whip up the base.
This is almost too stupid to comment on. There are many other government agencies monitoring environmental issues. Why would the CIA be involved with Global Warming, when they can’t stop terrorists from getting on planes and blowing up their agents in Afghanistan?
All of our great government agencies are overlapping each others turf. Why can’t each department focus on their own jobs?
Alan, there is no reason too stupid for you to comment.
If nothing else will convince you then follow the money, Alan.
Shipping companies are already investing in infrastructure designed to take advantage of global warming (for example the Canadian company OMNITRAX has invested a mint upgrading rail lines and port facilities in sleepy towns along Hudson bay in preparation for the opening of a faster shipping route between Asia and eastern North America. This would be the ‘northwest passage,’ the futile search for which historically claimed the life of many a mariner.
Ski resorts (includiing Snow Bowl in Flagstaff) are investing a lot of money in equipment to make artificial snow in anticipation of decreased snowfall and later skiing seasons due to climate change.
ADM and Monsanto are testing fertilizer and other products designed to grow crops in soil types that are presently located in areas unfavorable to the production of those crops but will likely be as the climate changes.
There are numerous other examples of companies which are spending money now to profit or maintain profitability in the face of climate change.
If there was in fact no climate change, why would private industry, which is accountable to shareholders, not voters or pressure groups, be spending millions of dollars preparing for it?