By Paul Homewood
http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/NCADAC/index.html
I took a look yesterday at the 2014 National Climate Assessment Report, and in particular, the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, which oversees it. The Committee is a Federal Advisory Committee, not an independent one, and the list of its Committee Members makes for interesting reading.
Chair – Jerry Melillo
Professor Jerry Melillo is Director Emeritus and Distinguished Scientist at The Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, and a Professor of Biology at Brown University. Professor Melillo studies the impacts of human activities on the biogeochemistry of ecological systems.
Vice Chair – Terese Richmond
Terese ‘T.C.’ Richmond is an attorney with the law firm of GordonDerr, LLP in Seattle. She has over 25 years’ experience representing state and local governmental agencies in Washington and Arizona. Her practice focuses on environmental law, land use, water law, climate change, and governance, primarily representing governmental agencies and districts in the planning and management of water resources.
Vice Chair – Gary Yohe
Gary Yohe is the Huffington Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University.
Daniel Abbasi
Daniel R. Abbasi is Managing Director of GameChange Capital LLC, a private equity investment firm he founded in collaboration with Chris Cooper-Hohn and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation to provide startup and growth capital to companies offering scalable and profitable solutions to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
T.M Bull Bennett
Founder of Kiksapa Consulting, LLC in 2009. Dr. T. M. Bull Bennett (Mi’kmaq), studied field and range ecology earning a BS in Biology from Black Hills State University. He completed his MS in Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming where he studied captive propagation of black-footed ferrets.
Rosina Bierbaum
In October 2001, Rosina Bierbaum became Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.
Previously, she served in environmental science policy leadership positions in both the legislative and executive branches of United States government, culminating as director of the Environment Division of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
She was also named by President Barack Obama to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Maria Blair
National Vice President, American Cancer Society. Maria Blair rejoined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2010, and as a Managing Director, she provides leadership and strategic direction for select Foundation initiatives.
Lynne Carter
Lynne Carter is Associate Director, Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) -a stakeholder-driven program focusing on serving the climate information needs of the south-central U.S. and Associate Director for the Coastal Sustainability Studio at LSU, an effort to bring together designers (architects and landscape architects) with engineers and coastal scientists to rethink what might work along the coast.
F Stuart Chapin III
F. Stuart ‘Terry’ Chapin, III is a Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biology and Wildlife at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Camille Coley
Camille E. Coley, J.D., is Assistant Vice President and Associate Director for the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center at Florida Atlantic University.
As Associate Director for the Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center, Ms. Coley is responsible for the policy and environmental regulatory activities associated with deployment of ocean current turbines in the Florida Gulf Stream.
Jan Dell
Ms. Dell leads Supply Chain Sustainability at ConocoPhillips.
Placido dos Santos
Placido dos Santos is a consultant with WestLand Resources, Inc. He has over 27 years of experience in water resources and environmental management.
Paul Fleming
Paul Fleming is the Manager of the Climate and Sustainability Group for the Seattle Public Utilities.
Guido Franko
Guido Franco is the technical co-director of the Energy Commission’s California Climate Change Center which is dedicated to complement national and international climate change research efforts to produce studies tailored to inform policy in California.
Mary Gade
Mary Gade is currently the President of Gade Environmental Group, LLC, an international consulting firm that provides strategic advice on energy, climate and environmental issues.
From October 2006 until June 2008, Ms. Gade served as the Region V Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Aris Georgakakos
Dr. Georgakakos is currently a Professor at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, Head of the Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Water Resources Program, and Director of the Georgia Water Resources Institute.
David Hales
David F. Hales has been president of College of the Atlantic since 2006.
Before accepting the presidency of COA, he held numerous positions promoting sustainability nationally and internationally. Hales holds a master’s degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma.
Mark Howden
Dr. Mark Howden is a Chief Research Scientist with CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences.
Anthony Janetos
Dr. Anthony Janetos is the Director of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a joint venture between the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the University of Maryland.
Peter Kareiva
Peter Kareiva is Chief Scientist and Vice President for The Nature Conservancy.
Rattan Lal
Rattan Lal, Ph.D., is a professor of soil physics in the School of Environment and Natural Resources, and Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center at the Ohio State University.
Arthur Lee
Arthur Lee is a Chevron Fellow and Principal Advisor of Environment and Climate Change at Chevron Services Company. He advises management on the business aspects of global climate change and technology deployment issues.
Diana Liverman
Professor Diana Liverman is the co-director of the Institute of the Environment at the University of Arizona.
Rezaul Mahmood
Dr. Rezaul Mahmood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Geology at Western Kentucky University. He is also Associate Director of the Kentucky Climate Center and the Kentucky Mesonet.
Edward Maibach
Edward Maibach is director of George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication.
Michael McGeehin
Michael McGeehin is a senior environmental health epidemiologist at the Research Triangle Institute with a PhD in environmental health sciences. His work focuses on investigating the associations between global climate change and human health outcomes.
Philip Mote
Philip W. Mote is a professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute (occri.net) for the Oregon University System, and director of Oregon Climate Services (state climate office).
Jayantha Obeysekara
Jayantha Obeysekera is the Director of the Hydrologic & Environmental Systems Modeling Department at the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).
Presently, he is the technical lead for climate change and climate variability investigations at SFWMD.
Marie O’Neill
Marie O’Neill’s research interests include health effects of air pollution, temperature extremes and climate change (mortality, asthma, hospital admissions, and cardiovascular endpoints); environmental exposure assessment; and socio-economic influences on health.
John Posey
John Posey has served in state and local government for more than 15 years, and is currently the Director of Research for the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the St. Louis region.
Sara Pryor
Sara C Pryor is Provost Professor of Atmospheric Science at Indiana University.
Richard Schmalensee
Richard Schmalensee is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a member of the MIT Energy Council, and Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.
Henry Schwartz
Founder of HGS Consultants.
Dr. Schwartz is an internationally recognized leader in environmental and civil engineering. Now an independent consultant, he spent the most of his career with the Sverdrup Corporation.
Joel Smith
Joel B. Smith, a Principal with Stratus Consulting, has been analyzing climate change impacts and adaptation issues for over 20 years.
http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/NCADAC/People.html
SUMMARY
What we appear to have is:
1) A bunch of environmentalists.
2) Consultants, financiers, and others whose profits rely on promotion of climate alarmism, and government policies that result from such.
3) Pretty much all of them rely, directly or indirectly, on the government teat.
4) Many work for government agencies, or have done in the past.
5) Many rely on research grants, funded from the $2.6 billion federal research program on global change. This is the very program, which the Committee is supposed to oversee.
6) At least 27 of the 34 Members work, or have worked, on other government climate programs, on IPCC Reports, or for government agencies such as the EPA.
There is a strong impression of team groupthink, belief in government solutions and so on.
7) There seems to be nobody to make an independent assessment of whether the climate program is offering value for money, or in any way audit the NCA.
8) There are no representatives from outside the climate/enviro/government sector, who might challenge the consensus, or offer alternative viewpoints.
9) There are no meteorologists, an absence which I find quite astonishing. After all, there can be no proper understanding of climatic trends, extreme weather events etc without a thorough knowledge of meteorological processes.
10) There are also no climate scientists who disagree with the consensus.
So many Members rely on Federal salaries/grants, that any report minimising the dangers of climate change would be unthinkable. In short, the Committee appears to have been set up to give the Federal Government the answers it wants.
