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Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

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Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#11

Post by mchusma »

simonw wrote: post #5
cheschire wrote: post #3

> The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for. Hmm. I don’t believe that’s accurate.

What's not accurate?

I agree with parent, the full quote is: "The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for."

I think this is a great site, love what they are doing, and support them (including a literal donation). But a government maintained website for this data is low on my list of things of what tax dollars are for. In fact, I think this is better done privately. To be clear, many of the things every US administration does including this one I also think is better done privately.

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#12

Post by estearum »

mannanj wrote: post #7
nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

That doesn't seem controversial to me. I wish the same were true of all federal organizations though. For example, CIA regulates itself with its own supervision too. Other orgs do it too. I don't think they do it well.

> CIA regulates itself with its own supervision too

That's not true lol. There is a gigantic supervisory apparatus constantly breathing down the IC's neck, including but not limited to your very own elected Congressperson's investigative powers.

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#13

Post by groundzeros2015 »

nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

All agencies are ultimately accountable to the public via democratically elected leaders as the Supreme Court recently upheld. No part of the government is independent body, it’s in one of the 3 branches.

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#14

Post by estearum »

mchusma wrote: post #11
simonw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not accurate?

I agree with parent, the full quote is: "The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for." I think this is a great site, love what they are doing, and support them (including a literal donation). But a government maintained website for this data is low on my list of things of what tax dollars are for. In fact, I think this is better done privately. To be clear, many of…

Collecting and distributing weather data is a canonical example of a government function, even for the most ardent pro-market believers out there.

I almost wrote "even for the most asinine pro-market believers," but that's not true. There are plenty of pro-market believers so asinine that they can't even describe the classes of problems that markets are known to fail at solving – weather data collection falling into several of such classes.

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#15

Post by sampli »

9dev wrote: post #10
nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

This notion of "the government" is the wrong premise. The US government is (supposed to be, I should say) an elaborate system of checks and balances to enable self-correction mechanisms. The Trump administration has turned that into a travesty, obviously, but the system itself is explicitly set up to be split into three branches that keep each other in check, and thus supervising itself.

These checks and balances failed long before Trump started abusing the system

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#16

Post by bestouff »

mchusma wrote: post #11
simonw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not accurate?

I agree with parent, the full quote is: "The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for." I think this is a great site, love what they are doing, and support them (including a literal donation). But a government maintained website for this data is low on my list of things of what tax dollars are for. In fact, I think this is better done privately. To be clear, many of…

Doing it privately is a sure recipe for ending with sponsored, biased data.

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#17

Post by dnautics »

turtlebits wrote: post #6
nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

Who is going to pay for the data collection? If we can't trust the government, what are we paying taxes for?

do you care about climate data? then pay. or else you dont actually care enough to be inconvenienced. put up or shut up. i care, so I'll start. will make a $15 donation (as soon as i figure out how)

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#18

Post by unethical_ban »

nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

This makes no sense to me. National governments have no moral or legal responsibility to monitor the environment, because they also regulate pollution? Is this a joke?

Only private companies with some fantastical profit motive to install satellite and sensor networks all over and above the globe should do it, not the government?

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#19

Post by hvb2 »

mchusma wrote: post #11
simonw wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's not accurate?

I agree with parent, the full quote is: "The whole thing relies on donations to keep it afloat, which is really what tax dollars are for." I think this is a great site, love what they are doing, and support them (including a literal donation). But a government maintained website for this data is low on my list of things of what tax dollars are for. In fact, I think this is better done privately. To be clear, many of…

So, research that you pay for with tax dollars, it's results should be published through a private entity?

That makes no sense to me. But we can agree to disagree.

And no, having all research be privately funded is a bad idea. No one will try to find a new antibiotic for example. Big Pharma rather researches cures for chronic diseases that will make money for the rest of a patients life

Re: Former NOAA employees built Climate.us to preserve climate data and resources

#20

Post by actionfromafar »

nickff wrote: post #4

This may be a controversial view, but I don't think we should trust the actor in charge of regulating and limiting emissions with its own supervision. The Federal Government has a plethora of agencies which regulate pollution and energy usage; how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient? To that end, I hope the Trump administration's actions ca…

Yes! We could pool our efforts though, in a larger organization (let's call it a democratic republic), vote on who should preside over it, be on the "board" and hire some people to run the day-to operations of the whole thing.

If a single organization proves too unwieldy, we could even have a federated solution.

Edit: another suggestion https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=48898415&goto=item%3Fi...

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