It’s a shame to read that Canadian climate research will likely continue to go unfunded, meaning the demise of the decade-old Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This research entity has been working on studies related to climate change such as the melting arctic, the consequence of permafrost thaw, and the pattern of drought in the praries. The Foundation has a mandate that runs through 2012, but it hasn’t received any funding since the Conservative government took charge in 2006. Without any funding, it will likely shutter its doors this year.

It’s concerning that science continues to be censored in areas of atmospheric research and global change. Assessing and understanding the trends and impacts of climate change should have no political bias, as the consequences affect everyone. Such a research network fosters larger science of an interdisciplinary and collaborative nature that follows no agenda and that cannot be swayed by politics. Perhaps it’s time for more of a global entity for research and science on this topic, taking advantage of the work of the Group on Earth Observations and facilitating coordinated global research efforts.

Senator Chris Dodd aims to pass the Livable Communities Act prior to his retirement at the end of this session. The Act aims to fund transit-oriented development and other green transportation efforts. The Act would provide $4 Billion in competitive funds for projects, would establish an Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities within the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, and would establish an independent Interagency Council on Sustainable Communities. The effort builds on the $150 Million of sustainability grants that were part of the 2010 White House budget and formalizes the inter-agency efforts of the Office of Livable Communities.

The UK Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, is calling for world leaders to include the impact on biodiversity in their decision making, warning that the world may be undergoing the sixth greatest extinction ever. He’s contemplating a report on the economic consequences of biodiversity loss, and a pricing of biodiversity in a similar fashion as we’ve priced carbon.

Read more in this article from The Guardian.

High quality videos from the GeoDesign Summit are now online and free for viewing. There are some excellent presentations there from a variety of presenters. I’d like to point out the video of Michael Gallis as a good starting point. He delves into the definition of GeoDesign in the context of government decision making and points out the promise for a “truly meaningful” toolset with outcomes on policy. The tone and delivery are exhilarating as a rallying cry to speed the adoption.

Programs to create detailed maps of marine areas that identify use by humans, habitat and natural resources, along with allocated space for fishing, recreation, shipping, oil and gas development and renewable energy production are on the rise.

The marine spatial plan gives communities the tools to define their environmental, economic and social goals to minimize conflicts among users and to maximize benefits. President Obama directed 22 U.S. federal agenices to develop a framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning back in June and the number of programs are multiplying. The effort addresses both ocean coasts and Great Lakes resources.

There was a one-day symposium this past Saturday about marine spatial planning at this year’s annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Learn more about the AAAS symposium on the subject, including details on presenters, in this press release.

Jane Lubchenco, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), expressed an interest in creating a National Climate Service when she took office nearly a year ago, and this week that plan moved closer to reality with the formal outline of the Climate Service and the launch of a new Climate.gov website.The site contains a ClimateWatch magazine with features that describe the impact of climate change, a global climate dashboard and educational materials that are designed to help citizens understand climate.

The proposed climate service would model the Weather Service, and would bring together hundreds of scientists and analysts that are now spread throughout NOAA. Administration officials said they hope to have the climate service up and running by Oct. 1, the start of the 2011 fiscal year. But meeting that deadline will require negotiating with Congress, employee groups and the Office of Management and Budget to work out the details.

The island nation of Micronesia is comprised of 607 small islands that collectively total 271 square miles of land. The inhabitants on these islands still mostly live in traditional villages and live off the land. The idea to turn the whole nation into a world park was first floated ten years ago, but seems to be gaining momentum. The idea of a nation-sized park to preserve the wide diversity of ocean life, and boost the economy with eco tourism, has an appeal that might achieve economic benefits while preserving the native culture.

Read more in this article in TIME.

Today Bentley announced the acquisition of Enterprise Informatics, Incorporated (www.enterpriseinformatics.com) and Exor Corporation (www.exorcorp.com), two key providers of infrastructure asset management software. The eB Insight software provides configuration and change management capabilities for mission-critical infrastructure asset operations for the energy, nuclear, rail, and government sectors. Exor information modeling software provides for the management and operations of linear networks for infrastructure, including roads and railways. The combined capabilities are being rolled into a new ‘AssetWise’ offering that is focused on lifecycle management.

eB Insight captures and models the relationships among both structured and unstructured information critical to infrastructure operations. Its information modeling services are able to capture, (beyond “what”), the “why,” “how,” “where,” and “when” about information objects, and can identify what may affect, change, or impact them – or be affected, changed, or impacted. Like ProjectWise, eB Insight fully leverages Microsoft technologies including SharePoint to provide broad user access to asset information.

Exor information modeling software provides for the management and operations of linear networks, including roads, railways, and water networks, as well as all components connected to them. For instance, sixty percent of all roadway miles in the U.K. are managed by Exor. The software enables owner-operators to manage multiple networks while relating structures, safety, pavement conditions, permits, and right-of-way information to the network.

The field of geospatial technology is full of people on a mission. It’s not just the achievement of a paycheck that motivates workers, it’s predominantly about doing good work that makes a difference.

I recently interviewed Paul Ramsey with OpenGeo about open source software and his company’s recently released OpenGeo stack of software. Here’s Ramsey on the motivations that drive his organization:

“We’ve formed ourselves as a social enterprise, meaning a business, but a business where the variable of maximization is not value of capital. In your traditional startup you dump some capital into it and you hope to make that pile of capital as big as possible. Our goal as a social enterprise is to take that starting capital and use it to grow as much social good as possible.

Our synthesis of how to do that best is to take our startup capital and work to be financially self sustaining. We’re working to build a business around open source tools that allow people to more democratically do mapping, but building a business with an aim to self sustain the development of that software so that we’re not tied to the vagaries of funding at the end of this process.”

Read the full interview for more insight into the status and prospects for open source geospatial tools here.

In the president’s 2011 budget there’s a good deal of commitment to earth observation and climate change monitoring and modeling. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been allocated $2 billion ( 58 percent more than this year’s budget) for a decade-long project to launch earth observation satellites that focus on collecting climate measures. At the heart of this is a mass restructuring of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). There’s also a strong commitment to earth observation and earth sciences at NASA, much of it climate-related.