NOAA Retires Extreme Weather Database (cnn.com) 44
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday its well-known "billion-dollar weather and climate disasters" database "will be retired," a move that will make it next to impossible for the public to track the cost of extreme weather and climate events. The weather, climate and oceans agency is also ending other products, it has recently announced, due in large part to staffing reductions. NOAA is narrowing the array of services it provides, with climate-related programs scrutinized especially closely.
The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...]
The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The record for one year was 28 events in 2023. "What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email.
"Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."
The disasters database, which will be archived but no longer updated beyond 2024, has allowed taxpayers, media and researchers to track the cost of natural disasters -- spanning extreme events from hurricanes to hailstorms -- since 1980. Its discontinuation is another Trump-administration blow to the public's view into how fossil fuel pollution is changing the world around them and making extreme weather more costly. [...]
The database vacuums loss information from throughout the insurance industry, among other public and private sources. According to the database, there were 403 weather and climate disasters totally at least $1 billion in the United States since 1980, totaling more than $2.945 trillion. As of April 8, there had not been any confirmed billion-dollar disasters so far in 2025, but it lists four events as having the potential to make the tally, including the Los Angeles-area wildfires in January. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine such disasters on average each year, though in the past five years, that annual average has jumped to 24. The record for one year was 28 events in 2023. "What makes this resource uniquely valuable is not just its standardized methodology across decades, but the fact that it draws from proprietary and non-public data sources (such as reinsurance loss estimates, localized government reports, and private claims databases) that are otherwise inaccessible to most researchers," Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications for and co-founder of First Street, a climate risk financial modeling firm, told CNN via email.
"Without it, replicating or extending damage trend analyses, especially at regional scales or across hazard types, is nearly impossible without significant funding or institutional access to commercial catastrophe models."
When does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just read an article that was 'hopeful', pointing out Trump is losing more cases than winning that are brought against him because of the government's actions. Show me the parts of his agenda that are good for Americans, where a win for him isn't a loss for everyone else.
Free press, an impartial adversarial judicial system, due process... pretty much everything Americans have held as necessary to their pursuit of happiness is being destroyed while those who aren't cheering it on sit idly by.
You're less than a couple of years away from being in a Russian oligarchy. Maybe far less. The market pain is going to start hitting hard in a few weeks, and it's not going to let up. They're going to try and blame others to solidify their grip on power. New groups will be chosen as the scapegoat and persecuted.
This is the future of the US, because nobody wants to pay the price of fighting tyranny if they still have hope somebody else will do the bleeding for them. I can't fight for you, I'm busy worrying my country will be selected as your next external 'enemy' and then I'm going to have to fight and it won't be FOR you.
It doesn't (Score:4, Insightful)
In order for that to happen the Democrats would have to wield the power they have in order to shut down voter suppression. This would involve basically ignoring court orders as needed in order to ram voting rights cases up to State supreme courts where they have majorities.
They absolutely have the power to do it but the problem is the kind of centrist Democrat who would be in charge of doing it does not under any circumstances want to wield power. They are obsessed with proprietary and process and procedure believing it is sacred above All Else.
Now ordinarily what would happen is the left wing of the party and the left wing Independence would give them a kick in the rear and they would get off their asses and wield the power and solve this problem.
The problem with that is the left wing doesn't really want to stop voter suppression. They have a childish dream of kids 18 to 24 showing up to vote in droves and instituting Nordic style Democratic socialist reforms. They have literally been trying to achieve that for so long that the 18 to 24 set they originally started working on are in their 60s and voted overwhelmingly for Trump...
Basically we are a nation of 12-year-olds. We act like children. Left right up down center doesn't matter who it is we stopped maturing at around age 12, some of us make it all the way to 14 and then that's it. So it's extremely hard for any of us to do what really needs to be done to save our country's democracy.
It's possible to share incompetence of Donald Trump and everyone around him might save us again but it seems unlikely. I suspect the whole country is going to turn into a fascist dictatorship like China and or Russia. I hope my kid can flee the country when it happens and that Europe has enough nukes that still work to keep the US military at Bay. I'm also hoping to die before the worst of it.
Would love to be proven wrong but I have watched these last several months as the lefties and the centrists uselessly bicker over specific policy and do absolutely nothing about democracy. Every now and then one of the lefties realizes how fuck they are and does a screed about how we're going to all use violence to get back democracy. They're 12-year-olds but they're not that dumb they know it won't work. But the alternative is giving up that stupid cherished dream of theirs. and they're hobbyists in it for the fun so that's not going to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
>Every now and then one of the lefties realizes how fuck they are and does a screed about how we're going to all use violence to get back democracy.
It'll happen... Eventually, when things are bad enough they can no longer fool themselves into thinking there is a choice, the sheep will fight back.
The US isn't Russia. It has a long cultural history of prosperity and resentment and selfishness, and you can't just rip that away and put a boot on its neck without pushback. There's a whole generation of ang
Re: When does it stop? (Score:1)
When you put your shit together and do something about it.
Re:When does it stop? (Score:4, Interesting)
You're optimistic, I was thinking more like North Korea....
Re: When does it stop? (Score:2)
nuremberg.
what a wonderful defense.
and given todays toys.
prison guards could remote their jobs.
I think it would be trivial to use OpenAI for Alcatraz
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:When does it stop? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, his core supporters are those that the rich laughed at, made scapegoats and treated like turds on the soles of their shoes. The very same rich that is standing behind Trump and benefiting from his very move. Aka you voted against your own interests while blaming people that where never to blame for your misfortune. You fell for the most successful propaganda move in modern history.
The above could accurately describe anytime a rightwing/conservative leader has been democratically elected in any country in modern history. Millions of working class people convinced by the (billionaire-owned) mass media to vote against their own economic interests. The lack of critical thinking that allows them to be so deceived is a very deliberate consequence of chronic underfunding of education systems by rightwing/conservative governments, a vicious positive feedback loop.
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We laughed at them for choosing ignorance and hatred and poverty even though we offered education and cooperation and prosperity.
Wow, they showed us, didn't they? Are their lives improving? No? Seems we were right to laugh at them, but probably wrong in being mostly compassionate and trying to help. We should have let them fail themselves into extinction long ago.
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"Out of sight, out of mind" + "Après moi, le déluge"
If you live in a disaster prone area (Score:1, Troll)
This means that if a storm destroys your property there isn't going to be anything there to rebuild it. The insurance companies you're paying out so much money to will go under or they will Stonewall you with lawsuits you can't possibly win. The courts are packed with pro corporate judges so you are unlikely to get very far.
Don't even bitch. (Score:5, Insightful)
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We've neglected our democracy for far too long and we're going to lose this republic.
Re:Don't even bitch. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't even bitch. (Score:4, Interesting)
Did Biden do enough to prevent the victory of trump? No.
Did he critically assess his ability or lack thereof to run a successful campaign? No. It was obvious to everyone even in 2022 that he isn't well and that he'll botch the campaign, although few Democrats would admit it openly. By late 2023 it was so obvious, that the Democrat propaganda machine had to be cranked to eleven to silence their own, severing all feedback from reality.
Do you know what happens when you kill your feedback? Yep, shit blows.
Did he ensure that his party run a fair and open primary elections? No. He was adamant he'll run, so no reasonable candidate appeared. Given the state of Biden, it was obvious how it will end in 2023 already. Instead, he gave fuel to Ratfuck Jr.
So yes, Biden had a major contribution to the ongoing process of the disintegration of US democracy, although it is by no means his achievement. People have been working at it since before Tricky Dick.
Re: Don't even bitch. (Score:3)
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Well, dude, great thinking and you're of course right, it is always somebody else's fault.
In this case, of course, the fault of the electorate and not of the inept campaign.
No doubt about it.
Which brings only one question... Are you ready for trump in 2028?
Re: Don't even bitch. (Score:2)
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that they held a traditional campaign
I can recall in some detail all US presidential campaigns since Carter's back in 1976.
What I can't recall is a campaign before 2024 that would swap out a candidate at half-time because he could not manage.
But please go on about it being "traditional".
Re: Don't even bitch. (Score:2)
Its like... (Score:1)
Its like we're on a reality show that can get us all killed. The Trumper Games.
Re: Its like... (Score:2)
Same as Covid (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop counting, and the numbers don't get any bigger.
What if we just stop counting the national debt? Can we keep spending like drunken sailors?
Re:Same as Covid (Score:5, Insightful)
"What if we just stop counting the national debt?" This is precisely what la Presidenta was suggesting back in Nov.-Dec. in the guise of increasing the debt limit by about $5 trillion if memory serves correct. That was just to grease the skids so that Congress could slide down to another $5 trillion in a year's time.
You want the U.S. to stop spending like a drunken sailor? Start by rescinding the Bush and la Presidenta tax cuts thus cutting the yearly deficit, start taxing the wealthy and polluting industries like they deserve so we do not lose productivity to environmental damage, fund education and science and health care so that people are not creating a hit on the health programs after waiting until they are at death's door before they can get any help (i.e., vaccines, gov. research on vaccines and cancer). And start increasing our reliance on renewables and stop contributing to global warming which is creating weather related disasters.
The way to decrease spending is to make smart investments. The U.S. junta and the Maggots do not understand that.
Of course. (Score:3)
This was done to protect the fossil fuel industry...!
It's importnant to know economic damages... (Score:2)
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If not the NOAA, then who? The NOAA is the agency that was doing it, and knew how to do it.
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Donald Trump's is the most eagerly awaited (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Donald Trump's is the most eagerly awaited (Score:2)
Db (Score:2)
Re: Circular Reasoning (Score:2)
Re: This is no good (Score:2)