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Group to Plan Global
Sharing of Environmental Data
Washington Post
Article
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 1, 2003; Page A07
Nearly five dozen nations and international organizations agreed yesterday to
develop a plan to share world environmental data and create methods for
continuous monitoring of Earth systems ranging from weather and sea temperatures
to atmospheric quality and ultraviolet light. Participants at the Earth
Observation Summit, hosted by the State Department, formed an ad hoc group to
design a plan for nations and organizations to pool their monitoring data into
an integrated worldwide framework.
"It's a first step toward solving a large political problem," said Conrad C.
Lautenbacher, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. "This aims to build a system in which nations agree to exchange
data on a free and open basis."
The ministerial-level meeting, attended by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
and Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans, issued a declaration describing the
development of an "implementation plan" by the end of 2004 for nations and
organizations to integrate their global monitoring systems.
Such integration would give free access to global data collected not only by
satellites, but also on the ground and beneath the sea. The data would measure a
variety of phenomena vital to decision makers as diverse as carmakers interested
in emission controls and farmers worried about the chance of rain. "Scientists
estimate 30 percent of [world gross domestic product] is affected by knowledge
of what's going on in the environment," Lautenbacher said.
"We also need to collect the kinds of data necessary to answer hard questions
about environmental management, resource management, climate change and climate
forecasts," he added. "It will also help us address medical, public health and
agriculture issues on a global basis."
Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and a
frequent critic of the Bush administration, endorsed the plan as "serious and
important," saying that "these systems are the kind of thing that helped save us
from ozone depletion -- what they have rightly figured out is that you need a
lot of cooperation in different places in the world."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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