Who could be against a massive environmental monitoring system to gather more data on the Earth proposed by the White House? But what good is data if policy-makers continue to ignore the reams of scientific and other data regarding climate change, forest loss, water scarcity and ocean decline? Yes, we need more data. But much more importantly we need to start formulating policy based upon what we know.

Officials Want to Wire Earth for Continuous Readout of Vital Signs

The new "Strategic Plan for the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System" envisions linking nearly 60 nations within a decade to gather and share information from satellites, ocean buoys, weather stations and other surface and airborne instruments.