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C.I.A. Puts an End to ‘Unnecessary, Wasteful and Totally Out of Place’ Climate Change Unit

Nov. 21, 2012 2:01pm Liz Klimas

The CIA’s Center on Climate Change and National Security has been closed only three years after being established.

This unit was started in 2009 not to study the science behind climate change but to use intelligence to evaluate how various potential results of global warming could impact national security. The intent of the center was to provide policymakers with this side of information, which the center’s website states it has done for years. Here’s more about what the unit was expected to do:

The Center will assume responsibility for coordinating with Intelligence Community partners on the review and declassification of imagery and other data that could be of use to scientists in their own climate-related research. This effort draws on imagery and other information that is collected in any event, assisting the US scientific community without a large commitment of resources.

“Decision makers need information and analysis on the effects climate change can have on security. The CIA is well positioned to deliver that intelligence,” Director Leon Panetta, said at the time of he announcement.

Although the officially established center is now being disbanded, the New York Times reported CIA spokesman Todd Ebtiz saying that the duties once prescribed to the climate change unit within the agency would be conducted by another department focusing on economic security.

“The C.I.A. for several years has studied the national security implications of climate change,” Mr. Ebitz said in an email, according to the Times. “As part of a broader realignment of analytic resources, this work continues to be performed by a dedicated team in a new office that looks at economic and energy matters affecting America’s national security. The mission and the resources devoted to it remain essentially unchanged.”

The Hill blog pointed out that the service Greenwire first reported about the center’s closure, stating that it “received little internal support” after Panetta left the CIA to take on the position of Defense Secretary.

The Times reported Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wy.) saying closing the center was “the right decision.”

“I offered an amendment on the Senate floor to eliminate the center because it was unnecessary, wasteful and totally out of place,” Barrasso said in a statement according to the Times. “It’s critically important for the C.I.A. to focus its resources on preventing terrorism and keeping Americans safe.”

Earlier this week, the Atlantic Wire pointed out that the center was involved in helping fund a report released by the National Research Council that stated weather events from climate change would “produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global system to manage and that have global security implications serious enough to compel international response.”

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Comments (28)

sizzlinsexybeckster
Posted on November 23, 2012 at 12:28pm
THANK GOODNESS!!!
“Climate Change Unit” is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard… wasting our money and wasting our C.I.A.’s talent and education skills to investigate the weather instead of tracking down terrorists and protecting our nation.

Attention Government: Here’s your “Climate Change” Update: Every day weather changes. Yesterday it may have been 70 degrees and tomorrow it might be 45 degrees, and the next day it might be 44 degrees…. yes, the climate (weather) changes from season to season and day to day – wow! We all aren’t stupid and fall for your dumb shammy scam. Find a new hobby… how about playing with that hamster hidden in Al Gore’s back pocket and get the hell out of our government.

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G-WHIZ
Posted on November 23, 2012 at 11:34am
Why did NOT the CIA protest the policy and divvisiv-division in the first place?! Why did NOT the
CIA try to keep it from being installed…in the first place?! Was it OUR Commi/sharia-in Chief’s
UNELECTED/UNCONSTITUTIONAL [TSARRS]-NUDGE?!

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Malrick
Posted on November 22, 2012 at 9:05am
So were we trying to overthrow the sun or what?

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TeslanEdison
Posted on November 22, 2012 at 1:25am
Climate change is real (politicized global warming not so much), it can mean and is not limited to Volcanic eruptions which disrupt the weather, or change weather, changes in the Sun’s output, such as CME’s or coronal mass ejections, periodic cycles of weather to extreme’s in hot or cold that cause mass immigration or exodus from international states. The issue is not the Green Movements Global warming garbage, but what actors would be involved in destabilizing national security should environmental factors change making areas less inhabitable or specifically hostile to life. A cooling trend might send Canadians and Alaskan’s into the continental US , where as a extreme warming trend or loss of UV protection at the equator might cause evacuations from those latitudes. The CIA was right to be studying this, and our government is wrong to not prepare, protections against global warming is a waste of money cap and trade, carbon …., however environmentally isolated indoor growing facilities, salt water pipelines to inland desalinization plants and hardened homes at the coast would be the smart choice. Instead we waste the money on the equivalent of a tin foil hat. The fact is you cannot change global weather but you can prepare for it, and yes I know about HAARP and it’s just not near powerful enough to do what people suppose in terms of weather. In reality it’s tracking the effects of solar and cosmic rays on earth’s protective magnetosphere SPACE WEATHER!

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- Jesse_J
  Posted on November 22, 2012 at 6:26am
  Climate change is a natural occurence which the left has tried to highjack in order to grow government. Read fresh political commentary at: http://smallcraftadvisorychronicles.blogspot.com/
  
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- wowjustwow
  Posted on November 22, 2012 at 1:04pm
  Save your energy (no pun intended)…these people are willfully ignorant…it is a choice. If Beck said the sky was purple with pink polka dots, they would believe it. I am not trying to be insulting, but it is true.
  
  Report this comment
Aerocog
Posted on November 22, 2012 at 12:51am
At least the CIA know what’s important, let’s hope that mentality will be adopted by the rest of government…as if.

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meisterman41
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 7:03pm
Watch the Other Hand? Look for some other Back Door action! Do your own homework and keep both eyes open! The Libs are not giving-up on so called “Globle-Warming” they will just call it something else!

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- RayOne
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 7:25pm
  In the sequel they will be know as weathermen.
  
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- Wichita1
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 11:59pm
  Ditto !!!
  
  Report this comment
smokey888x2
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 6:45pm
Rains(sp?) from FannieMae/Mac stardom …… along with Gore were both in on the trading system to sell puffs of air and take billions from us. Just a bunch of crooks!

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tothepoint
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 6:14pm
“Global Warming” aka “Climate Change” has been outed as a hoax for years.
However, that will not stop those who stood to profit from this hoax, from continuing their
joke on the world. Wait for it. They will change the name again and will find other ways of getting our tax dollars into their pockets.

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VoteRightDammit
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 4:43pm
We shall see how long The Collective tolerates this.

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repairsea
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 4:39pm
Does that mean all those carbon credits CA Governor Brown just sold are worthless?

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ColoradoMaverick
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:29pm
This unit was created in 2009 huh? Who was our newly elected “leader”? This helps explain how we got to $16 trillion in debt. pass the word along and tell all the stupid liberals who voted for Odumbo what a crock he is.

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Advection
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:20pm
It occurs to me that the real outrage of Hamas is not that they hide behind children and women while targeting children and women in war.

The great outrage of Hamas is that they’ve never had a “Climate Change Unit”!!!

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Arc
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:00pm
All they had to do was keep track of Gore and the radical Environmentalist.

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AvengerK
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:27pm
Another great decision by the Obama administration comes to an entirely expected conclusion.

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- johnpaulkuchtajr
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:02pm
  Too bad the decision to terminate the program came after Stevens, Smith, Doherty and Woods were left to die in the desert night at Benghazi. Would a few rounds from an AC 130 gunship busted the budget? This article just ****** me off to no end because it reminds me that we have people in power who are so dumb that they spell crap with two p’s.
  
  My only hope is to see the chain-of-command from ALL BRANCHES of government hanging very high for that treason. I’ll buy the rope.
  
  “Remember Benghazi”
  
  Report this comment
- desertspeaks
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:09pm
  but but but the widgets will drown or bake to death in the sun or something just as horrible!! and the most outrageous thing of them all, Al Gore won’t make billions/trillions from carbon credits!!
  THE HORROR OF IT ALL!!! if you listen carefully, you can hear Al Gore weeping!
  
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progressiveslayer
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:16pm
not to study the science behind climate change but to use intelligence to evaluate how various potential results of global warming could impact national security.

Results of global warming? How can you have results from a nonexistent problem? I understand why the regime is pushing the fraud of ‘man made global warming’,to make our energy cost more than it normally should to lower our standard of living but that department was just more waste and should be closed. It shouldn’t have ever been opened in the first place.

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RJJinGadsden
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:09pm
LoL!

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- The-Monk
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:29pm
  Hi RJJ,
  
  Al Gore is crying today I bet…. LOL
  
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- naughtycal
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:39pm
  Don’t laugh too hard I’m sure they’ll just move the agency out of the CIA and increase the amount of tax dollars pouring into it. Of course with the understanding that they aren’t looking to debunk the “science” of climate change but rather back it with nazi tactics.
  
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USPATRIOT101
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:09pm
Ok, and now for the meat of the story. How much will this save “We The People”??

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- Mudd
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 3:11pm
  Do I hear, nothing! Going once, going twice….. Sold! Absolutely nothing!
  
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Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:07pm
They have had Mother Nature at Guantanomo Bay for 3 years, waterboarding her, and she just won’t cave to climate change. Therefore, they are giving up and releasing her back to Sudan, even though she claims that’s not where she is from.

I guess the CIA has found out, you don’t mess with Mother nature.

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- RJJinGadsden
  Posted on November 21, 2012 at 2:16pm
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLrTPrp-fW8
  
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