White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA • Hacker News Board

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#91

Post by someguydave » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:22 AM UTC

seanp2k2 wrote: post #39

someguydave wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>airline flight in the US relies on NOAA forecasting Sure but is that what is actually going to be cut? You do realize that one common way that unelected bureaucrats defend their spending is to launder unpopular/dubious spending in very popular spending?

Is there any evidence at all that this happens with NOAA? If not, why suggest it?

Sure, here's some evidence of dubious spending:

"And that shared mindset is frustration. Senator Mikulski was quoted by E&E Publishing’s ClimateWire as saying “We have said time and time and time and again to NOAA, ‘Get your act together’”… “Continual cost overruns are eating up NOAA’s budget, and quite frankly, eating up the budget and goodwill of this committee.”

Note that Sen. Mikulski is a liberal from Maryland, where NOAA headquarters is.

http://www.livingontherealworld.org/?p=633

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#92

Post by CalChris » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:22 AM UTC

bitJericho wrote: post #64

bobmno wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17 trillion in debt, time to cut back

The military is 60 percent of the budget.

> The military is 60 percent of the budget.

50% of the discretionary budget. You were embarrassingly close.

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-...

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#93

Post by intended » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:25 AM UTC

daxorid wrote: post #57

ajmurmann wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not mistaken than the vast majority globally is convinced of man made climate change being an issue. The holdouts primarily seem to be a subset of US Americans. There is disagreement on what a fair solution would look like but the vast majority agrees on the problem.

Let us be honest: no they are not convinced. If they were legitimately terrified of existential disaster >400ppm, they would be IMMEDIATELY limiting industrial production and investing MASSIVELY into carbon sequestration and renewables. The fact that ALL NATIONS take half-hearted and half-assed measures to confront what the pro-AGW crowd paints as an extinction risk demonstrably contradicts your claim that "the vast…

No that's not true, and it's another tiresome argument based on first order armchair logic sans application of actual subject related experience/knowledge.

Environmental diplomacy is hard, and made much harder by the fact that most tools to stop pollution require such massive cuts to industrialization (and western pollution first) that most countries can't afford to enact what is needed.

So we have had the weak predecessor of Kyoto, and then the even weaker Kyoto protocol. Which has been followed by nothing.

This just means that people are willing to play the game of lying to their populations and voters, who can't care or understand the issues because they have other existential problems to deal with.

Distributed responsibility is another name for "not my problem".

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#94

Post by ra1n85 » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:28 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #74

dashundchen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're sarcastic or trolling . Cut back on by far the largest and most expensive military in the world then. NOAA budget 2016: $5.8 billion US military budget: $600 billion And they're proposing a $54 billion increase. You could probably trim 10 NOAAs from the military industrial complex and nothing would be lost.

With the proviso that US military support and materiel has been used as trade goods for alliance-making with other countries for most of the last century. A large portion of the US military budget is "being the substitute military for US allies." The key question of decreasing US government spending is how to get other countries to pony up for the "renting" of the US military forces that they're already doing (becaus…

I think this is a good point, and I'm not sure why it's been downvoted.

It's important to consider the sometimes positive externalities of the current levels of defense spending. Even more so, it's important to consider where we or others have come to rely on those positive externalities.

For example, I'd be perfectly happy with the US withdrawing from many parts of the world and closing foreign bases. However, I do imagine there would be sometimes not so subtle consequences to doing so. Is the current balance of global power sufficient to prevent large scale and disastrous conflict? Do we risk tipping that balancing in one direction at some point?

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#95

Post by nkozyra » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:30 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #87

nkozyra wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he cuts back on foreign intervention, this extraordinary emphasis on "rebuilding" our military (whatever that means given the relative size of our military) makes even less sense. If you're hanging your hat on the idea that he'll be less interventionist, I'd ask you to consider the evidence mounting to the contrary.

Damn, if he doesn't trigger WWIII, I'll be happy.

That's a very different bar than you set just a post up.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#96

Post by mirimir » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:30 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #82

mirimir wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So A has to get rid of B, or make them irrelevant.

How? B has all the power. It's easy to say "get rid of them" but how do you actually do it?

Maybe B has overwhelming power now. But if B's position is untenable, that will eventually become apparent. And yes, that may take far too long to be of any good.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#97

Post by js2 » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:30 AM UTC

findateamfirst wrote: post #79

mikeash wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When on Earth did anti science trolls take such a prominent role in HN? It's not hard for me to imagine a misinformation campaign run against HN, because I can't really understand how someone technical could countenance anti climate change ideas.

mikeash was being sarcastic.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#98

Post by rgbrenner » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:31 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #74

dashundchen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you're sarcastic or trolling . Cut back on by far the largest and most expensive military in the world then. NOAA budget 2016: $5.8 billion US military budget: $600 billion And they're proposing a $54 billion increase. You could probably trim 10 NOAAs from the military industrial complex and nothing would be lost.

With the proviso that US military support and materiel has been used as trade goods for alliance-making with other countries for most of the last century. A large portion of the US military budget is "being the substitute military for US allies." The key question of decreasing US government spending is how to get other countries to pony up for the "renting" of the US military forces that they're already doing (becaus…

You should take a look at world military budgets... actually look at the countries that are spending the money.

$1.7T/year in total military spending worldwide.

China at 200B, Russia at 70B.

Iran? 22nd largest military budget at $10B.

The rest of the big spenders are our friends and allies. I'm not going to count up every country, but roughly 1.3T to 1.4T is spent by the US + allies + friendly countries.

Who are we preparing for war with?

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#99

Post by glial » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

mirimir wrote: post #32

Hey, he's just following through on campaign promises. How can you fault him on that? In a decade or two, this will probably be laughable. But if he cuts back on foreign intervention, I'm happy to cut him lots of slack.

> he's just following through on campaign promises. How can you fault him on that?

It's easy - his campaign promises were short-sighted and pandering to idiots.

Re: White House proposes steep budget cut to NOAA

#100

Post by DanTheManPR » Sat, Mar 04, 2017, 4:33 AM UTC

metaobject wrote: post #37

wiggyslim wrote: post #25

Makes sense when the powers that be think climate change is made up, in fact maybe they think the climate is made up. Why fund an agency that spends money on something that does not exist?

Certainly they believe that weather exists? Cuts to NOAA won't just affect climate change research but will affect weather forecasts, hurricane forecasts, severe weather forecasts, etc. Mr. Trump is a pathetic excuse for a president.

"They can't predict the weather worth a damn, so what use are they!"

(Nevermind that forecasting has improved tremendously in the last 20 years, thanks in large part to NOAA research)