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This article is juggling two topics that essentially aren’t related. The first topic is whether people will listen to weather warnings and change behavior in r

by dangus 1y ago

This article is juggling two topics that essentially aren’t related. The first topic is whether people will listen to weather warnings and change behavior in response to them in the first place. In that sense, it seems like a direct and urgent evacuation order should have happened, but I do still find the timeline rather short. Hindsight is 20/20 on that. The second topic is the author’s opinion that the left-leaning section of media isn’t doing their due diligence. Let’s be real here, the author of the article is using a cherry-picked event that happens to allegedly not be a result of climate change to try and discredit the general idea of climate change. I don’t think the author intended to discredit climate change as a concept but that’s how the audience will read it. Sure, the New York Times got it wrong in this specific case and at least partially jumped to a conclusion, but it is established observed scientific fact that human caused climate change is causing and going to cause more extreme weather patterns moving forward. It is also established fact that DOGE made cuts to the NWS and had to re-hire to stabilize the department as recently as last month. [1] Furthermore, the Trump administration intends to make deep cuts to the NOAA within its 2026 budget proposal. [2] So while this specific event may not have been affected by budget cuts, we don’t know that for sure yet. Opposition Democrats are asking for investigations into that very question. And even if NWS cuts didn’t affect this event, it’s still entirely fair for the political discussion to question the merit of making cuts during the same timeline as a preventable tragedy. At some point the administration must own the optics it generates for itself. If it didn’t want those optics it would commit to fully funding the NOAA and NWS, but because this administration has taken action to cut staff and funding, they do have to own the optics even if the optics aren’t always perfectly in line with the truth of the cause and effect. That’s just how politics work. In other words, if I cut funding to the road department or even merely propose funding cuts and the next day my constituent hits a pothole, they’re going to blame me even if my actions didn’t directly create that pothole. And that blame is politically justified and warranted, because my political stance is that we are spending too much on road maintenance, when clearly that’s not the case. [1] https://www.newsweek.com/national-weather-service-hiring-spree-doge-cuts-2080291 https://www.newsweek.com/national-weather-service-hiring-spr... [2] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5361366/major-budget-cuts-proposed-for-the-national-oceanic-and-atmospheric-administration https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5361366/major-budget-cu...

Lutger 1y ago
New York Times did not got it wrong, the author got the New York Times wrong. First of all, the NYT article did NOT claim that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change, and for sure it did not claim that there is any evidence for it. In fact, the supposedly left leaning morally indefensible article actually said that: "Hill Country – the part of the state where the Guadalupe River swelled on July 4 – is sometimes called “flash flood alley” for how at risk it is to seemingly out-of-nowhere surges of water." So the NYT already acknowledges the history of flooding. The main focus of the article is that climate change is increasing the chances of floods 'such as these in Texas' and highlight the importance of NOAA for dealing with its impacts. And it does so by making a sound argument with references to authoritative sources. Until an attribution study is done you can't say for sure that 'science says' the odds of the Texas floods were increased by climate change. But you can't say it wasn't either. I won't be so annoying to say its morally indefensible, but its definitely incorrect. Furthermore, the idea that climate change increases extreme weather events is quite defensible and easy to understand, maybe there is even consensus about it among climate scientists. Its not morally wrong to think the Texas floods fit into this pattern, it is actually quite obvious to think they do.
- dangus 1y ago
  > First of all, the NYT article did NOT claim that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change, and for sure it did not claim that there is any evidence for it. Honesty I was close to pointing this out but decided to make the most “benefit of the doubt” argument possible.
mjevans 1y ago
What sort of _technical_ solution might exist to this problem? Likely __hightly__ targeted mobile device alerts. Localize to cell tower and maybe even quadrant and issue warnings like "You are in a flood plane that might experience a flood based on heavy rainfall." It can't be like the 'smoke alarms' which I've been trained are just 'battery eating middle of the night awakeners'. I've only _only_ ever had those go off because it's a low battery, or on a muggy hellish night because it cooled off enough for the relative humidity inside to become condensing. False alarms literally Pavlovian train someone that it is not an emergency, it's an annoyance.

by dangus 1y ago

Lutger 1y ago

New York Times did not got it wrong, the author got the New York Times wrong. First of all, the NYT article did NOT claim that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change, and for sure it did not claim that there is any evidence for it. In fact, the supposedly left leaning morally indefensible article actually said that: "Hill Country – the part of the state where the Guadalupe River swelled on July 4 – is sometimes called “flash flood alley” for how at risk it is to seemingly out-of-nowhere surges of water." So the NYT already acknowledges the history of flooding. The main focus of the article is that climate change is increasing the chances of floods 'such as these in Texas' and highlight the importance of NOAA for dealing with its impacts. And it does so by making a sound argument with references to authoritative sources. Until an attribution study is done you can't say for sure that 'science says' the odds of the Texas floods were increased by climate change. But you can't say it wasn't either. I won't be so annoying to say its morally indefensible, but its definitely incorrect. Furthermore, the idea that climate change increases extreme weather events is quite defensible and easy to understand, maybe there is even consensus about it among climate scientists. Its not morally wrong to think the Texas floods fit into this pattern, it is actually quite obvious to think they do.

dangus 1y ago
> First of all, the NYT article did NOT claim that the central Texas floods are the result of climate change, and for sure it did not claim that there is any evidence for it. Honesty I was close to pointing this out but decided to make the most “benefit of the doubt” argument possible.

mjevans 1y ago

What sort of _technical_ solution might exist to this problem? Likely __hightly__ targeted mobile device alerts. Localize to cell tower and maybe even quadrant and issue warnings like "You are in a flood plane that might experience a flood based on heavy rainfall." It can't be like the 'smoke alarms' which I've been trained are just 'battery eating middle of the night awakeners'. I've only _only_ ever had those go off because it's a low battery, or on a muggy hellish night because it cooled off enough for the relative humidity inside to become condensing. False alarms literally Pavlovian train someone that it is not an emergency, it's an annoyance.