Catch-22: Feds cut climate research to save fuel

June 19th, 2008 By BRIAN SKOLOFF , Associated Pres Writer

In this March 20, 2001 file photo, Rainier, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel, is anchored in Puget Sound, near Tacoma, Wash. The federal government is canceling or cutting back on ocean research trips aimed, in part, at studying climate change to save money on fuel for their boats. There is the potential that NOAA may lose a couple hundred days at sea this year. (AP Photo/Lauren McFalls, file)

(AP) -- They haven't rechristened a ship the Irony, but federal researchers are canceling and cutting back on voyages aimed at studying climate change and ocean ecosystems so they can save money on boat fuel.

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• Egnite - Jun 19, 2008
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  Pfff, nice to see where their priorities lie. Save some $$$, or attempt to save our oceans?
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• D666 - Jun 19, 2008
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  I'm not as torqued about this one as I could be. I think this really is a rock-and-a-hard-place situation, and frankly GW has so much supporting data by this point that the loss of a few hundred days of ocean time isn't going to make or break things. Although I do expect at least one acerbic denialist diatribe about wasted money and tree-hugger conspiracies.
  
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• Glis - Jun 19, 2008
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  You took all the fun out of it D666...
  
  I'm just wondering where the argument will go once funding starts to dry up.
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• Stratford - Jun 19, 2008
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  The FEDS cut budgets right and left for frequently nebulous reasons. How about so that more of the federal money can go toward the War in Iraq? It would seem to me, as an environmental scientist, that the money needed to continue important climate research would be less than a milli-microdrop in the bucket that wouldn't be missed at all, if it came out of the DOD Iraq War budget.
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• Modernmystic - Jun 20, 2008
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  Waddamatta Stratford, your job on the line? Much more important to fleece the American public with global warming hysteria than protecting our troops abroad.
  
  P.S. Love how you managed to slip in the ewivvilll war in Iraq on a thread like this.
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