When I talked to a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) this week, it reminded me how that quieter, sub rosa cold war also unleashes a boatload of uncertainty and angst. The scientist I talked to got his academic training at California universities and now conducts marine research in the Pacific Ocean. I agreed not to divulge anything more specific to identify the researcher because he worries about retaliation. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a quick look at what he had to say: <\/p>\n
Q: NOAA lost hundreds of probationary employees this year and a new plan outlines cuts that would reduce full-time staff from 12,000 to about 10,000<\/a>. How has that impacted the agency?<\/p>\n A: It\u2019s been hard. We lost thousands of years of institutional knowledge and expertise overnight and all kinds of operations and systems are in danger because of that.<\/p>\n Q: The deadly flooding in Texas got everyone\u2019s attention. The New York Times reported that some positions had been left open in the National Weather Service offices<\/a> in that state, though it also reported it was not clear those vacancies contributed to difficulty forecasting the storm. What are people saying inside NOAA, the weather service\u2019s parent agency? <\/p>\n A: It appears they had the meteorologist and they made the forecast. But what we don\u2019t know is if they had the communicators, the people who send the crucial message or call the local sheriff to alert them. All those linkages are so important.<\/p>\n Q: What other work could be curtailed because of the cutbacks?<\/p>\n A: We don\u2019t know. Will we be able to put Saildrones<\/a> [remote, seaborne weather monitoring devices] to help monitor the progress of hurricanes? Can we still send out barges with gear to observe how ecosystems are being affected by climate change?<\/p>\n Q: You told me you once thought you would spend your life in this work. What are you thinking now?<\/p>\n A: I looked up marine biology jobs in the city where I live and all that came up was a job for a fishmonger. [laugh] But I want to stay in public service\u2026. It seems like, increasingly, you might have to find your own billionaire to support the kind of work that we\u2019re in.<\/p>\n Q: What are your colleagues feeling about all this?<\/p>\n A: We are hoping we are not descending into a dark age in American science. We want to believe this is just a blip and that there is a renaissance for science. That\u2019s the only thing that allows me to sleep at night.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s top stories (Al Seib\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Some tenants are evicted to make way for renovations. Here\u2019s how L.A. plans to curb that<\/p>\n Los Angeles is on pace for the lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years<\/p>\n Foreign, feral honeybees are crowding out native bee species in southern CaliforniaWhat else is going onCommentary and opinionsThis morning\u2019s must readsOther must readsFor your downtime Images from the El Encanto resort in Santa Barbara, a Hollywood getaway for more than a century where rooms cost more than $1,000 a night.<\/p>\n (Mike Kelley)<\/p>\n Going outStaying inA question for you: What\u2019s your favorite California beach?<\/p>\n Laurie Taylor<\/b> writes: \u201cMy favorite beach is Carlsbad State Beach, the section the locals call \u2018Southside,\u2019 to the south of Tamarack Beach. I grew up in Carlsbad in the late 70s and 80s, when there was nothing on that stretch of coastline than the beautiful sand and waves. As teenagers, my friends and I went there for long summer days … Carlsbad was still a sleepy beach town then, and I don\u2019t think we knew how good we had it!\u201d<\/p>\n Barb Smith<\/b> writes: \u201cI just love thousand steps in Laguna Beach. Walking down the steps takes you to a pristine beach. It\u2019s like you\u2019re back in time enjoying the sounds of the waves, hearing seagulls. Spectacular! It\u2019s a great workout going back up too!!!\u201d<\/p>\n Email us at @latimes.com<\/a>, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.<\/p>\n And finally … your photo of the day (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Today\u2019s great photo is from Times photographer Christina House<\/b>. Participants in Saturday\u2019s Run Against ICE Resistance Relay<\/a> jogged 15 miles through neighborhoods affected by L.A. immigration enforcement raids.<\/p>\n Have a great day, from the Essential California team<\/p>\n Jim Rainey, staff writer How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com<\/a>. Check our top stories<\/a>, topics<\/a> and the latest articles<\/a> on latimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard for Californians not to be riveted by the hot war that President Trump has brought to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":51505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,11791,7823,4140,4238,11789,99,6276,2961,224,2444,5337,11395,7825,5996,11792,11790,3549,290,6620,7827],"class_list":{"0":"post-51504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-civic-revolt","11":"tag-covid","12":"tag-covid-19","13":"tag-days","14":"tag-essential-california","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-l-a","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-times","20":"tag-losangeles","21":"tag-may","22":"tag-pandemic","23":"tag-part","24":"tag-president-biden","25":"tag-red-county","26":"tag-san-diego","27":"tag-state","28":"tag-time","29":"tag-years"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114823551302953010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} <\/p>\n
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<\/a> Participants in the Run Against ICE Resistance Relay begin the 15-mile run in Koreatown, passing through areas of the city where communities have rebuilt and locations where recent ICE raids have occurred. (Christina House\/Los Angeles Times) <\/p>\n
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters<\/p>\n