This article highlights the importance of linking extreme weather events with government actions and inactions.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/nws-cuts-texas-floods
I have some concerns with the presentation of this specific article that I'll attach as a follow-up message in the comment on this thread, but I'm glad to see this getting reported in this general form.
People need help to understand what's happening, and the peddlers of propaganda know this so will be right in there with their misinformation. It must be countered by good information in a form that is clear about what's happening, how to understand its implication, and what to do in response. Each of these is a point of weakness if it is left unfilled because the propaganda folks will be right there filling the gaps.
It's a horrible thing that DOGE (and now also the ironically-called Big Beautiful Bill that just passed in Congress) have done to climate funding in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other agencies in terms of cutting funding for measuring, tracking, and reporting climate and weather phenomena. This will mean, over time, a lot more incidents like the one this article reports, and one of the good things this article does is call that out so that people can see that having good government policy matters.
We used to have a world where we know a lot less about what the weather was going to do with us, and a lot more people were injured by weather for lack of prediction capability. It is a terrifying thing to think of returning to that, and outrageous to have to see it as a voluntary act, a self-inflicted wound, by our politicians.
See also my 2020 essay Humanity's Superpower for the importance of integrating science into our societal decision-making. That's increasingly under assault now, which can only lead to bad places.
https://netsettlement.blogspot.com/2020/03/humanitys-superpower_28.html
#Climate #ClimateCrisis #ClimateReporting #journalism #probabilities #weather #WeatherReporting #ExtremeWeather #ClimateEmergency #DOGE #NOAA #NWS #NASA
