***NOAA TRADEOFF DA***
1NC Shell
JPSS funding has been restored, but on the brink
Orndorff 7-13-11 (Mary staff writer aqt the Brimingham news http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2011/07/weather_satellite_funding_expe.html)
WASHINGTON -- Funding for weather satellites that gave Alabamians several days' notice of the April 27 tornadoes, now endangered by federal budget cuts, would be restored with extra money expected to pass a key congressional committee today. The move to restore funds, especially in the current climate of debt reduction, is a sign that storm-weary lawmakers from the South and Midwest were able to convince their colleagues that the loss of the low-orbit satellites was a threat to public safety that should be prevented. The House Appropriations Committee today is expected to add $429.5 million to the Joint Polar Satellite System for 2012. While it's not a full restoration of the cuts the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sustained in 2011, it would speed the process of launching new replacement satellites and shorten the time the country will go without the important atmospheric information they collect. "In NOAA, this bill includes the necessary funding to better protect Americans from natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes and tsunamis," said U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. and chairman of the subcommittee that allocates spending for the U.S. Department of Commerce, which includes NOAA.
Congress prioritizing NOAA budget – new space programs would tradeoff directly with Earth Science satellites
Lewis et al 6-10 ( James director of technology and public policy at CSIS “Earth Observation for Climate Change” http://csis.org/files/publication/100608_Lewis_EarthObservation_WEB.pdf) jc
If we accept that climate change poses serious risks to regional stability, national security, and economic health, the United States needs to reconsider its funding priorities for civil space. Earth observation is crucial for national security and the economy; manned spaceflight programs provide prestige. The United States must make climate-monitoring satellites its priority for funding if it is serious about managing climate change. In practical terms, this means a reduction in the spending on human spaceflight in order to fund a sustained program of satellite-building to create a robust climate monitoring space system. This is, of course, not an all-or-nothing issue. The United States can fund a range of space programs, manned and unmanned, for exploration and for Earth sciences. It is a question of priorities. Our recommendation is that the funding given to Earth observation should increase, as it is more important now for the national interest to monitor and manage climate change, even if that means a slower pace for other programs, such as manned spaceflight, until a robust Earth observation system has been put in orbit.\
JPSS key to the continuation of our early warning and disaster response system
Freedman 4/1/2011-(Andrew staff writer at the Washington post “Senators call for supporting NOAA satellites” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/senators-call-for-supporting-noaa-satellites/2011/04/01/AFDCi5IC_blog.html)jc
On Thursday we reported on NOAA’s warning to congressional appropriators that budget cuts to a major satellite program, known as the Joint Polar Satellite System or JPSS, would severely erode the accuracy of weather forecasts. Today, six Democratic Senators took up NOAA’s cause, sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as well as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The senators are seeking full funding for JPSS during the remainder of the 2011 fiscal year. “The horrific damage from the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, coupled with less extensive but still serious impacts in California, Oregon, and Hawaii underlined the importance of early detection and warnings of natural disasters,” the senators wrote. “To ensure the continuity or our nation’s early warning and disaster response system, we need to fully fund NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) in 2011.” According to the senators, it would cost $528 million to keep the program on track this year. The senators cited the satellite’s role in everything from aiding timely severe weather warnings to providing data for aviation weather forecasts and reliable forecasts for Alaska, which is not covered by other NOAA weather satellites. Alaska Senator Mark Begich is one of the signatories. “From the family making an annual trip from the village to Anchorage to a crab-fisherman trying to stay safe at sea, Alaska is dependent on the data these satellites provide. Our businesses and our communities need the most accurate predictions possible,” he stated in a press release.
Natural disasters are will kill thousands and injure billions – this is 100% probability in coming years absent an early warning system
Haen and Hermich 6-(Hartwig assistant director of agriculture organization of the U.N. Gunter food systems economist “ The economics of Natural disasters”)
Particularly worrisome is the fact that during the last decades, natural disasters have become more frequent, more intense and more costly (Freeman et al., 2003a). In the past decade alone, 79,000 people died and 200 million people were directly affected by natural disasters on average per year. Damages are estimated at US $ 67 billion per annum. Both the number of natural hazard events and the number of affected people has been growing rapidly. The costs associated with natural disasters are difficult to estimate. However, there is sufficient evidence that they have increased several-fold since the 1950s and strong indications that this trend will continue. Scientific predictions point to a further increase in the frequency and intensity of hazards, with a five-fold global cost increase over the next fifty years, mainly due to climate change and to further concentration of the world’s population in vulnerable habitats
Natural Disasters lead to extinction – need to invest in prediction tools now
Hanson 07 – associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University (Robin D. Hanson, “Catastrophe, Social Collapse, and Human Extinction,” August 2007, http://hanson.gmu.edu/collapse.pdf) mihe
But for still other types of disasters, such as fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and plagues, most of the expected harm may be in the infrequent but largest events, which would hurt a large fraction of the world. So if we are willing to invest at all in preventing or preparing for these type of events, it seems we should invest the most in preventing and prepare for these largest events. (Of course this conclusion is muted if there are other benefits of preparing for smaller events, benefits which do not similarly apply to preparing for large events. If we value future generations of humanity, we may be willing to take extra efforts to prevent the extinction of humanity. For types of disasters where variations in individual ability to resist disruptions are minor, however, there is little point in explicitly preparing for human extinction possibilities. This is because there is almost no chance that an event of this type would put us very near an extinction borderline. The best we could do here would be to try to prevent all large disruptions. Of course there can be non extinction-related reasons to prepare for such disruptions.
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