AP, ClimateWire, Brit Press, etc: US forms a new Nat’l Climate Service
The Tracker would have thought, if I’d thought to think about it, that we already have a National Climate Service and it’s called NOAA and in particular its National Climatic Data Center. The news, announced yesterday in DC’s blizzard, is that an NCS is gestating anyway under orders from the top in the executive branch. Perhaps this will make it easier for reporters to get the official word on climate matters – ditto for politicos, NGOs, and the general public. Thomas Karl, the NCDC director, is on tap as its first director. This may or may not be good news. Karl is a friendly source, generally now fairly easy to reach and chat with directly. It’s sometimes possible, or has been, to just dial his number and he says hello. But as head of this higher profile agency there likely will be a public affairs gantlet to run first.
Stories:
- AP – Randolph E. Schmid: Obama administration to set up new agency to study, monitor climate change ; Schmid slips in a little bit of the political storms swirling around climate policy, but sticks pretty much to what this will do and what it’ll take to make it official.
- ClimateWire via NY Times – Lauren Morello : Agency Will Creat National Climate Service to Spur Adaptation ; That’s a wise hed – the service’s job is not merely to collate the science of what may be coming and propose how to stop it, but to help coordinate how to manage the unstoppable. This also explains that setting up the agency is at the discretion of the White House – but getting money to it will be easier with Congressional compliance. One wonders – is there’s a filibuster ogre under that bridge?
- Guardian (UK) Suzanne Goldenberg : US climate monitoring information service gets go-ahead in Washington ;
- Washington Post – Juliet Eilperin: US proposes new climate service ; It comes, she writes along with the boilerplate on who and what, that this comes “at a time when skeptics have become increasingly effective in attacking the credibility of global warming forecasts.” And, undeterred by blizzards, she interviewed NOAA head Jane Lubchenco. Maybe that was by phone. Lots of other sources too. This is a solid story, maybe best of the bunch.
- Bloomberg – Kim Chapman: U.S. to Creat Climate-Change Office, Commerce’s Locke Says ;
- Washington Times – Jennifer Haberkorn : New federal office for global warming ; The roiling politics of climate change is a background aspect, well down in most stories, but tops the lede at the Times “..Amid the growing fight over the accuracy of climate data, President Obama is seeking to have the federal government put its imprimatur on the science by calling for the creation oof a new federal office to study and report on global warming.” Hmm. Contradicting the tone of its lede, the story eventually notes that the office entails no budget boost for NOAA or climate science – it is a reshuffling and coordination of existing people, jobs, and services.
- Charlotte Observer – Bruce Henderson: New Service to include Asheville Center ; That center being Karl’s present responsibility, the Nat’l Climatic Data Center.
Who DIDN’T Cover It? The Wall Street Journal‘s Environmental Capital Blog for one because it is no more, after two years. So the paper used the AP wire for the news. Its Washington Wire blog, by Louise Radnofsky, does cover the irony that the big Snowmageddon storm in DC forced cancellation of a Press Club news conference – NOAA did a teleconference instead. But the folks at WSJ who should have covered this for the paper’s Env. Cap. Blog did not. It is kaput as of a few weeks ago with no explanation from the journal other than This ambiguous from one of its stalwarts, Keith Johnson. The Tracker is among the last to notice – here’s one other blogger’s take from a week or so ago.
Grist for the Mill:
NOAA Press Release; NOAA New Climate Portal including further detail on the new service ; NOAA Prototype Climate Services Website ;
- Charlie Petit
