Summary

Hundreds of NOAA employees, including National Weather Service meteorologists, were fired Thursday as part of Elon Musk’s cuts to the federal workforce under Trump.

The layoffs, affecting up to 10% of NOAA’s workforce, targeted probationary employees.

Lawmakers and experts condemned the cuts, warning they will jeopardize public safety and disaster preparedness.

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) called the firings “unconscionable,” while climate scientists warned they would weaken the country’s ability to respond to extreme weather and climate disasters.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    52 minutes ago

    Good! I DONT care if my House gets RAZED to the Ground by a Random Tornado I was Unprepared for as LONG as we can Afford to Give President Elon Musk, LEADER of DOGE, more MULTI BILLION DOLLAR CONTRACTS!

  • WarlockoftheWoods@lemy.lol
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    1 hour ago

    Gonna be a real shame when all those trump supporting midwesterners get their trailers leveled by a storm that could have been predicted but wasn’t. Oh well…

    • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Probabaly a mix of lowering government costs to give billionaires a tax break and if we don’t monitor it the climate change numbers don’t get worse.

          • GlendatheGayWitch@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Yes. I have a friend in meteorology and they said that the Weather Channel doesn’t actually have any meteorologists on staff, they just repackage what NOAA and the NWS report instead of crunching numbers themselves.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    The next hurricane season might have just gotten very interesting. Nobody will tell the good people on Florida or Texas about all that nasty climate change, or the hurricanes that will come because the Hottub of America (formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico) will turboboost more smaller storms to nasty little category 5s. No annoying evac orders! Hurray! Americans just take things as they come!

  • Ace0fBlades@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    This has been one of my biggest worries this go around. The national weather service provides intensely important information and provides it freely. At this point, I’m waiting for them to hack it up and sell the remains to the parasites at AccuWeather or something and start charging for what was always a free product.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Didn’t AccuWeather mostly just pull from nws anyway? Now they’ll need to do all that work themselves and it won’t be free anymore.

      • spamfajitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        22 hours ago

        That’s the thing that’s confused me a bit. Project 2025 definitely calls for the dismantling and privatization of NOAA, but I didn’t see anything specifically mentioning AccuWeather. IIRC the CEO of AccuWeather said it’d be way too costly for them to pick up all of the responsibilities they depend on NOAA for. At this point, I’d fully expect Musk to say his companies can handle it.

  • thevoidzero@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Extra note on this. NWS’s agenda also includes educating people about weather and climate and other things. Our engineering class about rainfall and such basically is in chaos right now because the person from NWS teaching it is no longer working there. So this will have long impact for future generations. Specifically since our engineering department already is very tiny compared to other departments.

  • makeshiftreaper@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Great decision right as we head into hurricane season. At least we haven’t been setting records for the number and intensity of hurricanes, or this would be extra stupid

    /s

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Excellent job republiQans and non-voters. Once again your vision and wisdom shine forth like a beacon in the darkness.

    • NotLemming@lemm.ee
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      20 hours ago

      What happened with the whole Qanon thing, haven’t heard anything about that for a while

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        According to the New York Times it was all true and Trump was right about everything.

        • NotLemming@lemm.ee
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          20 hours ago

          Yikes. So Qanon was cooked up by Russia to gather the conspiracy theorists and mentally ill who would support fascism in the US?

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            No, I actually think it was just dipshit 4channers riffing which then got picked up by some opportunistic douchebags who were then co-opted by russia to divide the US and lay the groundwork for fascism.

            • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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              41 minutes ago

              Exactly this. Russia doesn’t have to do a lot of work here. Most of this bullshit is home grown. Russia just amplifies it.