Project 2025: National Weather Service

Do you think that opposition to Project 2025 isn’t a life-and-death matter? Think again.

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Twenty-foot storm surge. “Unsurvivable” conditions. Rapid intensification. Areas that will be “uninhabitable” in the storm’s wake.

Those are some frightening words when they come from the National Weather Service, as they have in the last 24 hours, in relation to Hurricane Helene.

You know what’s even more frightening? Not hearing those words when there’s a hurricane the magnitude of Helene moving in your direction. Not being able to protect yourself and your loved ones because you don’t have sufficient warning or survival information.

But that’s exactly what may happen if the authors of Project 2025 get their way.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a branch of the Department of Commerce. It’s the “parent” organization of several individual weather- and climate-related agencies, including the National Weather Service (NWS).

Project 2025 advocates for gutting NOAA, with the driving force behind that gutting the false right-wing belief that climate change is somehow a hoax. In their words:

NOAA consists of six main offices: 

— The National Weather Service (NWS);
— The National Ocean Service (NOS); 
— The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR); 
— The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS); 
— The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); and 
— The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps. 

Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.  [Emphasis added.]

— Project 2025, pp. 674-675

I added emphasis to the phrase “climate change alarm industry” to highlight the idiocy of the Project 2025 authors’ positions. There is no such thing as a “climate change alarm industry.” There are, however, scientists around the world who have devoted their lives to studying changes in climate and the real-world effects those changes have on human existence. But I’d bet you several dollars that they did focus group testing to find the phrase that is the most frightening. And I’d bet you a few more dollars that some oil industry bigwig had a hand in it.

The arrogance of the Project 2025 authors is almost unfathomable. Despite the best scientists in the nation and around the world having determined for several decades that climate change is real and is in large part the result of the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, the Project 2025 authors think they know better.

What are the reasons for their obstinate views? There are several possible reasons. Perhaps they are beholden to the fossil fuel industry, as many on the far right are. Perhaps their religious views idealize the “end times” which could come true with their continued opposition to taking any action to mitigate climate change.

Or perhaps they’re just fans of revisionist science, like their cult leader:

Much to their future dismay, however, no mark on a map from a presidential Sharpie is going to change the reality of the devastation that a storm can wreak. No campaign-trail joking about “more beachfront property” will restore the lives ruined or lost from more frequent and more severe hurricanes.

It’s not just those who live in “hurricane alley” states that would be affected by the dissolution of NOAA. Weather-related disasters occur in virtually every part of the country. Tornadoes. Blizzards. Landslides. Heat waves. Floods. Wildfires. Tsunamis in the Pacific Rim. We’ve been subject to all of these in recent years.

A hurricane like Helene brings into sharp focus the need not only for crisis forecasting but also for long-term planning.

We take it for granted when we get ready to start our day that we’ll have the most up-to-date and accurate weather information available, from a newspaper, a TV or radio broadcast, or an alert on our phone or smart speaker. That information relies in large part on the work that the National Weather Service engages in. Importantly, accessing that accurate information is critical in crisis situations. But Project 2025 would bring all of that into question.

I had a wonderful friend many years ago who, when I was whingeing about the vicissitudes of my job, short-circuited my complaining by reminding me, “You’re not in a life-saving profession.” We think of medical personnel and first responders as the people in whose hands our lives sometimes end up. But less visible but equally as important are the people who provide weather information. They’re definitely in a life-saving profession. They save lives during severe weather events, but their commitment to science also saves lives in the future.

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As of this writing, there has already been one reported death attributed to Hurricane Helene.

Update: As of the morning of 09.30.2024, there have been at least 89 deaths attributed to Hurricane Helene.