Climate Budget Cuts Mean People Will “Be Flying Blind”
Alice Hill, a senior fellow for energy and the environment at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Inside Climate News, “So that program, the National Climate Assessment, is on pause. The 400 volunteer scientists who were contributing to that report have been told the program is dismantled, and then we have removed from public websites information about climate risk. That means that communities are flying blind.”
It is possible that some of America’s largest cities may be able to underwrite similar programs, but not at the same scale. The Texas flood tragedy is an example of a weather event that occurred in an area where it is impossible to make accurate climate assessments without the federal government’s involvement.
NOAA Cuts
The comments do not describe anything that has not been said, in a similar fashion, about cutbacks to the NOAA, which oversees the National Weather Service. The Washington Post has reported that some of the large Weather Center offices are no longer staffed 24 hours a day. There is an argument that this means weather alerts will be issued less quickly than they were a year ago. It is hurricane season, and that may offer some proof.
Climate risk is at or near the top of the long-term risks to Americans, particularly in areas of the nation that frequently experience severe weather. One attempt to mitigate that has been canceled.
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