Congress to slash funding for Global Warming research at NASA

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/20/congress-slashes-funding-for-nasas-global-warming-research/

I guess Republicans are following the "If I can't see it, it isn't real" mantra...?

 

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NOAA?

 

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It wouldn't surprise me at all. Trump has advocated the most profligate spending program since George Junior. If you take The Donald's proposals seriously, he has proposed a trillion dollar infrastructure spend, a 13 trillion dollar tax cut, mostly for the rich, (over 10 years) and a trillion dollar increase in defense spending (over 10 years), and then he wants to build a wall which could cost another 100 billion dollars if the wall is as he has proposed. And then he is going to make Obamacare better by repealing it which would add another 300 plus billion dollars to the national debt.

So Republicans will need to find some sacrificial cows in order to deceive their base, i.e. lesser educated whites. So I can very easily see Republicans slashing the funding for research, not just for global warming, but for everything else as well, along with traditional right wing targets like NPR. Whatever they cut will be dwarfed by Trump's profligate spending.

 

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*shrug*

 

Would no longer be getting NASA support like this: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...noaa-advanced-geostationary-weather-satellite.

Because satellite monitoring of the highest quality and capability, in climate research, is not a priority of Rex Tillerson and his buddies. It just makes trouble.

 

Here's a partial breakdown of climate change science funding management.

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see:
http://www.gao.gov/key_issues/climate_change_funding_management/issue_summary
and:
https://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/ccwg/Resource_USag.htm

There are many levels of redundancy built into the system. Streamlining the structure should save money and narrow the focus of nasa and whoever takes the GW research now done by nasa.

It seems that the way our bureaucracy functions for the bureaucrat has to do with expanding one's purview and thereby expanding one's staff, and thereby expanding one's power and paycheck.
In business, this excess is somewhat excised through the process of mergers and spinoffs.

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ergo repeal the Chevron doctrine

 

You mean whoever takes over the satellite launching and handling, the high-resolution military - associated satellite data acquisition, and similar capabilities provided by NASA, on no extra money? Yah, you betcha.

That's one way to narrow everyone's focus, sure - to whatever they can still do, and and still afford.

 

Adding years of delay and layers of bureaucratic procedure to regulatory agency oversight doesn't seem like the best of ideas, off hand. But maybe there would be some benefit to making regulatory agencies at once less effective and more expensively bloated with procedural complexity?

 

And how do you get all that from the org charts you referenced? How are you able to gauge efficiency just by looking at an org chart? How are you able to determine there is duplication just by looking at an org chart without understanding what the referenced agencies and organizations do? How do you know there is coordination?

The fact there is a chart and it has been published suggests there is extensive coordination.

From your reference:

"As illustrated in figure 2, many federal entities manage programs and activities related to climate change. Each of these federal departments and agencies is operating under its own set of authorities and responsibilities and addresses climate change in ways relevant to its mission. In the context of providing climate-related information, the National Research Council observed that no single government agency or centralized unit could perform all the required functions, and that coordination of agency roles and regional activities is a necessity.

Over the past several years, federal agencies have made progress toward better organizing across and within agencies and among the various levels of government. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, for example, is a confederation of the research arms of 13 federal departments and agencies that carry out research and develop the nation’s response to climate change. In 2014, it published the National Climate Assessment report, which reviews observed and projected changes in climate in the United States, the effects of these changes, and options for responding."

 

a little history:
The Obama Administration has announced its new Federal budget and is proposing to cut (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)NASA's Fiscal Year 2017 Budget to $19 billion by carving away significant funding for deep space exploration, whereas the overall US Federal budget actually increases to over $4.1 trillion.Feb 13, 2016
Nasa receives about 35% of total spending on academic scientific research in the United States.

reprioritization in progress?
or, would that be .............................?

 

That would be yet another rightwing argument based on an alternative reality of "bothsides" doing something that in fact Republicans, and only Republicans, have done and are doing.

 

Well, below is a reference to the whole story.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...roposes-19-billion-nasa-fiscal-2017/80053964/

Who is this relevant to a post on global warming? I don't think it's a surprise Republicans want to spend less on climate change research. For the last 8 years Republicans have been deficit hawks, even to the point of harming and jeopardizing the US economy.

So is it any wonder Obama would prefer to spend what little money he can get from Congress on more immediate problems like climate change versus deep space research? I as much as I like deep space research, if I had to choose, I would make the same choice. Climate change is more immediate and more dangerous.

 

It seems unlikely that people here want to or are capable of perceiving the bureaucracy in an non politicised perspective.

 

No, quite the opposite. They just don't drool with anger every time someone says the word bureaucracy or any of a host of other right wing right wing trigger words which are intended to short circuit the "conservative" mind and incite anger.

You have been asked a number of questions: questions you have yet to answer. Why? Just because there is a bureaucracy it doesn't follow that it is always bad. There is a reason why we have bureaucracies. They are an efficient way of getting things done and delivering goods and services. That's why they are all over the place in both private private industry and government.

 

So the reference is to a political, government bureaucracy - right? The Chevron doctrine, for example, reduces the bureaucratic load of issuing and enforcing government regulations. People who want the government to function more quickly and with less red tape or courtroom hassle favor it. People who want the government to be stifled and prevented from issuing regulations, and figure any way that is accomplished is for the better, would like to see it repealed. Which of those takes is the "politicized" one?

 

There's a poster on another thread who believes you can't prove anything exist unless you can see it

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I worked in a government bureaucracy in an R&D environment, where I had access to all levels of the bureaucracy, for some of my projects, from top down. In my experience, bureaucracy is set up, like the military. It is designed for the worse case scenario. If there was a critical need; mission statement, the chain of command and all the skilled talents, can be brought into play, in a very efficient way to meet the needs of the emergency. However, during peacetime, which is most of the time, you have too many people. If the biggest building in town require 50 fire fighters to fight, unless that big building is on fire, you will have too many people standing around.

Since the design is based on emergency, but peacetime is the rule and emergency the exception, one will need to justified the peacetime excess, by creatine busy work. This busy work is not needed for any emergency, but is there to game the money system, during peacetime.

In an emergency, the system has to move quickly and be very efficient. The irony is all that busy work gets in the way of this mission. However, during peacetime, which is most of the time, there needs to be a lot of foot dragging, to avoid getting things done too quickly or too efficiently, or else you may not be able to justify all the extra the emergency personnel, which which in the mission statement has to move on a dime and not a football field like in peacetime.

Picture if the world was at peace. You have a huge army, that is no longer needed, but which nobody wishes to downsize. An emergency or war army is a fast moving force that can be deployed quickly. But since this is peacetime, you will need to make up tasks, such as paper work and red tape, to keep everyone busy, so it looks like you need all these people. This paperwork and red tape, during war, will render your army inefficient, such that this has nothing to do with your primary mission. It is all connected to a secondary mission, which is to create an illusion of need, to justify all the people needed to battle the 50 year flood.

I remember a few emergency projects I worked on. The needs of the emergency allowed us to by-pass the peacetime glacial bureaucracy and get things done in weeks, instead of years, at a tiny fraction of the cost. Once these projects were over and the mission successful, it was back to the glacial pace needed to justify all the extra bodies. This is when politics become more important, since it is very wasteful and can be used to bog down the system, to justify more people and excess resources.

Obama created a cold war perception, within the EPA and NASA; manmade global warming. This was used to help justify an emergency bureaucracy. If the oceans rose 20 feet, we were ready. Since there is no war, and mostly hype, we really ended up with a huge peacetime bureaucracy and a wartime budget. Trump by changing priorities, is claiming peacetime and not the prospect of war, so it looks like we have a large standing army, without a war.

 

Sounds plausible, except for, like, reality - here's two aspects:
1) Obama did none of that - he had nothing to do with the creation of the EPA or NASA bureaucracies, and nothing to do with the "perception" of manmade global warming (a scientific discovery that dates back to before Obama was born, and had become generally recognized among informed people for its implications by the 1980s).
2) we are not and have never been in any sense prepared for even the near-inevitable short term consequences, let alone the possible emergencies, created by the CO2 heat trap. We have nothing set up to handle the consequences of even the loss of Arctic sea ice already being experienced, let alone the high end possibilities of sea level rise from the loss of land ice, for example. We have no way set up to switch away from fossil fuels rapidly even if became an emergency need. And none of the bureaucracy of the EPA or NASA is or ever has been set up to address these matters.

 

That's nonsense. Bureaucracies have nothing to do with warfare, emergencies, or peacetime. They exist because they are efficient vehicles for getting things done regardless of war and peace. Bureaucracies exist in government and in private industry, and they aren't some new phenomena. Bureaucracies have existed since the dawn of civilization. They exist because they efficiently and consistently get things done. Yes, the military has bureaucracies. But that doesn't mean bureaucracies are designed only for emergencies.

I served in the military, and I have been in worked in private industry for 40 years. I created my own companies. I'm a capitalist to this day. I make my money by owning stuff. There are poorly managed bureaucracies and there are well managed bureaucracies. But that doesn't mean all or most bureaucracies are bad as right wingers would have people believe.

There would be no food on your table were it not for all the bureaucracies which created and delivered it to your table and that has nothing to do with war or peace or any emergency.

And your evidence is where? Oh that's right, you are from the right wing crowd. You don't need evidence or reason. Limbaugh or one of his ilk told you so. That's all you need.

Global warming is a crisis, and action needs to be taken. Recognition of facts, isn't a bad thing. It's a good thing. Trump is filling the swamp. That's what Trump is doing. He's catering to special interest groups like the Kochs. He's using the bureaucracy to serve the special interests and not the interests of the American people.

Bureaucracies deliver goods and services emergencies or not, and in so doing they prevent or mitigate emergencies. Bureaucracies get things done efficiently. That's why they have existed since the dawn of civilization. They are a convenient right boogie man. But that doesn't mean the right wing hype about them is true. Because as with most right wing nonsense, it isn't truthful.

 

question:
Who is the existentialist of whom you posted?