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Comment by momoschili | Hacker News Reader

unlikely that there is good precedent for a private weather organization. The gold standard for western weather prediction is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and that is a collaboration between multiple government agencies.

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> unlikely that there is good precedent for a private weather organization.

When has something being a bad idea or never having been tried stopped political apparatchik's from trying, especially given past appointee's opinions:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGn9T37eR8

* https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11110660/

* https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/oct/14/john-oliver-...

* https://time.com/5699545/john-oliver-weather-last-week-tonig...

See also Project 2025:

> The document describes NOAA as a primary component "of the climate change alarm industry" and said it "should be broken up and downsized."

[…]

> Project 2025 would not outright end the National Weather Service. It says the agency "should focus on its data-gathering services," and "should fully commercialize its forecasting operations."

> It said that "commercialization of weather technologies should be prioritized to ensure that taxpayer dollars are invested in the most cost-efficient technologies for high quality research and weather data." Investing in commercial partners will increase competition, Project 2025 said.

* https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/sep/26/jared-mosk...

The "lets privatize essential parts of the government" folks do not care about precedent, or what is a good idea. They are driven by ideology and self dealing.

even Cliff himself (somewhat right leaning in today's American political environment) did not go so far in his blog. Cliff often speaks very highly of the European weather forecasts, and in his blog post it seems pretty clear that he is using it as the model for most of the suggestions.

The problem is that his well-meaning statements are going to be used as ammo to privatize NOAA, much like someone's well-meaning statements were used to create turmoil in Springfield, Missouri.

Ohio?

Nobody is sure what state Springfield is in.

It's possible it's in a superposition of states. Like if someone stupidly misremembered which Springfield, then it would be in many states at once until observed.

Cliff Mass has this kind of weird position on climate change where here fully agrees that it is real and a serious concern, while simultaneously questioning the extent to which it is human-caused and disputing specific weather events as the negative effects of climate change.

I'm curious about where we draw the line on questioning scientific consensus.

Take Cliff Mass - he's a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at UW whose research focuses on weather modeling, climate systems, and atmospheric dynamics. When someone with his expertise raises questions about climate science conclusions, should we approach this differently than when non-experts do so?

This raises an interesting question about the role of expertise and scientific discourse: Is there a meaningful distinction between how we treat challenges to consensus from qualified researchers in the field versus those from outside it? Or should acceptance of consensus apply equally regardless of one's credentials?

As an imperfect analogy, Stephen Wolfram is a fairly successful theoretical physicist by academic standards with considerable expertise, yet his theories on fundamental physics and its interpretations are considered fringe in the physics community because he most of what he spins is untestable conjecture.

Individuals who disagree with the scientific consensus aren't always wrong, but most of the time they are. What separates these people is the amount of evidence they can bring to the table.

He doesnt challenge scientific consensus. What he does challenge is people making any claim they want then adding "because climate change" at the end which has become a problem. One side will deny climate change and the other side starting taking any claim at face value as long as you say "because climate change"

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