NOAA Soils Itself And Undermines Public Trust - By Decision To Back Trump On Fake Dorian Path

Trump bloviating about the fake hurricane threat to Alabama a week ago, slapped down by Birmingham National Weather Service office but supported by an "unnamed" NOAA official.

In its heyday.  the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was one of the most reliable and trustworthy science-based agencies,but evidently no longer. Not after publicly coming out in support of Donnie Dotard's fake threat (by Hurricane Dorian) to Alabama.  As noted by Bloomberg News:

"During a briefing on the storm’s threat to the U.S. East Coast, the president held up an Aug. 29 map from the National Weather Service showing initial projections of Dorian’s track into Florida. But the map had been changed -- by the president -- with a black line that extended the storm’s path beyond Florida and into southern Alabama, according to people familiar with the matter."

The story goes on to note:

"Trump repeatedly claimed on Sunday that Alabama was in Dorian’s path -- he tweeted it, repeated it at the White House, and said it again during a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But by then, the storm’s track had turned decidedly north and east.

The National Weather Service’s Birmingham office said in a tweet on Sunday that “no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.” Trump nonetheless said his warning had been accurate."

We've since learned (WaPo, yesterday) that a week before the NOAA publicly backed Trump over its own scientists, and a top NOAA official warned its staff against "contradicting the president."   Contradicting Donnie Dotard? How about contradicting physical reality?

In an agencywide directive sent Sept. 1 to National Weather Service personnel, hours after Trump asserted, with no evidence, that Alabama “would most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated,” staff was told to “only stick with official National Hurricane Center forecasts if questions arise from some national level social media posts which hit the news this afternoon.”

They were also told not to “provide any opinion,” according to a copy of the email obtained by The Washington Post.

According to the Post:

'A NOAA meteorologist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution said the note, understood internally to be referring to Trump, came after the National Weather Service office in Birmingham contradicted Trump by tweeting Alabama would “NOT see any impacts from the hurricane.”

Further:

"The agency sent a similar message warning scientists and meteorologists not to speak out on Sept. 4, after Trump showed a hurricane map from Aug. 29 modified with a hand-drawn, half-circle in black Sharpie around Alabama."

And:

"Late Friday afternoon, NOAA officials further angered scientists within and beyond the agency by releasing a statement, attributed to an unnamed agency spokesperson, supporting Trump’s claims on Alabama and chastising the agency’s Birmingham meteorologists for speaking in absolutes.

That statement set off a firestorm among scientists, who attacked NOAA officials for bending to Trump’s will."

At that point, the NOAA  ceased to  be a reputable federal scientific agency, and became another rubber stamp farce for Dotard- much like the EPA, and the DOJ.  Essentially, it  lost any shred of credibility, gravitas and independence.  Rather it had mutated into a disreputable arm of Trumpdom - as has the EPA, the DOJ, and other once proud federal institutions.  As the Post went on to warn:

"The firestorm surrounding the president’s hurricane statements is unprecedented in the organization’s history, and threatens to politicize something that most Americans take for granted as an objective, if flawed, part of daily life: the weather forecast"

So yet another branch of the government has been dragged into Trump's vile, contaminated orbit.

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Union of Concerned Scientists - an organization to which I also belong, said;

"It makes me speechless that the leadership would put Trump's feelings and ego ahead of putting out accurate weather information. If we're politicizing the weather what is there left to politicize?   We're seeing this kind of clapdown on scientists across the government  and  it's been an escalating trend."

Kathryn Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who ran NOAA under Obama, didn't mince words in her assessment of the latest incarnation of the agency, telling the Post in an earlier (Saturday) article, 'Stormy Response To NOAA Stance':

"The anonymous and disingenuous statement that NOAA tweeted out is a major breach of scientific integrity that damages the National Weather Service (NWS)"

Jane Lubchenco, who preceded Sullivan as head of NOAA told the Post in an email (ibid.):

"This looks like classic politically motivated obfuscation to justify inaccurate statements made by the boss.  It is truly sad to see political appointees undermining the superb, lifesaving work of NOAA's talented and dedicated career servants."

Meanwhile, David Titley, an atmospheric scientist who served at NOAA during the Obama years tweeted - after reviewing the NOAA defense of Trump statement:

"Perhaps the darkest day ever for leadership. Don't know how they will ever look their workforce in the eye again. Moral cowardice."

Moral cowardice indeed.

But let's take a step back and observe again this isn't the only federal agency or arm being fouled and discredited by Trump political appointees heading a service or agency.  When Joy Reed asked her assembled panel ('AM Joy') on Saturday how it could be that now the military is abetting Trump, i.e. in enriching his hotels,  Malcolm Nance delivered a robust answer: "It's not actually any generals, who despise Trump, but the political creatures appointed by Trump and able to pull select strings".  In this case, ensuring that a C-17 crew back in March ended up staying at his Turnberry, Scotland resort for a mission in March. And oh, by the way - as Joy noted- overpaying for the privilege.

But again "official Air Force" personnel insisted the crews were following strict protocol.  Which, of course, is balderdash.  There is no known protocol which says or stipulates an AF crew must stay at a given president's resort and overpay to enrich that resident  - thereby flouting the domestic emoluments clause.  But this is now the deformed universe under Trumpism.  It is yet another reason that Trump must be dumped next year, irrespective of whom the Democratic candidate may be.


See also:

Donald Trump

‘Utter Madness’: Trump’s Assault on the Truth Continues as Weather Agency Releases Unsigned Statement in His Defense

And:

Donald Trump

The Sharpie Referendum

by P.M. Carpenter | September 7, 2019 - 6:12am | 

"Doomsday Clock" Moved Closer to Midnight

This morning at 10:00 Eastern time, in news that ought to send chills down ever citizen's spine, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the second hand of the Doomsday Clock another half minute closer to midnight. Hitherto it had been set at 3 minutes to midnight, since 2015.  The new setting marks metaphorically the acknowledgement of the highest danger facing the planet since 1953, when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. conducted multiple H-bomb tests in the atmosphere.

A global failure to fight climate change and concern over Donald Trump’s cabinet picks were cited as reasons for the increased threat to the planet. Of course, none of this ought to surprise the intelligent, high information citizen who is able to reason and discern fake news from the genuine form.

While the BAS historically has rejected that "one individual" can move the clock, it is clear to me that they have been alarmed following Trump's mid-December tweet that:

"We need to strengthen and expand nuclear capacity until the world comes to its sense regarding nukes."

As a number of strategic analysts had pointed out, including staff from The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. already has just under 5,000 nuclear warheads in its active arsenal and more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. This is more than enough to turn the world to ash about six times over.

Given that Russia, according to the same strategic sources, "has 400 more nuclear warheads than the U.S. does", one might assume that Trump - via his tweet - really meant overtaking the Russians. But to the scientists of the BAS it may also have meant tearing up the new START Treaty which limits strategic weapons to 1,550 each by February, 2018. At least these would be the possible interpretations IF one assumed Trump knew that the Russians had a 400 -nuke advantage and also knew what the START Treaty was. But since he doesn't even read his daily briefs, that's unlikely.

The only conclusion to draw from the BAS staff' reasoning for citing Trump's cabinet then is that they don't believe any of them possess the gravitas or wherewithal to influence Trump in any way - say to stay his hands from entering the nuclear codes if he felt the need to do so.  The BAS own words confirm this:

"We understand that Mr. Trump has been in office only days, that many of his cabinet nominees are awaiting confirmation and that he has had little time to take official action. But Mr. Trump’s statements and actions have been unsettling. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding and even deploying the American nuclear arsenal. He has expressed disbelief in the scientific consensus on global warming. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or reject expert advice related to international security. And his nominees to head the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Office of Management and the Budget have disputed or questioned climate change."

As I pointed out in the previous post, the man is out of touch with reality -hence certifiably insane by any sensible definition. His cabinet picks for EPA, Energy Dept. are not much better. Hence, the dire clock warning.   As the BAS statement continued:

"Last year, and the year before, we warned that world leaders were failing to act with the speed and on the scale necessary to protect citizens from the extreme dangers posed by climate change and nuclear war. During the past year, the need for leadership intensified but was met with inaction and brinkmanship."

Climate change, of course, enters as the more slow rolling form of human extinction. Indeed, in my Nov. 4 post from last year I cited Economic and psychology expert George Loewenstein, who was typical of the risk assessment experts consulted in an AP study. He called climate change "a problem that threatens the very existence of the human race and is already having devastating consequences around the world".

The results of the AP survey were similar to a larger survey of 750 experts conducted earlier last year by the World Economic Forum. Their Global Risks Report 2016 found that the five biggest global risks in terms of impact were: 1) climate change, 2) weapons of mass destruction, 3) water crises, 4) large scale migration, and 5) severe energy price shocks.

The contributors to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists also cited the threat posed to democracy by fake news and the influence exerted on elections as reasons for the new setting, according to a panel of scientists involved in the process.

The appropriate symbolic time is deduced each year by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The new reading brings the threat closer to midnight than it’s been since the height of the Cold War – when it reached 11:58pm.

When asked what was the single biggest factor in moving the hands forward, Professor of Meteorology David Titley said the dissemination of facts and science expressed through a “verbal looseness” was a particular threat.

“Policy that is sensible requires facts to be facts,” one theoretical physicist added.

And, of course, "verbal looseness" is epitomized by Trump's reckless December tweet on nuclear capacity.  As I pointed out no sane person ought to be propounding nuclear policy via a cartoon language medium. The very choice to do so indicates that person lacks all his marbles. Hence, if I were the BAS I'd be hitting the panic button over Trump's verbal looseness too! Anyone who uses Twitter to bloviate on nuclear forces and capacity has several screws loose.

How would humanity actually hitting midnight look? The best fictional portrayal of such a catastrophe was probably in the 1983 movie 'Threads'. The film is about 1hr and 47 minutes long, Brit-made,  but if it doesn't scare the bejeezus out of you, you are either already: a) brain dead, or b) a zombie and amongst the walking dead.

'Threads' is set in the industrial city of Sheffield, UK, and to be sure one needs to get adjusted to the peculiar accent. But once one does, he or she will be granted an inside look at a future none of us want to face. (One U.S. reviewer said that "Threads makes 'The Day After' look like a day at the races".) Having seen both,  I concur.

Threads is not for the squeamish or faint-hearted but I do think all those yammering for war or confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China (the Trumpies want to battle over the Spratley Islands) need to see it and let its message soak in. In fact, I think every critically-thinking red blooded citizen ought to see it, if for no other reason to be motivated to let reps know this thing isn't on - not now or ever.

Though based on a hypothetical Soviet-Russian invasion of Iran, which possibility is no longer - since the present day Russians have plowed enormous investment monies into Iran and its reactors, the projected invasion of a U.S. and NATO strike force is accurate to any unfolding future scenario. From the initial strikes on a nuke reactor at Isfahan, to the accidental sinking of the Russian ship Kirov in the Straits of Hormuz, to the accidental exchange of 2 tactical nuclear weapons (with radiation blowing over Pakistan) and the escalation to a full scale nuclear war - with 3,000 megatons exchange (210 megatons on the UK alone) this movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.

The last segment of the film - following the timeline after the missile exchange and when nuclear winter occurs, discloses there are some prices that are simply too much to pay. Most graphic are the scenes of the sorry victims of radiation sickness in Sheffield, UK and the final scene when a young woman that manages to survive gives birth to an infant with a frog-like face, pointed furry ears, scales and rat nose. As she screams in horror at her mutant, grunting offspring, the film pans to black and the credits roll.

DO we really want this future? Then by all means we need to heed the warning conveyed by the Doomsday clock.

See also:

http://thebulletin.org/timeline

Excerpt:

'The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon.' That probability has not been reduced. The Clock ticks. Global danger looms. Wise leaders should act—immediately".