Another hurricane Speeding towards the Florida coastline.
Forecasters say Hurricane Milton, currently a Category 5 storm, “will remain an extremely hazardous hurricane until it makes landfall in Florida,” according to the federally funded National Hurricane Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I predict. As of Monday afternoon, Hurricane Milton was about 700 miles southwest of Tampa, with maximum sustained winds of 175 mph. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis later ordered millions of residents to evacuate. All of this is happening because the country is still recovering. From damage caused by Hurricane Helen.
Against this increasingly alarming backdrop is growing awareness of the right’s longstanding desire to eliminate NOAA, a vitally important agency for helping residents and authorities. Prepare for storms like Hurricanes Helene and Milton and understand the reality of climate change. But with a second Trump term becoming a very real possibility, the threat to NOAA takes on new meaning. That’s because Project 2025, a right-wing extremist guidebook for a second Trump term, explicitly calls for the disbanding of NOAA. The plan can be found on page 674, and describes NOAA as “one of the key drivers of the climate change warning industry and therefore detrimental to future American prosperity.”
Project 2025 said the agency “should be broken up and downsized,” adding that “its functions could be provided commercially, perhaps at a lower price.”
The cost and quality are better.” The document then acknowledges the important work of the National Hurricane Center but argues that it should nonetheless be reviewed.
like Atlantic Ocean As we pointed out in an article this summer, privatizing NOAA’s work could make access to weather forecasts more difficult and undermine the ability of U.S. scientists to collaborate with their international colleagues. But experts say other proposals in Project 2025 could seriously harm NOAA, even if it isn’t eliminated entirely. “There are a lot of ways to go after those agencies without requiring immediate removal. I think they’re hiding behind the fact that they haven’t explicitly called for removal,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program. The Union of Concerned Scientists told nonpartisan FactCheck.org. “These different offices work very closely together to provide both short-term and long-term information to help with weather and climate forecasts,” Cleetus added. “So the idea that you can dismantle it and still provide services is not accurate.”
That’s why it’s important to invest in NOAA, not disband it. Last week, the Biden administration announced $22.78 million to support research on the climate impacts of water.
But confronting the reality of climate change and supporting public officials doing it doesn’t seem to be a priority for those in Trump’s orbit. Consider a recent dispatch from a company by my colleague Jackie Flynn Mogensen. new york times It was a climate event in which Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank behind Project 2025, dismissed the reality of climate science. “I enjoy a high-carbon lifestyle,” Roberts told the audience.
In the meantime, continue to follow updates from NOAA to help you stay safe if you’re in Hurricane Milton’s path. While agency officials track the storm, Trump is giving Truth Social a shout-out again.
