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Al Fin

Al Fin

Al Fin runs a number of very successful blogs that cover, energy, technology, news and politics.

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The Big Winners in the Climate Change Money Game

The amount of money being spent on climate change research this year is astounding. I urge you to read the document yourself. Here is the question to take away: what are we getting for the billions of dollars we've spent? When 2011 is over will we look back at the published research and be satisfied with how our billions have been spent? This type of spending has occurred for some time, and what do we have to show for it? Multiple federal agencies having multi-hundred million dollar budgets in the same (controversial) field is wasteful. Let's make sure 2011 is the last year these budgets increase. _TomNelson

Climate Change Budget
Tom Nelson from ClimateQuotes

Climate Change is a big money complex. The US government alone spends roughly $4 billion a year to finance climate research and initiatives. That level of spending leaves all private US entities in the dust by a factor of roughly 1,000. In North America, the US federal government controls climate change spending.

The big winner in the climate change money train is the National Science Foundation. They are requesting $1.616 billion dollars. They want $766 million dollars for the Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Program. This is a 15.9% increase from their last budget. They also need another $370 million for the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) an increase of 16%. The say they also need another $480 million for Atmospheric Sciences an increase of 8.1% and Earth Sciences up 8.7%. Oh, and not to be left out we need $955 million for the Geosciences Directorate, an increase of 7.4%. That’s a mighty hefty sum of money to dig into if you’re doing climate change research. _EnergyTribune

A 15.9% increase from last year's budget? They must have found some very, very urgent issues that need their attention. Certainly things are getting desperate for the NSF to be requesting so much more money to study this issue -- right in the middle of a long-term economic downturn?

The second largest request for money in 2011 comes from the Department of Energy. They say they need $627 million dollars for things like funding for renewable energy. The request represents a whopping 37% increase from last year! They want a 12% increase for energy efficiency programs. They want to eliminate $2.7 billion dollars of subsidies for industries that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide. A 37% increase? I thought we were broke. _em>ET

OMG! A 37% increase for the DOE for climate change related programs. Certainly we are on the razor's edge, one whisker's breadth from total oblivion?

For 2011 NASA wants $438 million dollars to study climate change, an increase of 14%. NASA’s total Earth Sciences budget request is actually $1.8 billion dollars. Some $809 million of that is for satellites, some of which are specifically put in orbit to study climate change. It is difficult to separate out which ones are for climate monitoring and which ones are not so I won’t include this number in the over all climate change money train, but make no mistake about it, a significant percentage of the $809 million is exclusively for climate change satellites. _ET

NASA doesn't have the time for space exploration, now that climate change is so much better at ripping budget funds out of tight fisted congresspersons. No, NASA is all climate change, all the time, now.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is looking for $437 million dollars for climate research. This is an increase of 21.4% from the previous budget. This includes funds for regional and national assessments of climate change including ocean acidification. Once again, another meaty bag of money to tap into for researchers who have nice cars and big houses and need to keep up the payments. All aboard the money train!

The Department of the Interior (DOI) is also interested in tapping into the climate change vault. They say they need $244 million in 2011. Of this total, $171 million is for the Climate Change Adaptation Initiative. This program identifies areas and species that are most vulnerable to climate change and implements coping strategies. Another $73 million is needed for The New Energy Frontier Initiative. The goal of this program is to increase solar, wind and geothermal energy capacity. Interesting that solar and wind power don’t actually make any money without this government funding.

Wow! This list just goes on and on, no wonder we have a $14 trillion dollar deficit!

But wait! as the say on TV there’s more. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants there share of the pot of gold. They need $169 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of 1%. Do you really believe that next year greenhouse gases will be reduced by EPA spending $169 million dollars? I would bet the ranch that greenhouse gases will continue to increase next year and the year after that and the year after that despite EPA spending millions of dollars. It’s a complete waste of $169 million dollars.

I’m beginning to wonder if there is any government agency that does not get some climate change funding! The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) wants $338 million dollars for climate change programs. They want $159 million dollars for climate change research, up a whopping 42%. They also want another $179 million for renewable energy, an increase of 41%! The USDA’s climate change efforts are supposed to help farmer and land owners adapt to the impacts of climate change. _ET

The popular message we get from the idiots in the media and the echo chorus of circular jerkulars, is that big oil and big coal is funding a vast network of climate change deniers. The reality is that institutions such as the US government outspend more neutral and anti-catastrophe entities by about 1,000 to 1.

Smart people tend to be skeptical people. But virtually the full weight of government, journalism, academia, and the entertainment media is pushing the public to accept uncritically the orthodox dogma of anthropogenic climate catastrophe. From the first grade of school -- if not earlier -- children are indoctrinated into the cult of carbon hysteria by their teachers, as if the fate of the world depended on the little tykes adopting a boundless attitude of carbon hysteria. And from there it only gets worse. Paid for by your government, of course, which means you.

Ever since ClimateGate, more smart people have peeled off from the mass of unthinking drones. But the government-financed, media amplified message of catastrophe continues to blare at full volume over virtually every media outlet.

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And the energy starvation! The suffocating regulations, prohibitions, taxes, and penalties! The choking off of new business and new sources of employment! It continues to get worse -- all financed from the top.

The people receiving these big money budgets and grants understand that everything depends upon their continued findings of "climate catastrophe." Anyone who falls off-message will be cut off, demonised, and left for dead -- figuratively speaking.

Washington DC is increasingly the place to be if you want to prosper in the US -- at least now, in the days of Obama. DC is the chokepoint, literally.

Climate Change Federal Budget
Source

By. Al Fin


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Leave a comment
  • Anonymous on January 12 2011 said:
    Ill agree with Mr Fin on this one. Makes me wonder how I could be so stupid as not to be able to get a piece of the bread being passed out. I've published things in the 'learned literature' saying that this climate thing deserves a careful scrutiny, but now that it has become a circus, I stay as far away from it as possible.
  • Anonymous on January 13 2011 said:
    The total US budget for climate change in 2011 will be US$18 billion.... Seems like a lot but it is not. The total US budget for military in 2011 will be US$739 billion (see the report from the Institute for Policy Studies, entitled Military vs Climate Security: The 2011 budgets compared -- http://tinyurl.com/2ad556c).The climate money is not just being spent on research, but also on helping America to adapt to climate-change impacts.The same report says US$1 billion spent on making weapons creates 8555 jobs but the same investment in mass transit would create 19,795 jobs, while for investments in weatherization or infrastracture would create 12,804 jobs.It makes sense for America to see its climate budget as a sound investment for the future. Where China is spending US$2-3 dollars on its military for every US$1 it spends on climate change, the US is blowing US$41 dollars on its military for every climate buck.
  • Anonymous on January 15 2011 said:
    Have you ever thought about how much money is being spent annually on exploring for oil, gas and coal? Never mind how much we spend for the privilege of burning them? Getting that burden off our backs would pay for a transition to renewables within a couple of decades (remember we've been hooked on oil now for over a century). But I quite agree that we shouldn't really need climate science to decide that any energy technology that can offer a near-zero (by comparison) variable cost per quad is well worth a substantial upfront capital investment.
  • Anonymous on January 16 2011 said:
    The spectre of anthropogenic carbon catastrohe is not supported by experimental observation. It is strictly a computer modeled phenomenon.Climate cycles occur on all time scales from the geologic to the millenial to the decadal. This has been true since the Earth was born of dust and fire.Melting glaciers, drifting biomes, and changing sea levels have been a fact of life since the planet stabilised to possess H20 in all three physical phases.If climate science ever returns to hones observational science, its budgets will allow optimal expansion of climate knowledge at levels less than 10% of current levels.NASA was meant to be a space agency, and the other agencies have better things to do than huckster the public as well.
  • moristheflorist on January 18 2012 said:
    This argument about scientists living on the climate gravy train is so tired. Scientists working from government grants almost never are rich- they live in constant financial uncertainty, since next year's funding is not assured. They have to submit detailed reports of everything they spend their grant on.

    If money was their prime objective, they would go work for an oil, pharmaceutical, or biotech company where they would have no restrictions on their profits, and total ownership of all their findings.

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