Some additional thoughts on the latest climate change flap resulting from an article in yesterday’s New York Times …

The USGCRP was developed in the late 1980s and formalized in legislation in 1990. (I have a lot of background information on this program because I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in 1994 on its attempts to structure scientific research to inform policy.) The program’s legal mandate calls for it to provide “usable information” to policy makers in response to the challenges of global change, and in particular climate change.

The program’s administrators and participants has treated issues of policy a bit like the proverbial “third rail” – stay away at all costs! It has proven politically expedient to focus instead almost exclusively on scientific research on the global earth system, which has led to a great deal of very good science, but very little information that might be considered “usable” by policy makers. In fact, the research done by the USGCRP has fed endless debate about the science of climate change — a debate that at least in the eyes of the public, has long been settled.

In an article in today’s Washington Post, following yesterday’s New York Times article, the president’s science advisor John Marburger says the USGCRP annual report has, “no implications for policy.” (Thanks to Chris Mooney for the link.)

Marburger’s statement that the USGCRP’s annual report, which reflects approximately $30 billion in public investment in the USGCRP over more than a decade, has “no implications for policy” can be interpreted as nothing other than a massive science policy failure.

How is it possible that the USGCRP was created to inform policy and a leading government official is able to dismiss the program as having no implications for policy? (For answers see this paper, this paper, and this paper.) Can we expect members of the scientific community who have benefited from billions of dollars in public investment in research justified by its policy relevance to stand up and argue that the program does in fact have a mandate to inform policy? (For an answer see this paper.)

Last year, Dan Sarewitz and I wrote of the USGCRP and its umbrella program the Climate Change Science Program (CCSP):

“As a member of Congress asked more than a decade ago: “How much longer do you think it will take before [the USGCRP is] able to hone [its] conclusions down to some very simple recommendations, on tangible, specific action programs that are rational and sensible and cost effective for us to take . . . justified by what we already know?” The organization of the current CCSP offers the following answer: Forever.”

If people desiring action on climate change policies want action, then rather than trying to “box in” the Bush Administration with science, they should instead use the words in law (Public Law 101-606) to hold the government accountable for developing “usable information for policy.” As it currently stands the President, Congress, scientists, and environmental and industry interest groups are happy to argue about the science as if settling that debate will bring us closer to addressing issues of climate and energy policy. It won’t. But a lever for action exists in plain sight.