The Case for Volcano Monitoring
Andrew Thompson has a nice piece up explaining what the deal is with the volcano monitoring funding that Bobby Jindal deems so objectionable:
The $140 million to which Jindal referred is actually for a number of projects conducted by the United States Geological Survey, including volcano monitoring. This monitoring is aimed at helping geologists understand the inner workings of volcanoes as well as providing warnings of impending eruptions, in the United States and in active areas around the world where U.S. military bases are located, such as the Philippines.
Among the scenarios in which the USGS’s monitoring can assist – the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, which killed 57 people (including a geologist monitoring the mountain) and was the deadliest and costliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history ($2.74 billion in 2007 dollars). This event was preceded by thousands of earthquakes in the two months before the volcano blew its top; some of these prompted the Governor of Washington to declare a state of emergency and many residents were evacuated from a designated danger zone. [...]
Volcano monitoring likely saved many lives – and significant money – in the case of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (where the United States has military bases) [...] The USGS spent less than $1.5 million monitoring the volcano and was able to warn of the impending eruption, which allowed authorities to evacuate residents, as well as aircraft and other equipment from U.S. bases there. The USGS estimates that the efforts saved thousands of lives and prevented property losses of at least $250 million (considered a conservative figure).
But, look, the Bush administration did a terrible job handling disaster relief at Katrina, so what we need is for the government to just not try at all to stave off these problems. That’s just common sense.
51 Responses to “The Case for Volcano Monitoring”
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February 25th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Andrea Thompson, not Andrew.
That’s impressive even by Yglesias standards.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I’m a lot more concerned about supervolcanoes, but I doubt there’s much we can do even if we know one’s about to blow.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I’m all for the government keeping an eye on volcanoes, but do we still have military bases in The Philippines? I thought we left there years ago, after some African American Marines raped one too many filipinas.
Also, the emergency response to Katrina, by the Coast Guard and the National Guard was effective and saved numerous lives. That New Orleans was an incompetently governed hellhole didn’t help the situation.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Matt’s just upset that the GOP is running an effective anti-stimulus campaign based on a few trivial non-stimulus projects. And the point is not that these projects don’t belong in a government budget (I would imagine the NPV of volcano monitoring is pretty high) they just aren’t appropriate for a stimulus bill where timeliness is almost all that is relevant.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
What also bothers me is that the funds also go to upgrading and replacing stream gauges which are used to provide early flood warnings and alerts. Floods. And Jindal is poo-pooing it.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Matt’s just upset that the GOP is running an effective anti-stimulus campaign based on a few trivial non-stimulus projects…
If that’s effective, can’t wait to see their effect campaign against universal health insurance.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Even a thread on Volcano monitoring isn’t immune from Fred’s racism. Well done, Fred.
Maybe GG should have read the article, or researched exactly what stimulus spending is supposed to accomplish.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
So the Governor of Louisiana opposes early warning systems for natural disasters.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
“Too bad for you that the criticism was directed at FEMA’s response”
Matt referred to the Bush Administration’s response. The Coast Guard, as a federal agency, would presumably be a part of that. But I agree with you, the tens of billions of dollars that FEMA lavished on New Orleans residents and evacuees was poorly handled. Bush’s guilt over that photo of him looking out the window of his plane at New Orleans (as if he should have had the pilot ditch the plane in Lake Ponchartrain instead, out of sympathy) led him to open the federal spigots into the pockets of the residents of America’s most corrupt and crime-ridden city. A lot of good that did.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
They must have corrected the story because is now says “…where the United States had military bases…”
Anyway, I remember that we moved a lot of valuable equipment out of the way. The volcano erupted and basically coved the base with ash. Since we were going to close the base anyway, we never bothered bringing the equipment back. But, that equipment was used elsewhere and was saved because of the monitoring.
That the GOP can’t seem to grap the very simple concept that the government should monitor active volcanos in order to warn of disaster and to save lives and property says a whole heck of a lot about their mental capacity.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
I guess it the Philippines is a racist country for not wanting its women to get raped by African American servicemen.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Floods make Louisiana more Republican.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Yeah, we only like when our women get raped by Caucasian servicemen.
What a racist douchebag.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Some colleagues of mine were involved in applying some of the research I was working on to innovative methods of volcano monitoring. It’s not often I actually have a politician look at me through the camera and personally deliver a “f-ck you.” The reason people started doing work in this area was because the applications of the research were not obvious, and some people said, “You know… we could use this to aid in monitoring volcanos! Everyone understands the importance of that and how difficult it is!”
Who knew that upgrading systems for natural disaster awareness would be something that Louisianans would be against?
February 25th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
It’s well known that volcano monitors are overwhelmingly San Francisco pagan homosexual elitists who speak multiple non-English languages, so we don’t need this kind of un-American cultural sedition being funded by hundreds of millions of Nancy Pelosi dollars.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I have a view of Mt St Helens so I’m all for volcano monitoring. Maybe Jindal should look into saving some money by cutting hurricane monitoring at NOAA.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
The problem is that volcano monitoring sounds like something that requires expertise, and expertise comes largely from being overeducated. When you’re overeducated, you look down on common folk, and quite possibly a homo. So the GOP is against volcano monitoring.
February 25th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
How about a few billion for S.E.C. monitoring? That could have saved trillions$$$ over the last decade……..
February 25th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Did any ask Sarah Palin what she thinks about volcano monitoring funding? I think she might have <a href=”http://www.avo.alaska.edu/volcanoes/volcinfo.php?volcname=Redoubt”a reason to have a differing opinion.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
oops. Dammit! Why don’t you have a preview comment function, Matt?
February 25th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
“How about a few billion for S.E.C. monitoring? That could have saved trillions$$$ over the last decade……..”
“SEC monitoring” is known as “not electing Republicans”.
Er, the US Geological Survey also does the entirety of seismology in the US. So, this is EARTHQUAKE preparedness money, with some volcano preparedness money.
Apparently the GOP is going to pick out tiny parts of the operations of various agencies, misrepresent them, and whine. I’m sure they’ll call out the fact that Forest Rangers tasked with wildfire lookout get to sleep in shifts, and still get paid (since they’re up a tree for a week straight). They’ll complain that “we’re paying these guys to sleep!”
February 25th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
This is such bullshit.
First it wasn’t the USGA on Mt. St. Helens.
They were AWOL until very heavy seismic activity began. Only then could they be bothered to get engaged and ask everyone “Hey, notice that earthquake?”
The meaningful information and warnings were a work product of UW vulcanologists.
As to Pinatubo, people began evacuating on their own many weeks before eruption because of the friggin repeated earthquakes, plumes, that stuff.
Yes an official final two week wide window of warning was issued
BUT IT WAS ISSUED BY PILIPPINO AUTHORITIES
and all but the most foolhardy citizens had already moved away.
It did not require the USGA to say “Hey, see that erupting volcano over there!” but that was their major accomplishment. It is of course to be expected that they enhance their importance but even at the expense of their Pilippino colleagues?
Is this to say that the USGA volcano monitoring is not a good thing or not a valid Federal undertaking?
Hell no.
But really, does it belong in a stimulus bill?
Yes yes I know the mantra, all spending is stimulus! Well at least all spending that comes with a Leftie imprimatur.
Because when the basket of goodies was being assembled it was “Now we don’t want to leave anyone out!” and USGA says “Please sir may I have some?” And when asked what for USGA says “Well, how about vulcanology? We need to hire Leonard Nimoy!”
But seriously, why could this not be handled through regular order? Is there some World Wide Volcano Threat being kept secret?
Regular order is our most democratic way of appropriating funds and as such should be supported by everyone not driven to deception by their ideology.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Maybe GG should have read the article, or researched exactly what stimulus spending is supposed to accomplish.
Is there any spending that doesn’t meet your definition of stimulus? Even investing in Canadian t-bills would probably create an immaterial amount of US jobs (e.g. finance guys, accountants,…). The aim of the stimulus is to return GDP growth to its long-term average.
I agree that the GOP is being disingenuous by using these petty spending projects to paint the Democrats as wasteful and partisan but it makes you wonder why they were even included in the stimulus. Do democrats not know that the media loves these sort of hyperbolic partisan attack stories?
February 25th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I’m a lot more concerned about supervolcanoes, but I doubt there’s much we can do even if we know one’s about to blow.
Hopefully let us in Denver know so we can decide whether we want to die relatively quickly in the ensuing dust cloud, or whether we want to drag it out by hightailing it to points SW of here to live the life of a refugee in a post-apocalyptic society.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
For logical consistency, presumably he supports the abolishment of the National Hurricane Center. I think we can all agree on how wasteful that is, particularly New Orleans residents…
February 25th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
“I agree that the GOP is being disingenuous by using these petty spending projects to paint the Democrats as wasteful and partisan but it makes you wonder why they were even included in the stimulus. Do democrats not know that the media loves these sort of hyperbolic partisan attack stories?”
It’s good to know that even you agree the attacks are completely disingenuous and petty.
So maybe the answer to your second question is that after the last eight years, the public finally realizes they’re disingenuous and petty as well, and so Democrats are letting them make all the hyperbolic partisan attacks they want, knowing it just pushes independents further and further away from ever voting for those lunatics again.
February 25th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
“Is there any spending that doesn’t meet your definition of stimulus?”
Not really, no. That’s kind of the definition of stimulus.
Now, obviously some types of spending are better stimulus than others. For example, unemployment benefits, which is the only part Jindal doesn’t like, are among the best stimulus possible, while tax cuts are generally inferior to infrastructure spending.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Look, a President who grew up in Hawaii is not going to mess around on volcano monitoring. Jindal’s wasting his breath.
February 25th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
He also went grew up partly in Indonesia. I think I read about there being a really big ass Volcano there once.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Check out and join the Facebook Volcano Monitoring group! Because no one wants to be surprised by a volcano.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Yeah, Jindal sure did put the Democrats in disarray by mentioning volcano monitoring coming up into our air space.
It’s like last week’s SNL opening sketch, over and over again. Man, I’m glad I’m not a Republican. They’ve gone completely around the bend.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
as much as it pains me to say, the Repugs do make a valid point that, while this is certainly a worthwhile thing for the federal government to fund, why is it in the stimulus bill?
I think that Obama needs to push the Dems hard to make the stimulus bill as immune to repug attack as possible, but Polozi just couldn’t see the sensible path.
As much as the Repugs are going to give Obama grief, I predict he will get just as much from trying to control Polozi and Reid. They have have to go.
February 25th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Apparently this quote needs to be repeated again for the people who didn’t read the story the first time.
“Ultimately most of this creates jobs or saves jobs that would have been lost” to recent budget shortfalls Eichelberger told LiveScience.
In addition, any spending on the upgrade of technology has multiple (positive) effects.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Er… and don’t forget that freakin’ huge SuperVolcano at Yellowstone… the one that was getting pretty restless over the holidays. Republicans are soooo dumb.
February 25th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Er… and don’t forget that freakin’ huge SuperVolcano at Yellowstone… the one that was getting pretty restless over the holidays. Republicans are soooo dumb.
February 25th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Jindal’s point was basically valid, I am just confused why he went after this specifically. There are plenty of horrible things in the stimulus package, but for the governor of Louisiana to criticize an early warning system for natural disasters…ugh. Did anyone proofread this?
February 25th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Why not write the entire budget into the stimulus bill? Then you could call anyone who votes against it an American hating commie.
February 26th, 2009 at 12:16 am
There is already a name for that Nathan. It’s called “Internet Republican”.
Jesus. The same cast of people comes in and reflexively defends every stupid thing that any republican says or does. There is plenty of documentation that we have a lot of infrastructure to replace – and since we know what we need it is *of course* stimulus spending. You make a shopping list and you go – that is in the nature of deferred maintenance. It happens to also be an essential public good. But a Republican attacked it, and therefore the local twits have to defend the home team. It’s absolutely pathetic. If your group wanted to have the slightest credibility you might just refrain from jumping in and defending every idiotic GOP thing that Matt comments on.
February 26th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Oh, the ironing. Terrorist! Sky is falling! I haven’t a clue what exactly I’m supposed to do as president, but at least I’m doing something!
February 26th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
The reason it’s a target for the GOP is the only places that have a need (and it is very real) for volcano monitoring are Seattle and Hawaii. Not too many republicans there.
February 26th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
Yep. I’m a geology major, and I think my jaw hit the floor when that bit of idiocy spilled from his mouth. I’m sure that all the folks in the pacific Northwest and Alaska are so thrilled to hear that monitoring volcanoes to give them and their loved ones advance warning of doomsday is all a waste of federal tax dollars.
No doubt we will soon hear that volcano disaster prep is the new “Bridge to Nowhere”.
I should be more amazed…but my surprise meter is burning out.
March 1st, 2009 at 11:20 am
Of course volcano monitoring is highly valuable insurance.
But we are already doing it to a great extent. More and better is… better, but, in the admitted absence of hard numbers (yes, its not all of the 140) this has a general pork-like flavor because of the hard to shake common sense feeling that someone took a good number and added a zero to it when a mere doubling or even tripling would have been a big deal.
This probably is pork for university administrations to siphon as much ‘overhead’ from grants as they can.
I know something about this — I was a university instructor for 6 years.