Year 2, Month 1, Day 27: How Do You Know That You Know What You Know?

The Scripps Oceanographic Institution is starting a new five-year project in carbon emissions tracking, underwritten to the tune of twenty-five million from Earth Networks.

The $25 million project in emissions tracking to be undertaken by the Scripps Institution is important for several reasons. From the perspective of the countries and organizations seeking to mitigate the impact of climate change throughout the world, accurate measurements are essential, since we cannot reduce greenhouse emissions intelligently unless we know where they’re coming from. But there’s another factor that merits consideration and appreciation: cost. Twenty-five million dollars sounds like a lot until we compare it to some America’s larger expenses; based on estimates from the American Friends Service Committee, the entire Scripps program (a full five years’ worth of global emissions monitoring) will cost less than a one hour of the war in Iraq, which exposes Republican eagerness to gut critical climate change programs in the name of deficit reduction as absurd and hypocritical. The GOP appears to think that problems will go away if they can’t be measured.

Warren Senders