Government-supplied satellites and data can be the right tool for the job, especially for national emergencies. Is there a commercial equivalent? Is it smart to create one?
As much as would love for it to be different, homo oeconomicus does not exist and that means that public goods, such as infrastructure (dikes, roads, water, sewerage,etc.), defense, and public services (like the NWS) simply cannot be privatized without enormous loss in quality AND increased costs. The incentives simply do not match what a successful privatization would need.
Anyone still doubtful after the string of failed privatizations of the late 20th century (from British and German rail to communal water supply all over Europe), take a long and hard look at the tragedy of the commons and think on the implications for privatization. It just won't work.
It's just amazing to read this after what has happened in Spain. Where a regional goverment controlled by the right and extreme right (with people who want to defund the national weather agency and have anti climate change narratives), had caused so much damage and loss of life due to heavy rain and flooding. Not only they ignored state agencies related to weather or river flooding, but they also didn't gave the population enough time to preapre themselves or resoureces in the first hours to manage this disaster (it has been know that the emergency phone services have been privaticed and was collapsed during the emergency).
Reading your lines just makes perfect sense not only based on NOAA and Milton/Helene experience, but also to what hads happened in Valencia last week.
Thanks John for articulating so clearly what many people don't want to realice:
"The government and its various bureaucracies are tools. Like any tool, they are better used in some situations than others. Hurricane warnings and tracking (and disaster management) are examples of situations when the government appears to be the better tool, as there are no commercial equivalents."
Thank you, Angel! I didn't realize the situation for Spain's emergency services had deteriorated so badly. If you feel like it, I'd suggest writing up your experience with how things are supposed to happen (or have happened in the past) versus the most recent experience--maybe from a space perspective, but mostly yours. I think it would be interesting.
I might try it, based on what I've seen in Valencia last week. But it is clear that for many in Spain (at least that's what I like to think) this has been a warning of what happens when you gave power to those who dosen't belive in public services and those who don't want to acknowledge the scientific reality we are facing. People that thrive in lies to ignore reality, and in the way cause more than 200 deaths...
All this had remainded me a lot to what was show in the HBO mini srie Chernobyl, where as they said in two brillant piece of dialog:
"When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.
...
The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants, it doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: What is the cost of lies?"
As much as would love for it to be different, homo oeconomicus does not exist and that means that public goods, such as infrastructure (dikes, roads, water, sewerage,etc.), defense, and public services (like the NWS) simply cannot be privatized without enormous loss in quality AND increased costs. The incentives simply do not match what a successful privatization would need.
Anyone still doubtful after the string of failed privatizations of the late 20th century (from British and German rail to communal water supply all over Europe), take a long and hard look at the tragedy of the commons and think on the implications for privatization. It just won't work.
It's just amazing to read this after what has happened in Spain. Where a regional goverment controlled by the right and extreme right (with people who want to defund the national weather agency and have anti climate change narratives), had caused so much damage and loss of life due to heavy rain and flooding. Not only they ignored state agencies related to weather or river flooding, but they also didn't gave the population enough time to preapre themselves or resoureces in the first hours to manage this disaster (it has been know that the emergency phone services have been privaticed and was collapsed during the emergency).
Reading your lines just makes perfect sense not only based on NOAA and Milton/Helene experience, but also to what hads happened in Valencia last week.
Thanks John for articulating so clearly what many people don't want to realice:
"The government and its various bureaucracies are tools. Like any tool, they are better used in some situations than others. Hurricane warnings and tracking (and disaster management) are examples of situations when the government appears to be the better tool, as there are no commercial equivalents."
Thank you, Angel! I didn't realize the situation for Spain's emergency services had deteriorated so badly. If you feel like it, I'd suggest writing up your experience with how things are supposed to happen (or have happened in the past) versus the most recent experience--maybe from a space perspective, but mostly yours. I think it would be interesting.
I might try it, based on what I've seen in Valencia last week. But it is clear that for many in Spain (at least that's what I like to think) this has been a warning of what happens when you gave power to those who dosen't belive in public services and those who don't want to acknowledge the scientific reality we are facing. People that thrive in lies to ignore reality, and in the way cause more than 200 deaths...
All this had remainded me a lot to what was show in the HBO mini srie Chernobyl, where as they said in two brillant piece of dialog:
"When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.
...
The truth doesn't care about our needs or wants, it doesn't care about our governments, our ideologies, our religions. It will lie in wait for all time. And this, at last, is the gift of Chernobyl. Where I once would fear the cost of truth, now I only ask: What is the cost of lies?"