This commentary is by Clif Harald, principal of First Flatiron Consulting, which specializes in community economic vitality. He co-founded the Boulder Economic Council at the Boulder Chamber and led the program for 12 years. Most recently, he served on the faculty of CU Boulder’s Outdoor Recreation Economy program. A Colorado native and CU graduate, he has lived in the Boulder area for more than 50 years.
The timing could hardly be more conspicuous. In December, the Trump administration issued a directive to “break up” Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), labeling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” Only a month later, an extraordinarily powerful winter storm tore across the U.S. Plains, the South and the Northeast.
As of this writing, the January storm has killed more than 100 people, and it will take weeks, if not longer, to calculate the likely multibillion-dollar toll on communities across the country. How much worse could losses like these be in the future if advanced warnings from weather forecasts, made possible by NCAR scientists and their models, are politicized, weakened and/or delayed?…