Lamont Weekly Report – August 13, 2004

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
P.O. Box 1000, 61 Route 9W Palisades, New York 10964

<> REPORT SUMMARY <>

– Letter from the Director –
____________________________________

<> LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

Please keep an eye for the August 16th issue of Business Week magazine it has extensive coverage on the climate change topic with exotic graphics of the global ocean with a perfectly flat ocean floor and quotes from many colleagues Wally, Jeff Sachs and Klaus Lackner (who much to my surprise seems to be, like myself, an admirer of Mark Knopfler). But seriously, it is a useful article that supports the need for immediate action on controlling carbon emissions and its simple language will reach a much wider readership than most of what we write.

I had plenty of opportunity to study this article, after I picked it up at the US Air Shuttle terminal at Reagan National, because I spent the next seven hours (repeat seven hours) sitting on the plane trying to get to LaGuardia. This was Wednesday evening when all the thunderstorms were coming through. The 4:00 pm shuttle out of DC landed in NY at 10:30pm.

I was in DC for the annual retreat of the CORE Board of Governors (all the ocean institution Directors). We had 'off-the-record' presentations from all the usual suspects NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher, Assistant Secretary James Mahoney, NOS Head Rick Spinrad, Acting NSF Director Arden Bement, Deputy CNO Mike Mullen. Since everything was ‘not-for-attribution’ I cannot present detailed accounts of what was said, but the future is profoundly less clear than usual for the simple reason that (surprise) there is an election in November.

This is of particular significance to the fate of the congressionally mandated Ocean Commission report, that still is not finalized. By law the President (of the US that is) is required to respond to this report within 90 days of its release. The intent had been to get this report released so that the 90-day period ended prior to the election, thus forcing a substantive response and action from the present administration (who appointed the Commission, led by our good friend Admiral James Watkins, and thus feel 'ownership' of the outcome). Release of the report will now be delayed so that this will no longer be possible so it is tough to speculate upon its possible impact. Although already it has spawned a plethora of Bills in Congress. There are now at least 16 different Bills that are related to the Commission's preliminary recommendations. One of the largest, supported by Greenwood, Farr, Weldon and Allen is affectionately known as BOB (Big Ocean Bill) these folks on the Hill are such comedians.

Another word of congratulations is due, to David Schaff in the Seismology Geology and Tectonics Division. David is our newest Doherty Associate Research Scientist. Congratulations David. Nobody knows where the earthquakes are better than David.

The lesson for this week is 'Don't fly when there are thunderstorms' further lessons will be provided as availability of wisdom allows.

Have a great weekend,

– Mike
____________________________________

You can subscribe / unsubscribe to the Lamont Weekly Report mailing list.

– To subscribe - send your request to:
majordomo@ldeo.columbia.edu
Subject: Request
The following command must be in the BODY of the message not in the subject:

subscribe lamont-l <email address>

– To unsubscribe - send your request to:
majordomo@ldeo.columbia.edu
Subject: Request
The following command must be in the BODY of the message not in the subject:

unsubscribe lamont-l <email address>

If you have questions or problems send e-mail to the list owner:
owner-lamont-l@ldeo.columbia.edu