There’s a conservative way and a liberal way to invest. The conservative mantra is to use strategies that reduce risk and seek stable growth. The liberal way is to accept additional risk so you can get potentially better returns.
This formula essentially holds true in the world of weather forecasting as well, where the nation (federal government) pays for staff and tools to give “we the people” a heads-up when conditions are ripe for a hurricane, tornado, wildfire or flash flood. It’s a national responsibility because there are huge economies of scale gin having a centralized function to keep up with the big picture of weather. (Imagine the waste if all 50 states had offices dedicated to weather forecasting.)
In the world of weather forecasting, investing in people and data tools, such as weather balloons and hurricane hunter jets that fly into storms to take meteorological data readings, is smart government. And to date, the United States has done it well, as forecasts have improved greatly since the days of Hurricane Hugo.
So the conservative approach to weather forecasting is to invest enough resources in people and data tools to make sure the job gets done well. That’s been the status quo. But cutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where the National Weather Service lives, and affiliated disaster-related agencies boosts risks. Cutting forecasting by $2 billion is a liberal approach that Republicans in Congress took by passing President Donald Trump’s irresponsible budget bill earlier this month. Cutting the forecasters and research tools at the National Hurricane Center isn’t going to make Charleston any safer. Republicans in Congress are flirting with disaster.
They’re looking at disasters with a very narrow focus that’s going to end up biting them in the butt. As veteran forecaster Robert Atlas, former director of NOAA’S Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, said last week in a news conference, the loss of the lab could reduce forecast accuracy by up to 40%, which would cost the economy more than $10 billion during a single hurricane season — if only two major hurricanes hit the United States. Sometimes we get more.
De-investing in weather forecasting is a really dumb idea. Having less information about an approaching storm and giving less time to people to get out of wrath’s way is a really dumb idea. If these cuts to professionals, research and analysis are allowed to stand, people will die, as U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said this month.
We urge you to call the lockstep Republican members of Congress in South Carolina who voted for Trump’s budget bill and tell them to protect weather forecasting to keep America safe. That means calling U.S. Reps. Nancy Mace (1st District), Joe Wilson (2nd), Sheri Biggs (3rd), William Timmons (4th), Ralph Norman (5th) and Russell Fry (7th) as well as U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott.
The telephone number to the U.S. House switchboard is 202-225-3121; the Senate switchboard is 202-224-3121. Or you could phone your local representative’s South Carolina office to complain. Or both.
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
