National Weather Service Forecast: Cloudy, With A Chance Of Budget Cuts

[babylonsister]

National Weather Service Forecast: Cloudy, With A Chance Of Budget Cuts
March 2, 20185:00 AM ET
Brian Naylor


Last year, according to government figures, there were 16 "climate disaster events" with losses exceeding $1 billion each in the U.S.

So the weather is something to keep an eye on, and since 1870 what's now known as the National Weather Service has been doing that. But for the last several years, it's been doing so with serious staff shortages.

Now, it faces the prospect of permanent job losses.

The Trump administration wants to eliminate 355 jobs, and $75 million from the weather service budget.

"The straw is close to breaking the camel's back right now," says Daniel Sobien, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. "That will break the camel's back."

Sobien says there are vacant positions across the board. "Tsunami warning centers are understaffed; the weather forecast centers are understaffed," he says, and places like the hurricane center and storm predictions center "are having big vacancy problems, too."

The employees organization represents some 2,500 weather service workers. And Sobien says right now, 10 percent of the jobs at the service are vacant.

more...

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/02/589845319/national-weather-service-forecast-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-budget-cuts

[Matthew28]

1. Pure freaking idiocy

[Hortensis]

2. Anti-tax billionaires are behind this, same as dismantling Medicare,

EPA, VA, Unemployment, NIH and CDC, SS and on and on -- every single government program except those directly related to protecting person and property, i.e., police and military.

Call it "the Trump administration," but don't for a moment think removing Trump would stop this. To the contrary. The dark-money donor class and the people they've stacked the cabinet, congress, courts and 32-Republican-controlled states with would be able to progress far better under a President Pence. And if Pence were taken out, under President Orrin Hatch; both are long-time Koch allies/agents.

COUNTDOWN TO GIVING A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS THE POWER TO PUT A BIG STOP TO THIS: 247 days

(Remember, congress legislates and controls the national checkbook and is more powerful than the executive.)

[Arkansas Granny]

3. I suppose that when you consider climate change to be a hoax,

it makes it easier to ignore the importance of accurately forecasting the weather. The reality is that accurate weather forecasting is essentially a national security matter.

I live in tornado country. A delayed warning, or the lack of a warning, can cost lives.

[Hortensis]

5. The people behind this don't consider it a hoax, they just

decided long ago they weren't going to let the government tell them they had to spend money retooling their factories, changing the composition of petroleum products, etc. After destroying government (i.e., owned and controlled by us) weather data production, they will invest in private production and to sell controlled versions for public consumption.

The energy industry especially has known as long as science has, of course, that man was changing climate. Their own scientists told them. They started organizing to stop action by Democrats about the time President Johnson sent official notice of need to combat devastating climate change to congress in 1965.

Later on the Clintons ran afoul of them, and when she tried to warn people about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that was massively ridiculed and shut down by both right wing and mainstream media. And that part of the left-wing media that is oriented against mainstream Democrats also.

And here we are. Ironic that someone like Ralph Nader could have fought against both climate change and the largest force trying to fight it, the Democratic Party, for decades, but there you are. Not all "crazy" people are Republicans.

[malaise]

4. Madness

Their only interest is personal enrichment.
Lock them up!