This was my thought on the issue as well. How does moving it to private companies benefit anyone except the companies (who can now legally price gouge)? This is a centralized service, and just like healthcare, the numbers show that integrity goes out the window once financialized.
do you care about climate data? then pay. or else you dont actually care enough to be inconvenienced. put up or shut up. i care, so I'll start. will make a $15 donation (as soon as i figure out how)
Great, and through your effort you can raise a total of 100, maybe even 1000 dollars.
Meanwhile while you are willing to give $15 for good data, Koch is willing to spend $15 million for a guy with a degree in fine arts to tell us he's a scientist and actually CO2 is super healthy and awesome.
We elect officials and tax not just for the climate data most people will care about, but also for random things like sewage data that people might not be thinking about but is also important to public health. Trying to piecemeal fund all these studies and turning science into a game of advertising and begging for causes will put us right back into the dark ages where only the absurdly wealthy could engage in any sort of scientific research.
is there like a list of things that government is responsible for, or is it just vibes? if not, how is that not rife for abuse?
> Trying to piecemeal fund all these studies and turning science into a game of advertising and begging for causes will put us right back into the dark ages where only the absurdly wealthy could engage in any sort of scientific research.
it was already the case, even with tons of funding. (in case you don't know, i have a phd in chemical biology)
> is there like a list of things that government is responsible for
Why yes, there is. Here's an example of that list for the federal government [1]. States and cities also have similar lists though they may not be as accessible to the general public (a problem to be sure).
> or is it just vibes? if not, how is that not rife for abuse?
Not really vibes, it's spelt out in statute. In some cases that responsibility can be pretty wide and in all cases the president can chose heads of office that don't care to or ignore the duties of those statutes. The remedy if you feel like that's happening too much is voting.
> how is that not rife for abuse?
Abuse can certainly happen. However, the US does have some inordinate amounts of oversight over federally ran programs precisely because a lot of people worry about abuses. Where the abuse tends to happen is when the US is funding private institutions rather than running the programs themselves.
I have family that currently works for the US gov writing software. As they tell it, it takes 3 weeks to bring in a new version of a library due to the mandatory review process in the statutes. Meanwhile, they can hire a contractor who can use any library they like (but also who can bill whatever they like and are often friends with senators).
> it was already the case, even with tons of funding. (in case you don't know, i have a phd in chemical biology)
It used to be much more open ended. It has, however gotten worse and it's about to get much worse. Exactly because of concerns for abuse and waste. The system from clinton to trump wasn't great but it was somewhat functional. We are about to enter a new era, however, where funding for grants can be axed while the research is in flight if the administration decides that they don't like what's being researched. That's the abuse and waste I'm actually worried about.
> We are about to enter a new era, however, where funding for grants can be axed while the research is in flight if the administration decides that they don't like what's being researched
if you care about science not being political, dont use political means to obtain your science. simple as. youre just trying to have your cake and eat it too.
Everything is politics. Science will never and can never be apolitical because it says things which one political party or another will either like or hate. But further, very wealthy and powerful people have a vested interest in making sure people don't trust inconvenient truths.
Climate change is the poster child for this. We predicted the weather problems and patterns of today when I was a child. But because that truth was inconvenient to the fossil fuel industry, they decided to spend ungodly amounts of money buying conservative politicians and broadcasters to lie about what the science said. And here's the thing, that worked. Their politics overrode good science and science based policy.
