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Disaster Warning: Profiteers Are Trying to Privatize America's Public Weather Service By Jim Hightower
From the Lowdown's "Early Political Warning System" comes this Code Red alert (BRRAAAPP) ... a fast-moving front of corporate corruption is sweeping westward from the White House ... (BRRAAAPP) ... Residents are urged to seek higher ethical ground immediately ... (BRRRAAAPP).
This is not a test, but a warning of an unnatural disaster: A plutocratic cabal of corporate elites is aiming to gut and eventually eliminate America's National Weather Service! Yes, that's the extensive network of scientific analysts, monitoring systems, researchers, emergency responders, and others trying to anticipate, prepare for, and protect us from the worst of storms, floods, wildfires and other calamities.
In the name of "efficiency," Republican politicos are now defunding and cancelling essential storm warning centers, hurricane monitoring staffs and flood rescue teams. They're even closing some forecast offices at night (as though bad weather checks out at sunset). Why?
Greed. Wall Street profiteers — including President Donald Trump appointees and political funders — have long lusted to privatize the weather service. While no one can control the weather, it is possible to control, commodify, and monopolize the collection, interpretation, and distribution of forecasting data. So, Trump Inc. intends to stop providing these functions as a public service for the benefit of all. Instead, weather data would become a corporate profit center, packaged and sold at premium prices to media conglomerates, insurance giants, private resorts, and others who can afford it.
This is not a test, but a warning of an unnatural disaster: A plutocratic cabal of corporate elites is aiming to gut and eventually eliminate America's National Weather Service! Yes, that's the extensive network of scientific analysts, monitoring systems, researchers, emergency responders, and others trying to anticipate, prepare for, and protect us from the worst of storms, floods, wildfires and other calamities.
In the name of "efficiency," Republican politicos are now defunding and cancelling essential storm warning centers, hurricane monitoring staffs and flood rescue teams. They're even closing some forecast offices at night (as though bad weather checks out at sunset). Why?
Greed. Wall Street profiteers — including President Donald Trump appointees and political funders — have long lusted to privatize the weather service. While no one can control the weather, it is possible to control, commodify, and monopolize the collection, interpretation, and distribution of forecasting data. So, Trump Inc. intends to stop providing these functions as a public service for the benefit of all. Instead, weather data would become a corporate profit center, packaged and sold at premium prices to media conglomerates, insurance giants, private resorts, and others who can afford it.
https://www.creators.com/read/jim-hightower]
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