Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

19thnews.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 227 posts

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

#21

Post by cogman10 »

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…

> how can we trust either its legislative or executive branch to ensure that their creations are effective or efficient?

Glad you asked. That's actually the job of the Inspectors General. One of the first groups of people Trump completely eliminated.

It was their job to stop things like corruption, waste, and fraud in the federal government.

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

#22

Post by sethherr »

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…

But why?

Someone has to be collecting the data. I believe that should be something our tax dollars pay for.

After the data is present, someone should make the data accessible and useable. That also seems like a good use of tax dollars.

Hiqh quality data on climate is relevant to many, many organizations and polities. That's the sort of coordination problem that I want my government to solve.

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

#23

Post by bumby »

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…

As a counter example, the government manages and collects all kinds of weather station data. But the trend is for private companies to get contracts to privatize the dissemination of that data through fee-based APIs etc. I would rather the government provide it instead of taxpayers having to pay twice to enrich some rent seeker.

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

#24

Post by Terr_ »

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.

Which part? I interpret it as:

1. The temporary situation (private copy with donations) is not sustainable.

2. The activity is within the proper role of the US federal government.

3. It gives diffuse public-benefits, which should be funded normally, rather than rely on concentrated private donations.

Disseminating the collected data publicly is not only a moral imperative--we already paid for it!--it's also how one maximizes the overall return on investment.

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

#25

Post by jjordan »

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?

To stay out of jail, mostly.

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

#26

Post by groundzeros2015 »

bestouff wrote: post #16
mchusma wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Private companies don’t care about having accurate data?

Does the government have private access to forming unbiased information?

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

#27

Post by ryandrake »

dnautics wrote: post #17
turtlebits wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Can we do the same thing for military funding? Default its budget to zero, and if anyone cares, let them donate a few bucks?

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

#29

Post by groundzeros2015 »

bumby wrote: post #23
mchusma wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a counter example, the government manages and collects all kinds of weather station data. But the trend is for private companies to get contracts to privatize the dissemination of that data through fee-based APIs etc. I would rather the government provide it instead of taxpayers having to pay twice to enrich some rent seeker.

Operating an API isn’t free either and the needs and scale change dramatically for customer. So you would rather the public pay for Google to use weather data on a massive scale?

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

#30

Post by turtlebits »

dnautics wrote: post #17
turtlebits wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I care that the data is out there and helps with weather forecasting. My taxes pay for that.

Do you care about roads, schools, fire stations and police too? Please donate to those please.

Post reply on HN