Dire alarm as Trump creates 'irreparable blind spot' in predicting earthquakes and floods

The Trump administration is opening up an "irreparable blind spot" in the nation's ability to predict natural disasters, according to experts.

The National Science Foundation announced plans to dismantle a $368 million deep-sea observation system just days after President Donald Trump fired all members of an independent board that oversees the foundation, and CNN's Bill Weir explained what that vast undersea network monitors and what will be lost.

"This is a very key moment in time forhumans to be paying attention towhat's happening in the oceans," Weir said. "There's so many differentforces at work. A super El Niñodeveloping, sea level rise,underwater tsunamis,acidification, and the Ocean Observatories Initiative isthis U.S.-funded, National Science Foundation-funded monitoringsystem uses some 900 different instruments to measure oceanconditions and and forecast awhole host of things."

"Well, nowthe Trump administration, inkeeping with their just completedismantling of climate and earthscience, they want to ditch thisdeep sea monitoring system," Weir added. "Thisis a $368 million program. Itwas set up a couple of yearsago, it was supposed to berunning for the next 30 years,but will now be dismantled overthe next 15 months. Removinginstruments from the coastlinesboth in the Pacific and the Atlantic, and this is, thecritics say, will create majorgaps in monitoring and ourability to understand what'shappening to the deep oceans."

A spokesman for the NFS insisted the program was not being canceled entirely, although it's not clear what data collection would remain active, but Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) accused the Trump administration of ending the initiative at the behest of the fossil fuel industry.

"Formeroceanographers and those whowork for nonprofits say this isgoing to create an irreparableblind spot for the country," Weir said. "This, according to Chris Robbinsfrom the Ocean Conservancy Conservancy, a blind spot whenit comes to predictingearthquakes and fishery health,storm forecasting, coastalflooding, and more, quote, 'Itjust doesn't make any sense.'"

"Who knows if we'll see ifthere's any pushback from thepublic or for from other states,as we've seen in the courtsbefore," he added. "But just thelatest example of the Trumpadministration really turningoff the measurement systems thatkeep us abreast of so manyforces of nature that feedeconomies and keep forms of life alive at every level."

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