President Trump’s cuts to monitoring weather and climate research will put millions of Americans at risk, an expert warned this week.
Alonzo Plough, a researcher and chief science officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, warned in an op-ed published Monday that extreme weather and associated health risks will harm people across the country.
“Rather than protecting families and communities from these harms, however, the Trump administration has sent a far different message to the American people: You’re on your own,” Plough wrote.
His article comes after the Trump administration has sought to reduce federal spending, which has included major cuts to research and jobs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS). The cuts have sparked concern about the future impact of extreme weather on Americans and their communities.
Due to those cuts, families and communities across the country will have a harder time preparing for and responding to extreme weather events, Plough argued.
“I find these actions to be baffling, reckless, and dangerous,” he said.
Plough noted state and local health and weather officials work tirelessly to protect their communities and alert them to hazards. Instead of following their lead, the federal government has “cast them aside,” he argued.
According to a draft document from April, the White House plans to eliminate NOAA’s research office and cut 74 percent of its funding. This would also eliminate all funding for climate and weather laboratories and for regional climate data.
About 15 percent of NOAA’s staff has been dismissed in accordance with the Department of Government Efficiency’s downsizing efforts since the start of the Trump administration.
In the Monday report, Plough highlighted a variety of the administration’s cuts and changes, including only sending weather alerts in English, harming the 67 million who speak another language, and shutting down the Office of Climate and Health Equity.
“All of this is happening as extreme weather due to climate change becomes increasingly common,” he wrote, noting how people at the highest risk are those with low incomes and that lack affordable housing, food, health care and transportation. “These inequities are often driven by structural racism affecting Black and Brown neighborhoods in particular.”
Plough called on policymakers to change course and protect communities amid increasing weather events. State and local leaders cannot accomplish it all, he said, urging federal leaders and the Trump administration to do more.
“Our lives and health depend on it,” he concluded.
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