I wonder: why?

The Space Review: Earthquakes and climate change: get the data: "Understanding global phenomena and planet Earth are principal benefits and goals of space programs. The earthquake got me thinking about climate change. Both will certainly happen. Both are inadequately understood. Computer models provide only approximate predictions about their timing and effects. Both earthquakes and climate change have huge effects on populations. Both require preparation and even civil defense. Both require environmental protection—in the form of safety standards for earthquakes, and in the form of pollution control for climate. And both have occurred throughout Earth’s history—which makes them no less of a concern now.

What bothers me most about the climate change “debate” is that it is so anti-science. The deniers oppose even the gathering of data about the phenomena. Earth science programs and earth observing satellites were cut back drastically in the previous decade, and now, once again, they are among the chief targets of budget cutters in the Congress. The deniers continuously and deliberately mix discussions of cause and effect. Let’s put aside the causes of climate change for a moment.

[....]

Now consider the following: scientists around the world studying climate make incremental improvements on understanding and even predicting it by gathering data from many sources. They create satellite maps of atmospheric data, set up monitoring stations around mapped areas, observe effects from past climate change in plants and on landforms, improve sensors. and build elaborate computer models. They begin to predict general trends, and even start to predict a few specific cases. The predictions are sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but always approximate. More data improves the quality of the predictions. Does this seem worthwhile, like the case in the preceding paragraph? To those in Congress and elsewhere who oppose Earth science, it does not; they want to eliminate the satellites and monitoring and modeling.

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Pois! No entretanto, os dois últimos lançamentos de satélites dedicados ao estudo do clima, foram para o  caneco. É verdade, e só estou só a constatar....