Welcome to the Real World

People cite evidence to support an argument, but sometimes the evidence doesn't mean what they think it means.

Headline: Calif. weather expert issues dire warning on Trump's reported mass firings [bold added]

In a post on X Friday, Daniel Swain, a former UCLA climate scientist who now works at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said the firings are alarming.

“If there were to be large staffing reductions at NOAA and NWS—[as] appears is now indeed underway, with credible reports of much larger further cuts on the horizon—there will be people who die in extreme weather events and weather-related disasters who would not have otherwise,” he said in the statement...

For example, the National Weather Service issued a “life-threatening, destructive” wind event warning for most of the Los Angeles region days before the destructive and deadly Palisades Fire began on Jan. 7, urging residents to “Stay alert to the forecast and follow instruction from emergency officials.”

Perhaps there were a few people in Palisades who paid attention--but certainly no one in authority to make any difference; Pacific Palisades was destroyed. If no one heeds the warnings, then the personnel that issue them serve little or no purpose.

Indeed, the people who lose their jobs may have integrity and be competent, but hundreds of such good people lose their jobs every day in private industry (Headline today: Two Bay Area tech giants announce huge layoffs at almost exact same moment).

Welcome to the real world, government employees.