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White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

washingtonpost.com

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Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#11

Post by 65827 »

coss wrote: post #5

Just playing devil's advocate can someone articulate what kind of value we will lose as a society?

If you read the article you will see it involves cuts to measurement areas like satellites and temperature monitoring, which will make weather and climate science shittier for everyone.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#12

Post by tsomctl »

> The biggest single cut proposed by the passback document comes from NOAA’s satellite division, .... Researchers there were behind a study suggesting that there has been no recent slowdown in the rate of climate change — research that drew the ire of Republicans in Congress.

Yes, let's shoot the messenger.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#14

Post by mikeash »

tsomctl wrote: post #12

> The biggest single cut proposed by the passback document comes from NOAA’s satellite division, .... Researchers there were behind a study suggesting that there has been no recent slowdown in the rate of climate change — research that drew the ire of Republicans in Congress. Yes, let's shoot the messenger.

When you "know" the message is wrong but the messenger won't shut up about it, these things start to sound like a good idea.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#16

Post by icehawk219 »

acomjean wrote: post #4

http://weather.gov (run by NOAA and the national weather service) is my go to weather site. No ads, no hyperbole. I found out about it when some senator wanted to stop them from posting weather online because it competed with "private sector" weather companies. A couple times I've seen that tv news weather leaves the site up on their monitors during newscasts.

I've used weather.gov for years and love the service. Every person I've talked to who complains about the crap coverage by the weather companies in the US that I've shown it to uses it exclusively as well. It's a perfect example of the governments lack of profit motive producing a genuinely better product than the competition. I know this isn't always the case but it certainly is here.

I don't agree with lots of things our government spends money on but stuff like this I absolutely support.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#17

Post by ajmurmann »

coss wrote: post #5

Just playing devil's advocate can someone articulate what kind of value we will lose as a society?

"[...]eliminate funding for a variety of smaller programs, including external research, coastal management, estuary reserves and “coastal resilience,” which seeks to bolster the ability of coastal areas to withstand major storms and rising seas."

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#18

Post by bronco21016 »

coss wrote: post #5

Just playing devil's advocate can someone articulate what kind of value we will lose as a society?

Every single commercial airline flight in the US relies on NOAA forecasting. Without reliable forecasting I would suspect the airline industry would crumble under delays, wasted fuel, diversions, and overall customer dissatisfaction.

This isn't to say a third party couldn't pick up the slack but then you have a very clear conflict of interest. If the airlines get to make their own forecast they can skimp on fuel and push pilots to fly into weather that they magically deem legal. The margins of safety are significantly higher with an unbiased third party.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#19

Post by username223 »

acomjean wrote: post #4

http://weather.gov (run by NOAA and the national weather service) is my go to weather site. No ads, no hyperbole. I found out about it when some senator wanted to stop them from posting weather online because it competed with "private sector" weather companies. A couple times I've seen that tv news weather leaves the site up on their monitors during newscasts.

Same. A lot of weather sites just pull the free NWS data and wrap it in ads.

Some use higher-resolution grids or better models (check http://forecastadvisor.com/ for your area), but they're almost always at least based on the free NWS data. Also, only weather.gov lets you click around on a map to get their model results for any square on the grid, not just towns and cities.

What is wrong with these people?!

EDIT: Weird. "Its satellite data division would lose $513 million, or 22 percent, of its current funding under the proposal... National Weather Service would be fortunate by comparison, facing only 5 percent cuts." I doubt slashing the satellite budget would improve forecasts, which tend to rely upon data.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#20

Post by icehawk219 »

BrailleHunting wrote: post #15

Next up: disbanding firefighters, parametics and police. Not to be outdone by shutting down the electric grid.

You joke but I know plenty of self professed libertarians who want nothing more than to see those very services privatized. I know someone who genuinely believes a privatized police force would be the end of police violence because "then we'd at least be able to fight back." Sadly this is actually how a lot of people think.
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