Eric,



Thanks for the update and I’m not surprised at all…The SREL report is not supposed to appear publically until June 2010 (after peer review-yeah, right).



Unfortunately NatGeo as partaken from the chalice of the “green tea” and is no longer worthy of its former reputation…The fact NatGeo has not even addressed the East Anglia Emails regarding the USGS information is well…Not surprising either.



The USGS (Office of Global Change) is hosting a Climate Change Conference on March 9-11, 2010 in Denver Colorado. They’re still working on their agenda. You can read up on their “stuff” at their website…



http://geology.usgs.gov/globalchange2010/focus_areas.shtml#pal



I cannot remember if it was NatGeo or somebody else but, in one of those two earlier shows they used the USGS data as the basis (warming climate) for that map showing the “invasion” of the giant snakes as far north as Kentucky/Tennessee.



If you go and read they’re “stuff”, note their “final agenda” (that will depend on “abstracts” submitted prior to the conference) that includes…



1. Paleo-reconstructions of climate change and ecological responses

2. Global change effects on ecosystems and linkages among water, soils, biota and land use

3. Incorporating global change science into resource management decisions

4. Modeling and projection of resource response to global change

5. Results or status of projects funded through the Request for Proposals (RFP) process



The above list of five USGS conference items above, the folks at East Anglia were doing the SAME THING! The “Hockey Stick” curve was from FORTRAN data run on super computers (tax payer funded) here in the US! I’m not certain which information sharing network the East Anglia folks were corresponding on but, they were corresponding with some important folks here in the US (e.g. NOAA, Dr. Overpeck-Now at Arizona) and several other US federal agencies and universities.



For giggles and grins, go check out the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) “partners” on the USGS website – the NBII is an information sharing network…I guarantee you’ll be stunned at just how many tax payer funded agencies of the federal and state governments, NGO’s and universities are participating in the NBII…In fact, you can even link to the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) website from the USGS website (go read this “stuff”)! According to the CBD’s “Rio Earth Summit”, the US signed onto this madness (Madeleine Albright) on June 4, 1993. Here’s a link to read the CBD document…



http://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-un-en.pdf



In fact, the CBD has signed “memoranda” with several agencies that include…



World Bank – Memorandum of Cooperation with the intent “to facilitate collaboration and coordination between the World Bank and the Convention thereby enhancing the important role the Bank has in implementing the Convention, and to provide a mechanism for future exploring opportunities for future co-operation” on May 2, 1997. See Article 20 (Financial Resources) and Article 21 (Financial Mechanisms) on page 156 for relevance…



United States Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service – Memorandum of Agreement for the development of the Biosafety Clearing House via regional workshops for $360,000 on March 9, 2001. See Article 17 (Exchange of Information) and Article 18 (Technical and Scientific Cooperation) on page 154 for relevance…



The Nature Conservancy (TNC) – Memorandum of Understanding that acknowledges the TNC’s support of implementing “various CBD programs in more than 30 countries across five continents” on October 7, 2008. The TNC is one of the listed “partners” of the USGS. See the entire CBD document for relelvance…



NatureServe – Memorandum of Cooperation to “facilitate collaboration between the Secretariat and NatureServe, a non-governmental organization, in the development of NatureServe as an international thematic focal point under the Clearing-house Mechanism (CHM) to make appropriate thematic information directly relevant to the Convention on Biological Diversity” on December 17, 2001. NatureServe is one of the listed “partners” of the USGS. See Article 17 (Exchange of Information) and Article 18 (Technical and Scientific Cooperation) on page 154 for relevance…



One of the “items” of the UNEP’s CBD is “non-native, invasive species”…I think the pythons fit into this criteria…See Article 8 (In-situ Conservation) and Article 9 (Ex-situ Conservation) for relevance…



Later,

Jim.


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CSRAJim

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