It’s just so damn predictable.
How predictable?
We wrote and Mark Ruffalo recorded this chapter of “Trump’s Project 2025: Up Close and Personal” BEFORE both Hurricanes Helene and Milton tore through so many communities in the American South. Yet many of the communities hit in our fictional episode are the very same ones that were just ravaged in real life.
Why’s it so predictable? Because a warming climate and Gulf make strong and deadly late-season storms far more likely. And they will continue to happen…and get worse.
But that makes it even more maddeningly predictable what will happen to the nation’s response to these growing storms if Trump gets elected and Project 2025’s plans are acted upon.
Bottom line: under Project 2025, the federal government’s capacity to predict, track and provide relief amid these events will be gutted. All because of the far right’s hostility to responsible climate science.
In Episode 11 of our podcast, Mark Ruffalo narrates the story of a Republican Governor of Florida who—too late—figures out just how much the approach of Project 2025 would hamstring all aspects of emergency preparedness and response.
And we also get a glimpse of what happens to a free press as it tries to cover the disaster that unfolds.
You can listen to this episode wherever you get your podcasts, or click HERE to find it.
And please share it so others also learn the details of what the far right has planned if Trump wins.
Author’s Note:
Gutting the NOAA and NWS
As background, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration “predicts changes in climate, weather, oceans, and coastlines and provides data that informs lifesaving forecasts such as tracking hurricanes tracking and…intense weather, such as hurricanes.” It includes the National Weather Service, National Ocean Service, The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, and other agencies.
According to Project 2025, the NOAA "has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” (p. 675). Its focus, Project 2025 alleges, “seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable.”
That’s right, Project 2025 is against trying to plan for future weather events.
As a result of this hostility, NOAA “should be broken up and downsized.”
The plan goes on to propose:
“fully commercializ[ing] [the National Weather Service’s] forecasting operations” (p. 675)
reviewing the data of the National Hurricane Center and National Environmental Satellite Service to ensure it is “presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate” (p. 676)
“disband[ing] the preponderance of the climate-change research” of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, because “it is the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” (p. 676)
ensuring politicized appointments to lead the NOAA — “Ensure Appointees Agree with Administration Aims. Scientific agencies like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims if political appointees are not wholly in sync with Administration policy. Particular attention must be paid to appointments in this area.” (p. 677)
These proposals greatly risk the nation’s ability to track and predict major weather events. As the LA Times sums up: Project 2025 “urges the demolition of some of the nation’s most dependable resources for tracking weather, combating climate change and protecting the public from environmental hazards.”
As a USA Today analysis stated: “NOAA’s satellites, aircraft, weather stations and meteorologists constantly collect weather data and expertly offer detailed weather forecasts and predictions to residents, researchers and nearly every third-party weather program, forecasting service or app. NWS weather alerts notify us of hurricanes, tornados and flooding. The NWS forecasts fire weather and issues watches, warnings and advisories for high winds, life-threatening rip currents and other hazards.”
More broadly, the proposals “block and make less available information about climate change in order to serve an agenda of climate change denial.”
FEMA
As for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Project 2025 proposes raising the threshold for emergencies before assistance can be granted to victims (page 153). “Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities.”
As one analysis explained: “In other words, states and localities should bear the greatest financial burden for disaster preparation, response, recovery and resilience and that’s where Project 2025 would put it.
For Southwest Florida, this would be…well, in a word…a disaster.”
SBA Loans
Finally, Project 2025 (page 750) proposes to “end to SBA direct lending” program, “the only instance of which” is the disaster loan program."
Currently, these loans are critical for businesses and families recovering from Helene and Milton: “90 percent of this disaster aid serves individuals such as homeowners, as opposed to small businesses. So, while the program is a crucial resource for helping local economies bounce back, the loans play an even more critical role in helping individuals and families begin the long road to recovery.”
Project 2025 eliminates it all.
Folks, this is not a drill. Our nation faces serious challenges of all sorts, as we see daily.
An ideology that treats science and the federal government (government at all) as enemies will only make those challenges that much more difficult to face and address.
NEW Episode: “Hurricane Trump”