Cutting Prevention Funding is a Natural Disaster

Archaeologists have found that great societies are made by broken bones that have been mended. Societies flourish when we band together and survive as a unit, be it from war, famine, or natural disasters. As humans have progressed, we have developed tools and organizations to help us better prepare to protect each other during natural disasters. Under the recent administration, those systems have been deemed unimportant. We are now forced to witness the damning effects: life lost, families displaced, and towns ruined beyond repair. The funding cuts to integral sources of information like NOAA can not be considered good governance. The cuts made have far-reaching effects, from failing crops and trade to losing community members. Limiting the advancements of science is a way of culling the world of those who do not have the means of picking up and starting again. By understanding some of the organizations that are experiencing cuts and what the effects are, we better our ability to act and strive for a better tomorrow.

Learning about the organizations that receive cuts is a great first step to finding one’s footing. NOAA is one of the critical organizations that is experiencing such cuts, but who are they? NOAA stands for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Established in 1970, the agency focuses on the research and protection of the natural world. According to NOAA’s mission statement, their tag line is, “Science, Service, and Stewardship”. Not only a national but an international figure, NOAA works with other countries to ensure that everyone continues to learn and implement strategies to better protect their citizens and their environment. To some, it may not seem like it affects the day-to-day American, but their reach is far wider than one may think. The National Weather Service is a sector of NOAA. This sector is responsible for the collection and translation of the weather data that is then utilized by all weather channels/apps. Beyond this, the crude data provided by them is accessible to airlines, first responders, firemen, and farmers. This, in turn, affects at least a third of the United States’ [i]GDP.

Now knowing who is receiving the cut, who is administering the cuts? The funding cuts that are currently affecting NOAA come from the hands of DOGE. While DOGE, also known as the Department of Government Efficiency, does not have a mission statement like most professional or government organizations, their hiring page states that the DOGE team works on “Identifying/eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.” A large part of NOAA and the National Weather Service’s work aims to alert the public to hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves, tsunamis, and floods. The National Weather Service costs taxpayers around 1.3 billion dollars, while returning 650 billion dollars on that investment. However, this still led to NOAA receiving a 27% cut to its funding, which roughly translates to 1.67 billion dollars. These budget cuts come at a cost. At the time of writing this article, recent flooding in Texas has taken 142 lives. The warning systems typically in place failed due to these budget cuts. Are these systems a source of waste, fraud, or abuse? Were these 142 lives worth 1.3 billion dollars? 1.3 billion dollars, when 650 billion dollars are given back on that same investment every year.

Where does this money go now? Did the money go towards paying Donald Trump’s 30 million dollar birthday parade? Maybe it went to the 450 million dollar building project of Alligator Alcatraz. Perhaps it went to the 29.9 billion dollar increase towards ICE. It isn’t clear where funds have gone. What is clear is that further down the line, these budget cuts will continue to collect a debt in human life, in displacement, and in suffering. Other ways that this may continue is in the suffering of the agriculture of the nation. Without the correct data, the farmers of America won’t be able to correctly predict and plan for the next year of crops. Food supplies dwindle, prices rise. People starve. Airlines either make unsafe flight path choices due to the lack of information on changing weather patterns, or they stay grounded in fear of that same endangerment, travel suffers. Fishermen and cargo ships no longer know the swells or storms out at sea, trade fails. The truth of life is that we will never know what will happen in the next moment, but research and aid allow us to plan and attempt for the best possible outcomes in the safest manner.

While many people may brush this aside, claiming that we survived before such innovations, the same sentiment could be said about modern medicine or even capitalism. The issue isn’t surviving without these innovations: it’s willfully preventing society from growing greater, with them. While these budget cuts are still in effect, we can help aid innovation to continue. All hope isn’t lost as long as we stay informed and try to stay safe. For more information, please visit NOAA’s homepage to find donations and volunteer opportunities.

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[i] GDP stands for Gross Domestic Product; this is a monetary measurement of all final goods/products in a specific time period and in a specific country 

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