We can't manage what we refuse to measure
By Paul Roberts / For The Herald
If you don’t measure, you can’t manage
Business management expert Peter Drucker said: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is an axiom for business, engineering, science and more.
The reverse is the core of the Trump administration’s war on efforts addressing climate change. They are choosing to stop measuring things associated with climate change and reduce funding for disaster response. It’s a policy based on willful ignorance, designed to reduce public attention on climate change and curtail the federal response to emergencies such as heat, fires, floods, and hurricanes.
Funding cuts are impacting climate science at all agencies and reducing disaster preparedness and emergency responses (“Loss of research funds threat to climate resilence,” The Herald, May 17). For example, the Associated Press reports the administration plans to cancel the National Climate Assessment. The National Weather Service is reducing staffing in local field offices, with vacancies ranging from 15 percent to 35 percent. Bloomberg reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced it will “retire” its popular database of climate and “billion-dollar” weather disasters and are canceling grants that identify future risks, claiming it stokes “climate anxiety.” The administration is shifting FEMA’s emergency response to state and local governments who have not prepared or budgeted for such changes (“Communities need FEMA’s help to rebuild after disaster,” The Herald, May 3). All this comes as we enter wildfire and hurricane seasons.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-we-cant-manage-what-we-refuse-to-measure/
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