Republicans Against Dept. of Agriculture's Climate Change Funding and Obama

Last week, February 25, 2010, Republicans rallied opposition to President Obama's initiative to provide more funding for research into climate change and global warming, news published by Allison Winter of the Environment and Energy Daily blog. The Agriculture Department is requesting $52M for climate change programs of the entire $21.5B discretionary spending request. Republican members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee targeted the request for climate change research funding to be removed. Republican Jack Kingston (US state of Georgia) believed the investment into the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to be a waste, " If global warming is real, then it is our biggest problem.... But it doesn't seem to be treated as science as much as policy." Kingston was referring to the Climategate of December 2009, which politicized scientists rather than reviewing the science.

Of the $52M proposed to be invested into the USDA, $50M dollars would go into research on how the agency can help landowners adapt to climate change, fire risks, and insects and disease, which will rise as the result of a warmer, dryer landscape. "We have ongoing needs to see how crop production might be influenced by extreme weather conditions," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. "There could be an increase in pest and disease -- I think this is a valid reason for us to invest resources." The remaining $2M will help provide insight for farmers on how to take part in a future US cap and trade system. Against such a cap and trade system is Representative Tom Latham, Republican of Iowa, who stated: "This has not passed Congress and the hopes of getting it that done are probably not very bright," Latham said. "I wonder about these dollars being spent somewhere else."

Frankly speaking, $52M is not that much money, at least not to the US discretionary budget ($21.5B). From the American Policy series here on Justmeans, the United States stands to lose $280 Billion annually, if climate change goes unmitigated. The concession was made at the time that a scenario of "business as usual," where no mitigation efforts are implemented, is very unlikely. Each story of US political opposition and misinformation points to climate change mis-communication. To improve climate change communication: improve your use of climate change words , improve newspaper coverage ,and visualize it better. If nothing else hopefully money talks. By the numbers, $52M represents 0.24% of the entire discretionary budget for 2011. $52 Million represents 0.02% of the $280 Billion cost annually of climate change gone unmitigated.

It appears that for the time being, certain Republicans (hopefully not all) want nothing to change, not now and certainly not in the near future. A grave concern is that if the issue is a lack of knowledge on climate change, why not increase understanding by increasing funding research? Republicans should not impede the wish of the Obama administration to better our understanding of climate change.


Photo Credit: The Library of Congress