Leak of Maryland Climate Report

Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch

The Baltimore Sun on Sunday reported that one of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change's leadership troika, Donald Boesch (pictured) of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, has nursed along 19 fellow scientists (apparently none having to do with meteorology or atmospheric science), as well as representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey and two environmental groups (unidentified for some unknown reason), to produce a report that forecasts much hotter temperatures and permanently rising tides:

Look for balmier winters and blistering summers in the decades to come. Enjoy the colorful fall foliage in Western Maryland – while you can. And unless circumstances change, prepare to see a different mix of plants, trees and birds by the end of the century, worsening dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay, and for the state that some call "America in miniature" to get dramatically smaller as rising waters push the shoreline inland.

So says a group of scientists who have compiled the first comprehensive assessment of how Maryland could be altered by global climate change.

This report is probably littered with many "could be"-like phrases, based not on observational data but instead on fanciful computer modeling devoid of any proof of anthropogenic cause, but that would be only imagining things. Why just imagining? Because I am not hopeful after speaking with Dave Nemazie of the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science, who hemmed and hawed when I asked for a copy of the report that (again, I'm guessing) one of the envirogroups involved leaked to the Sun to develop some nice advanced press from sympathetic media. Here's a rough paraphrase of how our phone conversation went:

Me: Can I get a copy of the report?

Nemazie: It hasn't been released yet.

Me: Can I get a copy of the report?

Nemazie: It's going to be released as part of a larger report by the governor later this month.

Me: What if I officially submit a request for the report under Maryland's Public Information Act?

Nemazie: Well, chances are that by the time the 30 days are up that we have to comply with the records request, the governor will have already released the report.

Me: So, you're telling me that you are going to run out the clock on the records request so that the rest of the public cannot see it until the governor officially releases it?

Nemazie: Something along the lines of "I'll have to check into it…"

I subsequently submitted a formal request for a copy of the report:

Please provide for me the most up-to-date version of the report that you, or an appropriate person at UMCES, can access. I prefer an electronic version of the report, emailed if possible, which should enable a rapid fulfillment of my request. If that is not the case please notify me as soon as possible and please include an explanation as to why the report cannot be provided quickly.

As I was writing this post I received this response from Nemazie:

Paul, this e-mail is to confirm that UMCES has received your request.  We will follow Maryland State Law in providing you a response.

In other words, look for the state to exhaust the full, legally-allowed 30 days before providing a copy of the report that undoubtedly is easily accessible in PDF or Word form and is a public document. You need not look very far to figure out that Maryland state government workers believe they exist not to serve the public, but instead to unnecessarily delay, obfuscate and release information on their own terms.

As for Boesch, this new report is totally in his alarmism character as explained by Red Maryland blogger friend Mark Newgent last October:

Boesch says further, “It is time to take swift and direct action to solve our climate crisis. We have lost much time debating its existence while the scientific evidence and consensus has grown ever stronger.” Boesch has created a gimpy straw man here. No serious global warming skeptic has denied that the earth is in a warming period. In reality, skeptics contest the nature and causes of global warming and the efficacy of the policy prescriptions of alarmists like Al Gore.

What is really at stake here is money, as in federal grant money. Thus the impetus for Boesch doing the Al Gore impersonation, labeling the situation a “crisis” and calling for swift action.

Since 2000, UMCES has received $65,849,037 in federal grant money.
Here are the numbers per year:
2000- $8,831,655
2001- $8,317,034
2002- $10,215,781
2003- $11,873,279
2004- $10,627,340
2005- $12,055,985
2006 -$3,927,963 (data available for 2006 3Q only)

UMCES funding increased 37% between 2000 and 2005 (last year for full data), which neatly corresponds with the advent of global warming alarmism. Adding global warming to the list of the Chesapeake Bay’s woes allows Boesch to expand his budget and operations.