International Herald Tribune Editorial - Blinding America in space

International Herald Tribune Editorial - Blinding America in space
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: January 26, 2007


You don't have to be a space or climate expert to recognize that America's ability to track climate and environmental changes from space is heading in the wrong direction. At a time when concerns about global warming are rising, the Bush administration is sharply reducing the number of satellites that can measure the impact of rising temperatures and a host of other environmental trends.

The administration's hypocrisy is stunning. For years, the president and top officials have justified their refusal to grapple seriously with global warming by insisting that more research is needed. Now, after pledging that such research would be the centerpiece of a new climate change strategy, the administration is underfinancing some of the most important efforts to gather data.

A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences projected an alarming decline in vital studies and monitoring. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration currently has a number of Earth-observing satellites in orbit, but since 2000 its budget for earth sciences has decreased over 30 percent.

By 2010, the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA satellites that observe the Earth is likely to drop by 40 percent as old equipment fails and is not promptly replaced. Meanwhile, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, huge cost overruns and technical problems have delayed planned launchings of key climate and weather-monitoring satellites and forced the elimination of instruments essential for climate science.

The setbacks are bound to hobble efforts to understand whether hurricanes and heat waves are becoming more frequent and intense, whether ice sheets will collapse and drive sea levels dangerously high, and how fish stocks, deforestation, drinking water supplies and air pollution are affected as populations grow and economies take off.

We clearly need more data in coming years, not less.