Envision in your mind, the members of the NY Times editorial board get together, glasses of fancy wine in hand, caviar on the table, linen napkins gleaming white, and the question at hand is how to bash President Trump over the latest Mexico and Japanese earthquakes. Unpaid interns are called in to work the search engines, till one finds something of interest
Mexico Has Some Earthquake Lessons for the United States
People cannot prevent earthquakes, but they can take steps to minimize the deaths and damage. Many more might have died in Mexico City this week had the country not invested in an early warning system that rang alarms just before the catastrophic earthquake struck. The United States, which has been slow to finish a similar system on the West Coast, can learn from Mexico’s example.
(Discussion of what an early warning system can do)
The United States Geological Survey is building a warning system called ShakeAlert for California, Oregon and Washington. A prototype is up and running. But Congress has not appropriated the money to finish it. Officials say just 40 percent of the necessary field stations have been built so far. The Geological Survey says that it would cost $38 million to finish the system and $16 million a year to operate it. Congress appropriated just $10.2 million in the current fiscal year. (California and private foundations have also contributed money to the project over the years.)
Not mentioned is that this is pretty much only viable for magnitude 7 earthquakes and up. It can recognize lower level earthquakes, to be sure. It will only help those in the intermediate range, because those close have no warning, and those further away pretty much do not get damage. That’s per ShakeAlert. Oh, and there other systems that are reported to be much less costly and pretty much as reliable. And California, including Governor Jerry Brown, has been reticent in providing their own funding. Regardless of it all, this is the point
Worse still, President Trump’s budget for the 2018 fiscal year, which is inhospitable to a broad range of science-based projects, proposed eliminating the program entirely. This makes no sense, particularly when you consider that the annual federal budget is about $4 trillion and that the price tag of just one F-35 fighter jet is nearly $100 million. The United States can afford to spend a few million dollars to provide earthquake warnings to states that are home to 50 million people, or nearly one in six Americans.
If it wasn’t this, they’d find another way to bash Trump. That’s what they do.
Is it a worthy project? Perhaps. We’d have to dig into the papers on it, but, if so, why is California not interested in paying for it? Again, it doesn’t matter in context, because this is about attacking Mr. Trump, nothing more, nothing less. The Editorial Board sure didn’t care when Mr. Obama was in office.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
TEACH types, risibly:
So because tRump has so much to criticize they should stop criticizing tRump. LOL
Is the project worth funding? Does tRump support funding the project or not, those are the questions.
The tRump and GOP stake in the ground is that they prefer to fund themselves and military contractors. They should be applauded for being so open about it.
P-waves radiate outward from an earthquake epicenter at 7 times the speed of sound in air (roughly 5300 MPH at sea level).
Love waves, the ground waves that do the actual damage, move outwards at a more sedate 700-1000 MPH.
IOW, in less than a minute, they’ve already arrived everywhere within 16 miles of the epicenter, or the nearest 860 square miles. In two minutes, the circle is 66 miles across, some 3400 square miles. Which is, for any foreseeable earthquake, the limit of anyone who cares, or needs warning.
Thus California, like everywhere else in the world, has a very precise earthquake warning system, and it costs zero dollars, with no annual maintenance fees:
If the ground shakes a lot, a dangerous earthquake is occurring.
If it doesn’t shake so much, it’s no big deal.
No warning system can secure more than a few seconds to perhaps a minute’s notice faster than that, and anyplace with more warning will be so far away that the warning is useless.
And for a nominal optimum processing time of 15 seconds, anyone within 3 miles of the epicenter will never be warned before the ground is already shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
Thus any warning system is a boondoggle, of a range from dubious to nil utility on its best day.
So the NYTimes knows as much about earthquake physics as they do about anthropogenic global warming, or the lack thereof.
They are, in fact, idiots on a scale that should set off Stupidity Alerts – at seven times the speed of sound – every time they write about something.
Pretty much like every day for the last 50 years.
As long as the NY Times is using the “if not this, we could buy that” argument on government spending, there is a looooong list of BS wasteful, anti-science, anti-medical, anti-reality, anti-common sense, crony capitalism, pay-to-play, and pure corrupticrat spending going on in California that could be cut to fund this earthquake detection divining gear. If it was truly effective, the citizens would be clamoring for it. If it is experimental theory that the researchers are trying to get funded with other people’s money for their own personal enrichment and job security, by all means, the path is to get federal money that is even farther removed from the reality on the ground.
California should pay for its own earthquake hazards, Texas should pay for its own hurricane hazards, and New York should pay for its own drug and crime gang problems. New Yorkers shouldn’t be taxed for California’s wildfires, and Californians shouldn’t be taxed for New York City’s entire police force being on the pad. Maybe some of the states could get even together and share resources when they have a common hazard.
STFU, New York Times!
Using NYT logic, illegal immigration, for example, is robbing Californians of their magical earthquake detectors:
Nearly $50 million in the California state budget will go to expanded legal services for immigrants:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-nearly-50-million-in-the-california-1497576640-htmlstory.html
Los Angeles Spends $1.3 Billion in Welfare on Illegal Immigrants
http://www.ntd.tv/2017/08/04/when-los-angeles-spends-1-3-billion-in-welfare-on-illegal-immigrants-is-there-any-money-left-for-u-s-citizens/
A state audit found that a division of the California Department of General Services spent roughly $115 million more than its initial estimate of $118 million for the construction of a veterans home in West Los Angeles. (“California Department of General Services’ Real Estate Services Division: To Better Serve Its Client Agencies, It Needs to Track and Analyze Project Data and Improve Its Management Practices,†California State Auditor Report 2015-117, March 15.)
The South Santa Clara County Courthouse in Morgan Hill, which opened in 2009, cost more than $60 million to build, but now sits almost completely unused. Though the building is barely used, the taxpayers have to pay $33,000 per month in operating costs. (“$60 million South County courthouse now a virtual ghost town,†San Jose Mercury News, July 24.)
The Port of Los Angeles paid a Chinese government-owned shipping company $5 million in 2005 to equip cargo vessels with electric equipment – part of an effort to reduce pollution from diesel engines – but most of the vessels stopped traveling to Los Angeles in 2010. (“Port of L.A. helped pay for cleaner China Shipping vessels – which later stopped docking in L.A.,†Los Angeles Times, March 24.)