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| The Trump administration keeps finding ways to endanger American lives. They're now working to sharply cut back NOAA research on weather, and climate, along with satellite technology that provides crucial information to business, agriculture and the general public. |
"President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country's premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science.
The document indicates the White House is ready to ask Congress to eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming."
As at least one scientists quoted in the article says. all this is happening because "the Trump administration doesn't like the answers to scientific questions NOAA has been studying for a half-century."
Because, as we all know, if we say climate change doesn't exist then, POOF! It goes away, right?
Uh, yeah. Until the next big climate-driven wildfire, storm or heat wave.
CNN puts the effects of these cuts pretty starkly:
"The cuts would devastate weather and climate research as weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly. It would cripple the U.S. industries - including agriculture - that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes."
I would add that this would add to a developing brain drain in the United States. Since Trump and the government are now openly hostile to scientists, those scientists probably flee to other nations where they can actually conduct research.
Make America Stupid Again!
There are quite a few gems in the internal budget document Science reviewed.
The plan would "eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes."
The White House wants to "eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming," as Science writes.
Also says Science:
"The proposal would cut NOAA's competitive climate research grants program, which awards roughly $70 million a year to academic scientists. It would end support for collecting regional climate data and information often used by farmers and other industries."
Wait, I thought the Trump people loved who they call real Americans, you know, farmers. But the tariffs, and now the withholding of critical weather and climate information from said farmers, I'm not so sure.
Important satellite technology looks like it will go by the wayside, too.
The Trump administration would also cut back drastically on its satellite technology, which provides a lot of data critical for weather forecasts, and for weather and climate research. Not to mention coastal security. NOAA had been working on several new satellites that would have gone into orbit around 2032, and would have greatly advanced skill in weather forecasting.
But I guess that's not important anymore.
These NOAA cuts come as the National Weather Service is already increasingly hamstrung by staffing and other cuts that are creating gaps in weather data that are making forecasts less accurate - including predictions for dangerous storms.
National Weather Service offices across the nation are understaffed, heightening the risk that overworked meteorologists would miss clues that life threatening weather might be about to break out.
But that's OK. No great loss if more than a few die in weather disasters as long as those added tax breaks go straight to the billionaires, right?
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