Arguments
Learning what's at stake with the Weather & Climate Livestream
Posted on 23 May 2025 by Doug Bostrom
As any reader is likely aware, in the United States big deletions are being made to the capabilities of a plethora of federal agencies. These include the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has a mission including that of keeping us safer in the case of "bad luck" due to weather. The National Weather Service (NWS) was already operating in an environment of scarcity, and now resources for operational synoptic and forecast reporting capacity are being stripped to the bone and beyond.
But wait: there's more.
Other agencies such as the US Department of Energy (DOE), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are seeing deep cuts to research. Across the entire spectrum of entities, amputations of grants and entire labs are connected by a handful of attributes— and any connection to climate change has emerged as a common factor.
Weather is the working hands and fingers of climate, shaping our daily lives and our future as it unrolls before us. If we don't understand how Earth's climate functions, we'll never fully understand our weather, any more than we could understand how people visited the Moon without our knowing the engineering behind the missions.
It's not possible to accidentally destroy or intentionally suppress climate research without degrading our capacity to make our luck with weather better— and good luck that we make for ourselves is far more reliable than luck only found by accident.
We don't have the type of transparency into the federal government as it's functioning today necessary to understand what's truly driving this destruction of our safety. Our blindness to "why?" doesn't mean we cannot understand how we're being harmed. Our needless hazard and risk are important information for when we have the ability to help decide our path forward, such as during elections.
Scientists from across the spectrum of geophysical scientific practice spanning meteorology to climate are here to help us understand our stakes. In their own words:
"From Wednesday, May 28th to Sunday, June 1st, join meteorologists and climate scientists from across the US as we share our work, and show you what makes it so vital. We will clarify the impact of the cuts on this research, and answer your questions about weather and climate research in the US. Information on how to watch is coming soon."
To be precise: Wed. May 28th 3pm ET/noon PT to Sun. June 1st 7pm ET/4pm PT.
The entire event wil be one click away, on YouTube. It's not the place of Skeptical Science to tell anybody whether ignorance is strength or not, but we encourage you to learn that answer for yourself. To help with this, mark this event on your calendar and visit The Weather & Climate Livestream website to see comprehensive coverage of how our future is in play.
Ignorance means you can be fooled,there is nothing accidental about climate denial-its always been about the politics. The far right tsunami sweeping through North Americas freedoms has caught its scientific agencies now. I wish "The Weather & Climate Livestream" a ground-swell of persuasion.
They say "when America sneezes,the world catches a cold", I certainly hope it is not contagious. We need science and scientists as a remedy to help the dire situation our world is facing. Just one current example, here along the southern coast of my Australia, a massive algae bloom has formed. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2os3AhY30IY Similar to other affected coastlines world-wide, it is a truly massive bloom phys.org/news/2025-05-toxic-algae-marine-life-australian.html We need climate scientists more than ever and so many other academics in specialized fields.
Regarding: “It's not the place of Skeptical Science to tell anybody whether ignorance is strength or not, but we encourage you to learn that answer for yourself.”
Anyone wondering how ‘ignorance could be strength’ should check out the Wikipedia entry for Ignorance (linked here). It includes the following well-reasoned point:
“Ignorance can have negative effects on individuals and societies, but can also benefit them by creating within them the desire to know more. For example, ignorance within science opens the opportunity to seek knowledge and make discoveries by asking new questions. [2]”
A key requirement is for people to wonder what they are unaware of and be curious about changing their mind by becoming more aware of well-reasoned evidence-based understanding.
However, it can be challenging for people to change their mind, especially if they believe they will benefit from a misunderstanding.
Hopefully this event will cause some people who have been inclined to misunderstand things to learn that they need to stop allowing themselves to be manipulated and misled by Merchants of Misinformation (the larger group of harmful misleaders that includes the Merchants of Doubt (Wikipedia linked here) – Oreskes and Conway deserve credit for the name)
An internet search for Merchants of Misinformation will find many informative items.
Awakening from Ignorance and becoming interested in freedom from misunderstanding can be very powerful.