The app for independent voices
You may have heard of this stick-your-head-in-the-sand approach by Republicans to slash NOAA’s budget and eliminate the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) in NOAA, an outfit I worked for, for over 30 years.
I guess they figure if they ignore climate change, it will just go away and not really happen. I was so privileged to be the Director of the Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division, at the Atlantic Oceanic and Meteorological Laboratory (a NOAA lab in Miami), for the last six of my 30 years of employment. I was greatly humbled to represent the leading authorities and some of the most brilliant research scientists in the world on the role of carbon dioxide in the ocean and its role in global warming; in the relatively new science of ‘omics and how we can better and more easily understand and manage our fisheries that sustain millions of people throughout the world; how to protect and propagate coral reef ecosytems that sustain BILLIONS of dollars in ecotourism, as well as, again, fisheries; how mangroves protect nurseries of commercially important (edible) fish and invertebrates around the world; how red tides form and propagate, killing millions of fish and jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands of fisherpeople; how the Sargasso Sea is important to the livelihoods throughout the Caribbean; and how the earth’s changing climate and weather systems affect the changing of the marine biota’s lifecycles and behaviors, and thus our very existence. And that was just my Divison. We also have the Hurricane Research Division (the use to the citizens of the world should be obvious, but apparently not), and the Physical Oceanogrphy Division, which monitors the movements of (primarily) the Atlantic Ocean’s currents and how that effects weather, shipping, tides, the Sargasso Sea, and other crucial needs for the global economy.
Slashing NOAA’s budget is shooting ourselves in the foot; nay, our head. This is just plain stupid because the Republicans are ignorant because they don't understand--or don't care to understand--the vital role of science in saving our planet.
in addition to all of that, we have been so privileged to have as our co-workers, brilliant Univerity of Miami and Nova Southeastern University graduate students, as well as Sea Grant, work side-by-side with us and serve as an integral part of the whole science team, working together because of their love of the ocean. This proposed action is a major vision killer for thousands of students. Jacques Cousteau, my personal hero, would be ashamed and angry.
