CIA Teams Up With Scientists To Monitor Climate

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 5, 2010 @10:50AM from the with-my-little-eye dept.

MikeChino writes "The CIA has just joined up with climate researchers to re-launch a data-sharing initiative that will use spy satellites and other CIA asets to help scientists figure out what climate change is doing to cloud cover, forests, deserts, and more. The collaboration is an extension of the Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis program, which President Bush canceled in 2001, and it will use reconnaissance satellites to track ice floes moving through the Arctic basin, creating data that could be used for ice forecasts." Even though the program is "basically free" in terms of CIA involvement, the Times notes: "Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. In October, days after the CIA opened a small unit to assess the security implications of climate change, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, said the agency should be fighting terrorists, 'not spying on sea lions.'"

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Re:Climate change is a security threat by GaryPatterson · 2010-01-05 13:39 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Eventually an asteroid will collide with the Earth and wipe out all life larger than a microbe. Infinitely worse threat than a single nuclear weapon, or even a small arsenal of them.
Seems to me we've got a lot to worry about if we get into "what if" scenarios. Perhaps we should stick with the known world.