4. Severe Bush budget cuts are causing the loss of data accumlation. Satellite and labs will not be funded. One major satellite now functioning beyond projected lifetime will be allowed to die. Georgia's own world famous Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (doing work vital with a changing environment) has lost DOE funding and likely will die. Boston Globe, Reuters, MSNBC,, Science, Athens Banner Herald. NASA shelves climate satellitesEnvironmental science may suffer By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | June 9, 2006 NASA is canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and environment. The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure soil moisture -- a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone, clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has been canceled. And in its 2007 budget, NASA proposes significant delays in a global precipitation measuring mission to help with weather predictions, as well as the launch of a satellite designed to increase the timeliness and accuracy of severe weather forecasts and improve climate models. The changes come as NASA prioritizes its budget to pay for completion of the International Space Station and the return of astronauts to the moon by 2020 -- a goal set by President Bush that promises a more distant and arguably less practical scientific payoff. Ultimately, scientists say, the delays and cancellations could make hurricane predictions less accurate, create gaps in long-term monitoring of weather, and result in less clarity about the earth's hydrological systems, which play an integral part in climate change. ``Today, when the need for information about the planet is more important than ever, this process of building understanding through increasingly powerful observations . . . is at risk of collapse," said Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire. Reuters War Eating Climate Satellite Funds, Group Warns Scientists' association expects "major gaps" in data gathering. Washington - Satellites that monitor global warming are in jeopardy because of cost cuts, as military and human spaceflight programs get larger shares of the U.S. budget, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "Environmental research and development has been hit particularly hard over the last few years ... The satellite capability that's projected over the next few years looks pretty bleak," said Kei Koizumi, an expert on science budget policy at the AAAS. Budget cuts will mean that some existing satellites won't be replaced when they reach the end of their lifespans and some other planned satellite launches have been canceled. Earth-observing satellites watch for oncoming storms and forecast daily weather as well as looking for signs of global warming and other phenomena. Weather forecasters who rely on their data would also be affected by any gaps in service. This week, scientists using NASA's Aura satellite reported the Arctic ice cap is melting about three times faster than computer models suggested. From MSNBC - Original article Here Online Athens Budget ax puts science, degrees, animals in peril A UGA facility designed in part to study and protect wildlife is itself endangered By Rebecca Quigley | Staff Writer Story updated at 11:55 PM on Saturday, June 2, 2007 AIKEN, S.C. - Brian Todd is one of several University of Georgia graduate students who could lose years of research and, ultimately, the chance to finish their degrees, if the U.S. Department of Energy follows through on a vow to eliminate the operating budget for the ecology lab where they work. The Savannah River Ecology Laboratory's $1 million budget ran out Friday, despite last-minute protests from citizen groups, several U.S. congressmen and former President Carter. Todd and about 110 other students, researchers and support staff work at the 50-year-old lab - an independent watchdog for the Savannah River Site, one of the energy department's nuclear processing facilities - that's administered by UGA. "Most of us didn't know we weren't going to get the funding," said Todd, who studies how clear-cutting and other types of forest management affects the amphibians that live part of the year in areas of the Savannah River Site. UGA scientists at the lab have received international acclaim for their work studying the effects of nuclear pollution at the 300-square-mile Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., where the lab is located. To comment or receive news notices contact Talking
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