Sky Falling … Grant $$$ Increasing

In today’s Baltimore Sun, Donald F. Boesch, professor of marine science and president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) adds the health of the Chesapeake Bay to the long list of ills caused by global warming. Dr. Boesch’s piece is adapted from testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Like Al Gore and the alarmists Boesch calls for an end to debate on what should be done to address global warming. Boesch says, “Rather than prolonging the scientific debate about global warming, we urgently need to implement climate change policies that move us toward an economically stable and environmentally sound Chesapeake region.”

I find it rather sketchy for a professional scientist to call for an end to debate and scientific inquiry in order to act swiftly to implement climate change policies. I thougth scientists were supposed to actually debate and argue evidence?

What would those policies be?
Dr Boesch:

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“The Maryland action plan will undoubtedly call for deep reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases – perhaps as much as 25 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. This will require the participation of all Marylanders and will eventually transform the ways we live and travel. In particular, we will have to drastically ramp up our efforts in energy conservation, renewable energy supplies and efficiency with regard to transportation and land use.”

Witness the same old liberty curtailing, economy-crushing proposals.

Dr. Boesch does not address the economic impact of these policies so much as he sidesteps them using rhetorical sleight of hand saying, “Experience elsewhere shows that there can be significant net economic benefits to reducing greenhouse gases, although initial investments are usually required to achieve them.” Yet he offers no proof, and the term “initial investments” is a drastic understatement of the true tax-payer cost, worthy of Martin O’Malley himself.

Boesch says further, “It is time to take swift and direct action to solve our climate crisis. We have lost much time debating its existence while the scientific evidence and consensus has grown ever stronger.” Boesch has created a gimpy straw man here. No serious global warming skeptic has denied that the earth is in a warming period. In reality, skeptics contest the nature and causes of global warming and the efficacy of the policy prescriptions of alarmists like Al Gore.

What is really at stake here is money, as in federal grant money. Thus the impetus for Boesch doing the Al Gore impersonation, labeling the situation a “crisis” and calling for swift action.

Since 2000, UMCES has received $65,849,037 in federal grant money.
Here are the numbers per year:
2000- $8,831,655
2001- $8,317,034
2002- $10,215,781
2003- $11,873,279
2004- $10,627,340
2005- $12,055,985
2006 -$3,927,963 (data available for 2006 3Q only)

UMCES funding increased 37% between 2000 and 2005 (last year for full data), which neatly corresponds with the advent of global warming alarmism. Adding global warming to the list of the Chesapeake Bay’s woes allows Boesch to expand his budget and operations. Why shouldn’t he? Global warming alarmists have received over $50 billion in federal funds to study a one-degree increase in the recorded global mean temperature since the late 19th century.

No crisis means no funding. No funding means no job.

Our academic institutions have now joined unscrupulous corporations like Enron and GE as rent-seekers in the global warming shell game.