U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive-order Sharpies have done more work lately, but his most infamous Sharpie is still the one that drew a curve at the end of a hurricane forecast cone in September of 2019.
The ensuing controversy, known as Sharpiegate, was a harbinger of the fact-optional, seat-of-his-pants approach to disaster management Trump would later apply to the COVID-19 pandemic, with catastrophic results. That he has now tapped a key player in the Sharpiegate drama to run the nation’s weather service suggests Trump has learned nothing from these debacles.
Trump last week nominated the scientist Neil Jacobs to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a vast organization within the Commerce Department that includes the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center. It also conducts climate research, compiling troves of data used by scientists worldwide.
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