The US stops sharing air quality data from embassies worldwide

https://apnews.com/article/us-air-quality-monitors-8270927bbd0f166238243ac9d14bce03

by geox • 1 year ago

639 403 1 year ago

rqtwteye• 1 year ago

This is just nuts. Stuff like this is what made the US a leader. I bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money. That's how you lose world leadership.

evan_• 1 year ago

don't give them any ideas.

kevmo• 1 year ago

Does Peter Thiel still get a piece of all the YC startups?

DidYaWipe7• 1 year ago

Our "world leadership" is rapidly becoming a distant memory.

metalliqaz• 1 year ago

it's already gone. as soon as we re-elected the felon, everyone knew they couldn't trust us

epistasis7• 1 year ago

The elites of the country that are now in power don't care about world leadership, much less the soft power that we had that made us all very rich, that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month.

They care about enriching themselves as much as possible. It's all short-term gain, without any view for the future. Get those tax cuts, reallocate money away from the government and away from those who work for a living and make a true oligarch class.

If events continue down this route, the US is looking at a lost decade or even permanent loss of leadership, letting China catch up and then step up, or maybe India.

9283409232• 1 year ago

The view for the future is cutting the US into city-states that they control. They are just following the playbook of Curtis Yarvin.

bruce5115• 1 year ago

> that made a plumber in the US make $7k a month while in much of Europe that plumber would only make $3k a month.

I'm not trying to derail the thread, but framing your point as "magnitude of salary" is meaningless and perhaps reflects one of the issues.

It's not the size of the salary that's important- it's the quality of life. Salary is one factor in the equation, but it's not the only factor.

For example, in the US the plumber pays for health care. In Europe he mostly does not.

There are a million things that go into a very subjective quality of live assessment. Salary is part of it, yes, but ultimately only a part.

And, if we're being honest, the US certainly acts the part of leader, it talks a good game, and everyone is happy to take their money. But is anyone actually following their lead?

jauntywundrkind• 1 year ago

In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation towards a better place. To do so, people need access to information, need access to information on what the state of their nation and the state of the world is.

These acts that teardown the information that the US makes available, that help us shape our decision making & view of the world, are deeply horrifically un-democratic. To march us from a nation that advocates sunlight & democracy, back into the dark is horror.

bruce5115• 1 year ago

> In general, the principles of democracy are that the people of the nation can steer the nation

Yes.

> towards a better place.

Weeelll, where the population steer it to isn't really determined by any principles. Rather it goes wherever the population steers it to.

Sometimes the population gets it wrong, and with open eyes pick an option that takes them to a worse place.

Yes, information helps (hence campaigning) but that information has always been gate-kept. That was seen as a flaw.

Turns out though information is like water; you need enough, but too much and you drown.

Anti-vaxers don't exist because of a lack of information. People who voted for tarrifs don't have restricted information. People have shown over and over a willingness to vote against their own best interest, as long as you provide someone else to blame.

keybored5• 1 year ago

The US does not live democratic principles. Not domestically and much less in interactions on the world stage.

refurb5• 1 year ago

These acts that teardown the information that the US makes available, that help us shape our decision making & view of the world, are deeply horrifically un-democratic.

Keep in mind you’re talking about air quality sensors. Just air quality sensors. In cities with multiple air quality sensors.

Let’s not go overboard

hello_moto• 1 year ago

Makes the Krasnov theory even stronger... how the tide has turned in terms of Conspiracy Theory no?

Freedom22• 1 year ago

The US can still be a leader, I think. I'm curious as to if this is the time for a YC-funded startup to take the reins for a lot of the programs and policies being cut. As geohot showed unequivocally yesterday, who else is better to lead than the technical minds of the 21st century!

epistasis7• 1 year ago

What sort of startup could ever replace the services that are being performed? The point of a startup is increase value massively by building revenue. The services that are being cut are meant to be public infrastructure upon which everybody else builds their startup, that enables all the innovation that makes the US a leader.

maigret• 1 year ago

You’ll see people not wanting to buy a lot of US stuff soon. I definitely increased my activities around that lately. Netflix is next to go.

consteval4• 1 year ago

You can’t replace infrastructure with the private sector because infrastructure doesn’t generate any money. Instead, it works like a velocity multiplier that helps others generate money.

Infrastructure is also dependent on centralization. As opposed to some industries, the free market actually makes infrastructure less efficient.

Imagine there are 1000 companies developing roads and they all use different signage. All use different licenses. Would that work? Could you live your life? Probably not, and if you did, it would be absurdly expensive.

Some things MUST be a centralized public service. Pretty much all countries, independent of each other, figured this out 150 years ago. But here we are, still arguing the point.

keybored5• 1 year ago

The US is a world hegemon. That’s a well-defined concept. I don’t know what being a leader means in this context.

It seems that it is just what the US and its cronies claim to be. Which works on any topic:

1. If it does something “good”: self-evident

2. If it does something “bad” or fails to do something good: just say that it is failing to be a “leader” like it obviously has been since sometime (post-WWII maybe). Yeah, even negative evidence can perpetuate the same narrative. Just wistfully look at the mythic past without questioning the premise.

hujun• 1 year ago

nah, GPS is needed by US outside US as well, I bet someone will propose a 'great' idea to start charging for it

insane_dreamer9• 1 year ago

or they could replace it with Starlink (no conflict of interest, obviously), which can be used for global positioning

energy123• 1 year ago

To the populist right, everything is zero-sum, all effects are first order, all effects are immediate, and all effects only impact the parties to a transaction.

Soft power doesn't exist. Iterated games don't exist. Long-term consequences don't exist. Externalities don't exist. Positive sum utility gains don't exist. Systemic effects don't exist. It's all too abstract and cognitively difficult, it's the business of the arrogant intelligentsia.

The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview. The decline will eventually reach people's purchasing power. The laws of reality will catch up to them.

ainiriand• 1 year ago

You have put into words exactly my thoughts on this topic.

jiggawatts• 1 year ago

The problem for them is that reality isn't going to adjust to fit their worldview.

The perpetual problem is that it will in the short term!

It’s just like the MBAs juicing profits by cutting R&D spending — this works every time!

It works, and it works long enough for a few to reap the benefits at the expense of the many.

This will play out over and over until we somehow magically achieve the Star Trek future utopia.

globular-toast• 1 year ago

I've said it before, it's like these guys turned up to study economics, learnt about free markets on day 1, then just went home.

JumpCrisscross4• 1 year ago

Soft power doesn't exist

I just realised that per their own stories we’ve got a government headed by folks with extreme daddy issues. I’m not turning this into a Vox article. But perhaps there is overlap between leaders who can’t empathise and whose who admit to having had a trash upbringing.

sdenton4• 1 year ago

The scary part is that when the consequences come, these people tend to look for a new scape goat rather than learn anything...

owisd• 1 year ago

Most have the same zero-sum first-order attitude to free speech, and couldn't see what's happening now was always going to be net worse for free speech than any controls that could have been put in place to reduce the chance of getting to this point.

matwood4• 1 year ago

all effects are first order

Basically they are mostly below average intelligence. The ability to think about second, third, N order effects is a sign of intelligence which is clearly lacking here. Those in power are leveraging that lack of intelligence in the populist right to execute their larger plan of dismantling the government for the benefit of the super rich.

aqueueaqueue4• 1 year ago

It's worse. They see bad things happen, then ask the question "how do I keep my faith in Donald through this"? (Not rhetorically)

HPsquared• 1 year ago

I don't know about that, conservatives (well, free marketeers anyway) favour second-order effects in economics, and win-win and all that stuff when it comes to free markets. The trouble is that the populist right is now moving away from free markets.

(It's almost a return to the old setup, back in the days of the Corn Laws etc - free markets used to be a left-wing position while the right was into mercantilism / protectionism)

bamboozled5• 1 year ago

Agree, voting for the dummy was the soft revolution, the hard revolution will happen...once the damage has been severe or irreparable.

caleb-allen• 1 year ago

You put this really well. It's been incredibly frustrating to try to understand the mentality of these people, but that's just the problem—there is barely any "mentality" at all, it's easier understood by what they don't consider or understand.

PleasureBot• 1 year ago

MAGA can escape the "laws of reality" as long as Trump's charisma can can paper over the gap between what is promised and lived reality. There will always be another scapegoat, another enemy preventing MAGA from reaching its societal Utopia which is just over the horizon. Trump and his administration are already explaining the economic downturn that the start of his administration caused to actually be a good thing for America. And MAGA is fully onboard with the idea that an economic recession/depression is necessary to clean out all of the alleged fraud, waste, and abuse in the system. And only afterwards can a stronger American economy be built.

brabel• 1 year ago

Well, it's a good thing that the US stop acting like the world leader/police in everything. The US is just a country among many and it is about time it starts acting like that. And it's about time the "Western world" stops relying on the US for basic stuff like national defense.

More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing.

Steve16384• 1 year ago

More to the topic: why the hell are the US embassies reporting other countries' cities air quality? While it's a "nice" thing to do, it would be even nicer if those countries monitored that themselves. The fact that we think we need the US to do it because other countries tend to be dishonest about it is incredibly depressing.

You answered your own question, but there are also other reasons; see the first post.

JumpCrisscross4• 1 year ago

bet next is to turn off GPS outside the US because no money

Outside America? They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade.

zfg• 1 year ago

And then they will say, "You see? Government doesn't work. We must privatize this service."

And they will hand that contract to their friends.

cesarb2• 1 year ago

They’ll just fire the team responsible for maintaining the birds and then act surprised when they degrade.

AFAIK, the GPS system needs constant corrections, uploaded periodically from its ground base stations. Without these corrections, it will degrade very quickly (the satellites would still work fine, but their position estimate would no longer be good enough).

fundatus• 1 year ago

I've always wondered "Why would the EU spend so much money to build Galileo?". I now get it.

dragonelite• 1 year ago

It was mostly used to slow down development and industrialisation of nations. Probably by guilt tripping developing world with the idea that the developing world would need to get western loans and green technology from the west.

That whole process is just a dirty process at least it still was during the 20th century. In 2020s there are other that came or are coming online with the Chinese and Russians willing to build nuclear power plants in the developing world and off course renewable energy is becoming cheaper every year thanks to Chinese industrial and research capabilities.

It might be that China is the last country to go through an extremely dirty development cycle.

sega_sai• 1 year ago

I think GPS is a very good point. I wonder if the capability to disable it exists, and I don't know what effects that will have - i assume many new devices can now use European's Galileo system. (while writing this I can see GPS had 'selective availability' mode, but US claimed it is not possible with new satellites)

simondotau2• 1 year ago

The essential question isn't whether selective availability could be reinstated (software can change, so the answer is yes, period, end of story) but rather whether there's any situation where it wouldn't also cripple a substantial portion of the US Government. How many GPS receivers even have support for military decryption these days, let alone contain keys which are ready to work in a crisis?

adamiscool85• 1 year ago

The stop in sharing data was “due to funding constraints that have caused the Department to turn off the underlying network” read the statement, which added that embassies and consulates were directed to keep their monitors running and the sharing of data could resume in the future if funded was restored.

Hmm...

The Washington Monument syndrome,[0] also known as the Mount Rushmore syndrome or the firemen first principle, is a term used to describe the phenomenon of government agencies in the United States cutting the most visible or appreciated service provided by the government when faced with budget cuts. It has been used in reference to cuts in popular services such as national parks and libraries or to valued public employees such as teachers and firefighters, with the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore being two of the most visible landmarks maintained by the National Park Service. This is done to put pressure on the public and lawmakers to rescind budget cuts.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_syndrome

epistasis7• 1 year ago

I don't think your link is comparable. Air quality data is not a high profile valued thing.

But it does sound "woke" and outside of what an incompetent know-nothing would say that the State Department shouldn't touch.

The "funding constraint" is almost certainly trying to rid embassies of the wokeness of monitoring pollution.

adamiscool85• 1 year ago

Air quality data is not a high profile valued thing.

Disagree completely - saying "we had to turn off the air quality data network" is vague enough to be plausibly blamed on budget cuts for a non-tech-savvy audience, while still having a significant enough impact to attract coverage from outlets like the NYT. This, in turn, creates another "pro-science" talking point to rally "The Resistance".

LightHugger• 1 year ago

I don't know but it might be the highest profile thing that specific department can muster.

bandrami• 1 year ago

It's definitely high profile in India and China. Delhi air quality was one problem that Modi originally ran on when he first became PM.

jordanb3• 1 year ago

Would make sense if it was the executive trying to get more money allocated out of Congress. In this case, the money is allocated but the executive is choosing not to spend it "for government efficiency."

adamiscool85• 1 year ago

Do you have a source for this? The article on says it's "due to funding constraints that have caused the Department to turn off the underlying network" but does not elaborate on the constraints. Given embassies clearly have latitude in funding their continued operations, I find it implausible the executive halted "air quality monitoring" and much more likely a disgruntled bureaucrat made a choice.

refurb5• 1 year ago

It makes sense if it’s embassy employees upset over funding cuts and thinking “if you won’t give me money I guess I’ll show you”.

IshKebab• 1 year ago

What underlying network are they not funding anyway? Did they turn off the internet?

Difficult to see how they are saving any money by turning off something they've already bought that has essentially zero running costs.

Something doesn't add up for sure.

sinuhe69• 1 year ago

As I understand it, let these monitors run and share their data cost nothings. Every private person can do it. It’s just needs an Internet connection.

refurb5• 1 year ago

This occurred to me too.

What costs are involved? Once set up the costs should be “an internet connection”. I assume the embassy didn’t have their internet cut off.

Sure it may require costs over time, but it reeks of “ill show them”.

epistasis7• 1 year ago

Many if not most of the spending restrictions are about pushing politics.

If the financial restrictions are "cut everything non-essential" then this sort of makes sense. If the cuts are "this is woke science stop that" then it makes 100% sense.

Either way, blaming the State Department for this is neither reasonable nor prudent.

apical_dendrite3• 1 year ago

I don't think you understand just how chaotic DOGE is. They are cancelling huge blocks of contracts at a time without understanding what these contracts actually do. Then when they break something really critical, maybe they bring a few of the contracts back, but they still leave the system in a crippled state. For instance, at the VA health system, they've canceled contracts for radiation safety, sterilization of equipment, and certifications that are required to run a hospital. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-plans-cut-va-cont...

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-plans-cut-va-cont...

msie• 1 year ago

The GOP are so petty.

outside1234• 1 year ago

And stupid, because you just know that this is still costing us the same amount of money.

DidYaWipe7• 1 year ago

That is exactly what came to mind when I read this.

I mean... who is mining for this stuff? The sheer SCOPE of the pettiness is mind-boggling, set against a backdrop of... no ideas whatsoever to move the country forward. No initiatives. No ambitious plan for Americans to get excited about.

Trump has never even submitted a PROPOSAL for anything. For example, his awesome new healthcare plan, promised over and over and finally promised "in two weeks," on July 19, 2020.

DidYaWipe7• 1 year ago

What could this have possibly cost? $10 a day worldwide? Pathetic.

lurk25• 1 year ago

I have a hard time believing a service like this wouldn't have employed at least one person full time. There is no way it cost anywhere remotely in the neighborhood of $10 a day.

the_sleaze_3• 1 year ago

This is an absolutely paltry change in light of other avenues to recoup revenue. And even if it were not, the way to change these systems is not to delete them but to restructure their incentives.

However.

Let's not kid ourselves that this program probably cost upwards of several million dollars.

- Wired cut my access just before I was able to cite, but someone said the program cost "just tens of thousands of dollars a year, because equipment had already been purchased". The cost of procure install and maintenance I would imagine was wildly excessive.

scubadude• 1 year ago

So someone got a job from it. They paid income tax, spent their salary at the local stores, which paid other people's salaries who paid income tax and spend their salary at the local stores. Why is this a problem. Reducing all this employment reduces money flowing around the economy (a factor in the Great Depression).

DidYaWipe7• 1 year ago

Obviously I'm not including the original cost of the equipment and installation. I'm talking about transmitting the data. The story claims that the equipment will continue to run and the data will be collected; the complained-about cost is that of "the network."

I imagine public Internet or Starlink would suffice to upload daily readings. But sure, that's speculation from someone who knows nothing about how it works.

mc32• 1 year ago

Good sensors are not cheap, they need recalibration, the app needs to be continually maintained. Some entity probably has a stupendous contract to maintain it.

defrost6• 1 year ago

From the reports I've read it would seem that the sensors remain and will likely be maintained .. it's the public display of the data via the internet that's been cut.

By all means whittle the fat from a third party contract on data delivery .. the sensor maintainance part is likely tricky but not challenging and has a real cost far less than mean cost of an embassy security staffer, being the kind of thing that takes an hour or so a month at most (once setup and running).

( FWiW I maintained, coded aquisition for, wrote presentation layers, for high end professional multi channel geophysical instrumentation: gravity, magnetics, radiometrics, lidar, radar, barometrics, twin gps + base station, etc )

vaidhy3• 1 year ago

It is so easy to assume the worst and corrupt outcome as if it were the most logical one.

insane_dreamer9• 1 year ago

Aren't the embassies keeping the sensors? I'm quite sure embassy staff would want AQI for their own information, especially in cities where official numbers are dubious.

My understanding is that it just won't be _shared_ anymore. And the _sharing_ can't cost much.

viceconsole• 1 year ago

I worked in a US consulate in a country with bad air pollution and developed asthma for the first time in my life during my two year tour there. I've since left that country (and the job) but still suffer the effects of the exposure. I used both the State Department provided AQI numbers as well as the host country's numbers to plan when and whether to spend time outside.

None of the reporting I've seen on the issue has investigated the cost of the program. On the subreddit for State Department Foreign Service Officers, which I still frequent, the most plausible estimates for the installation of this equipment at a single foreign post range from $180k to $250k, plus ongoing maintenance that would require flying in private contractors from the U.S. and putting them up in a 5 star hotel (in countries where you need this type of monitoring, hotels less than 5 stars generally don't meet Western standards). [1]

There has to be some kind of middle path between take a chainsaw to anything that has the word "environment" in it, and spending the cost of four years at a private college to install equipment that is available off the shelf for a few hundred dollars. (Yes, I know consumer grade equipment won't cut it, there are major network security concerns, etc., but surely it could be done at 10x or 20x the cost of a consumer solution, not 500x).

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/foreignservice/comments/1j3owmk/com...

aqueueaqueue4• 1 year ago

While I agree are we gonna do that? It is like saying why does Twitter need so many people I can do that in a weekend.

DidYaWipe7• 1 year ago

Twitter needs content moderation, for one thing... or at least it did when they pretended to care.

I don't think we're worried about particle sniffers transmitting porn, but then again they do like to sniff particles...

defrost6• 1 year ago

Highlighted in earlier reports and included in this APNews brief:

  In some places, the U.S. air quality monitors propelled nations to start their own air quality research and raised awareness, Krishna said.

  In China, for example, data from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing famously contradicted official government reports, showing worse pollution levels than authorities acknowledged. It led to China improving air quality.

( earlier: https://phys.org/news/2025-03-embassies-pollution-popular-ch... + https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43265021 )

  The United States since 2008 has monitored air quality through embassies—as a service to Americans overseas but also, increasingly, as a way to share accurate scientific data that may otherwise be censored overseas.

  In China, authorities in 2014 banned a popular app from sharing data from the US embassy ahead of a major international summit attended by then president Barack Obama.

  But researchers say that the transparency has had a noticeable effect, with China taking action after being embarrassed by US embassy data released on social media that showed far worse pollution than official figures.

  Obama's ambassador to China, Gary Locke, faced scorn in state media after he presided over the introduction of monitors at the embassy and consulates that tracked the so-called PM 2.5 particulate matter carried in the thick blankets of smog pervading China's capital.

  The air quality data from the US embassy is also frequently used as a reference in New Delhi, which has severe pollution issues.

This is a low cost to gather and deliver data stream that has a profound effect on global air quality and improving health and well being for all.

thaumasiotes4• 1 year ago

In China, for example, data from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing famously contradicted official government reports, showing worse pollution levels than authorities acknowledged. It led to China improving air quality.

That program, by the way, simultaneously managed to antagonize the Chinese government while being incredibly popular with the Chinese people.

It's not something I would expect a US administration hostile to China to cut.

EGreg• 1 year ago

Would you expect them to cut the IRS, if they're trying to cut deficits?

Obama and Clinton (with Republican congresses) ACTUALLY cut deficits -- Clinton even got a surplus. Bush and Trump extended tax cuts which ballooned them back into trillions (also the trillion-dollar wars). A few quotes:

Cheney 2004 about deficits: "Reagan proved deficits don't matter"

Trump 2017 about deficits: "Yeah, but I won't be here"

Clinton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX3a-2yrQwY

Andrew Samwick, Bush's chief economist: You are smart people. You know that the tax cuts have not fueled record revenues. You know what it takes to establish causality. You know that the first order effect of cutting taxes is to lower tax revenues. We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.

And the Republicans have just done it again! Tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy.

kelnos4• 1 year ago

It's not something I would expect a US administration hostile to China to cut.

I think in this case it's just a result of the haphazard approach to all of these cuts where nothing has actually been analyzed and planned. They are cutting things without thinking about repercussions, and of course their knee-jerk response to air-quality measurement is "it has to do with the climate and climate change, so we must suppress it".

Or it's even more "innocent" than that: they were given a target dollar amount or percentage to cut, and they're scrambling to find ways to get there, without really thinking things through.

jandrewrogers6• 1 year ago

Almost all global sensing data published by the US receives a lot of negative pushback from other countries around the world. I don’t think most people are aware of this.

The reasons are myriad. It makes it harder for other governments to control narratives in their own countries. It undermines efforts of governments to develop their own capacity; the US gives it away for free but those countries are not the customer and it does not serve them per se. It sets a much higher bar for domestic implementation than they have the capacity to implement. There is a sense the US exploits this data for their own ends. It doesn’t just irritate China, it irritates everyone.

Making the issue more political, the US edits and censors the data it publishes for its own purposes. This isn’t a secret but it taints the perception of US neutrality when making this data available.

The geopolitics and realpolitik of international sensing data is not clean.

paulddraper• 1 year ago

They weren’t targeting China.

consumer451• 1 year ago

a US administration hostile to China...

Based on actions alone, what is the evidence for this?

maxglute3• 1 year ago

There's no point anymore since everyone has AQI & PM2.5 meters.

Incredibly popular is questionable, definitely among tier1 libtards in embassy and consulate cities on twitter at the time. There was just as much nationalist on renren then weibo who thought this was US interference.

> It led to China improving air quality.

This is charitably western propaganda trying to take credit by fabricating notion that muh free speech can push CCP to change. Reality is BJ recognized pollution issue and had renewable policy underway a few years before this i.e. moving extra polluting factories out, controlling construction dust, vehicle registration systems, better emission standards etc. There was going to be coordinated effort to bring AQI down to <100s during 2008 Olympics and try to make it stick after, US Embassy was trying to stir shit leading up. Like if US embassy AQI shitposts was actually significant in pushing PRC enviromental policies, it would be an incredible own goal that pushed PRC to dominate renewable production chains and EVs while bankrupting western incumbants.

yapyap2• 1 year ago

Is this administration really hostile to China though or just for show

speakspokespok• 1 year ago

Seattle has - once again - entered the chat.

Edit: Gary Locke is a former governor of Washington State and a member of of the old guard, a member of the pre-internet Seattle. This is back when South Lake Union (where Amazon is now) was just trees and low rent commercial. It was the site of the local Greyhound bus station.

He was the first Asian American governor in the US. While he's not directly Seattle, it was his primary constituency and he married a prominent Seattle TV news caster and former beauty queen.

Later, he was the first Asian American ambassador to China, appointed by Barack Obama. His political career ran 30 years and I've heard his name mentioned for most of my life. [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Locke

kelnos4• 1 year ago

For starters, don't complain about downvotes. It's boring and lazy.

But I think you're actually getting downvoted because your comment has no context. I have no idea what Seattle has to do with any of this; if you'd actually explained what Seattle is doing in this space, it would have been an informative, useful comment that could teach people something, and lead to more interesting discussion. But as-is, your comment is just a drive-by, low-effort nothing.

BugsJustFindMe• 1 year ago

What does any of this have to do with anything?

eddythompson803• 1 year ago

Not really sure what any of that has to do with anything. Seattle is second only to San Francisco in list of blue voting cities that have failed in addressing every single social problem over the last 25 years. Seattle political class and scene is one of the worst grifters in the country. They are just “blue” grifters, so we can’t criticize them despite their abysmal track record.

insane_dreamer9• 1 year ago

We were living in Beijing when that happened, and you cannot underestimate the impact that it had. It ultimately forced the Chinese government to publish the actual air quality data which in turn forced it to take significant action to improve air quality in Beijing.

andsoitis• 1 year ago

Do you think Beijing will stop publishing actual and correct air quality data now?

seanmcdirmid3• 1 year ago

Same. One thing I remember was that Twitter (where the data was reported) got blocked at about the same time. 2010 was a bit nuts. The government tried to explain it away that the area near liangmaqiao was especially bad for Beijing, which was hilarious.

It didn’t actually get that much better when we left in August 2016, but I hear it is much better today. Also, anyone can buy an AQI sensor of Amazon these days for $90, so it’s difficult to keep AQI readings under wraps

yard20102• 1 year ago

So, it's just enshitification. The failing-up kind. Enshitification ensues.

bolognafairy• 1 year ago

No. Can we please not look for places to call enshitification with such desperation that the word looses all meaning?

mytailorisrich3• 1 year ago

This is still mission creep even if it is a low cost. In fact this often how focus is lost and costs accumulate...

It is not embassies' role to provide this service. It is quite reasonable to stop.

Of course people will argue that it was perhaps useful to the people of Beijing, New Delhi, etc. but the real question is what does this have to do with US embassies and the US government?

WhitneyLand• 1 year ago

So do you also disagree with the premise of the government providing to this service, or only that it’s not the stated role of embassies to do it?

In deciding it’s quite reasonable to stop, is the thinking that “mission creep” = bad, so it justifies stopping something regardless of the big picture benefits? Or do you not consider the benefits significant?

Given a business with many departments, say you notice one department has some mission creep but somehow it’s also increasing profitability for the company overall.

What do you focus on - only mentioning stopping the department mission creep, or first mentioning people should make damn sure the value is preserved as they consider any reorganization?

mrweasel3• 1 year ago

It is not embassies' role to provide this service

It is the job of an embassy to provide it's nation with travel advise and recommendations. If the host nation cannot be trusted to provide accurate information about air pollution, then the embassies must do it.

I'd agree that it's not the embassies job to inform the citizens of host nation with the data, but that's practically free, once you are already distributing the info to you own people.

What I don't understand is, if it's that useful, could some other embassies not just do the work? The US normally have fairly well staffed embassies, not just some dude in a suit, but surely the WHO could locate appropriate embassies in almost any nation.

ukoki• 1 year ago

I remember living in Beijing when the US Embassary Air Quality Twitter account tweeted "Error: value above measurable range" (paraphrasing) -- that was a fun day.

tellarin2• 1 year ago

That really made China move. Both in blocking some social media and taking more action to improve air quality.

martin_a2• 1 year ago

improving health and well being for all

Yeah, to me it looks like that is not fine under the new administration. If it would help only Americans, or those in power at least, it would be okay, but something for all the humans? Naaah...

yapyap2• 1 year ago

Or, or they don’t want to go against countries like China anymore

saagarjha• 1 year ago

Wait until they stop sharing air quality data in the US too.

exe34• 1 year ago

it forced the Chinese to improve their air quality - but now:

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which" (Orwell).

mikevm• 1 year ago

Why is it an American interest to help the Chinese with their air pollution if they don't want to do it themselves? You are literally doing the meme from the famous https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0 paper.

beloch2• 1 year ago

The instrumentation is there. The personnel who run it are still there. All we're talking about is collecting and sharing the data. This cut will save chump change at best. Why take it down?

Honestly, I think Trump is sending a deliberate message here and in a thousand other ways. If you trust the U.S. or rely on the U.S. for anything, no matter how tiny, the new U.S. is going to screw you. It doesn't matter if it was a mutually beneficial collaboration. The U.S. is happy to screw themselves in the process of screwing you. You can't bargain with them. Nothing you say or do will matter. They are going to hurt you because that is the U.S.'s new policy towards it's friends and especially its allies.

Trump is not being selfish or putting America's interests first. He's putting someone else's interests above those of the country he ostensibly serves. A lot of what he's doing makes absolutely no sense until you view it this way, and then it all makes sense.

gorgoiler• 1 year ago

While the current administration is unlikely to actually think this way they certainly want to look like they think this way.

”He’s a maverick, but he gets results!”

It’s just another part of their ongoing edgy, outsider, contrarian, disruptor narrative.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 1 year ago

A device to measure PM 2.5 costs $5 ... anyone can buy it and publish results. Why embassy is needed?

libertine• 1 year ago

This goes beyond the device, it was about who was sharing the data: the US, which used to be a former global reference that was credible, reliable, and trustworthy with some good intentions towards Western ideals and progress.

That's now gone, but hopefully others will fill that void.

willvarfar• 1 year ago

People _trusted_ the US published official numbers.

Trust takes a lifetime to earn and a moment to lose. It's a shame.

psychlops3• 1 year ago

It's not needed. It's just easier if americans pay for things.

andrepd• 1 year ago

You know, I have 1 litmus test that instantly lets me distinguish between capital-c Conservatives, and just plain reactionaries: how they feel about environmentalism.

If you're a conservative you have to care about preserving nature, the environment, clean air, outdoor spaces, etc. But if instead you're enthusiastic about coal, highway widenings, and your emotional support truck, you're just a base reactionary.

blitzar3• 1 year ago

This is a low cost

I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that these devices are a) not _that_ low cost and b) contain a wide array of intelligence sensors (think RadNet but on steroids).

The underlying programme will continue and will expand, at least it should.

Slapping a box with some sensors on a network of properties you have all round the world is an incredibly good and ultimately non-fraudlent, non-abusive and non-wasteful way of spending money.

xnx• 1 year ago

"...reality has a well-known liberal bias..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert_at_the_2006_Wh...

asix66• 1 year ago

https://map.purpleair.com/

ta988• 1 year ago

They really found the most efficient way to reduce every dependency the rest of the world had on the US. When the US will finally wake up, there will be nothing left but countries ready to sell their better technology to the US and maybe not even sell it in dollars.

mewpmewp2• 1 year ago

They are burning the "cards" and "leverage" they had. The trust Europe, West and other democratic countries had in US will take generations to rebuild. And meantime US provoking other countries to ally against itself to punish this behavior. That's just game theory. It makes strategic sense for all other countries to co operate against the US now. Personally, I'm looking forward now for Europe to become self-reliant on technology.

palata• 1 year ago

I believe the image of the US in the West started changing considerably during Trump's first mandate. Biden coming back hasn't completely repaired that change, but really it mostly came back (as in, "The US screwed up with Trump, but that's done now").

I think the 6 weeks of this second mandate have already made irreparable damage. When during the first mandate people tended to be "fed up with the US bullshit", now they are genuinely scared. Trump was not a one-off mistake. The people not only confirmed it, but seems generally okay with what's happening now; some Americans complain, but mostly when they are personally affected, it seems. It doesn't seem like the US people is shocked by the idea of destabilising the West. Not saying it is the case, but that is how it seems.

The trust is gone, I don't think it will come back. To the West, the US are partners, not friends anymore. It's still better than enemies, even though the US has been considering it... seemingly with the support of the people.

Personally, I'm looking forward now for Europe to become self-reliant on technology.

Yeah, in a way, if Europe managed to be independent militarily, that would bring some stability. Let's hope they go there!

iamshs• 1 year ago

Indian Government would be so relieved. US Embassy data was the most reliable one cited to highlight the pollution crises in Delhi, the nation's capital. Otherwise for their own sensors, they sometimes just sprayed them with artificial water showers to change climate around the sensors.

owenpalmer• 1 year ago

The stop in sharing data was “due to funding constraints that have caused the Department to turn off the underlying network”

What is the actual recurring cost of broadcasting this data? The sensor and network infrastructure are presumably already established.

feverzsj2• 1 year ago

Sensors are very cheap. Have no idea why they cut them.

[0] https://aqicn.org/gaia/list/

[1] https://www2.purpleair.com/products/list

schiffern• 1 year ago

US embassies seem to use a pair of Met One BAM-1020 sensors,[1] which run about $40,000 apiece.[2]

But that's beside the point. The sensors have already been purchased, the sensors are still being maintained, and the sensors are even still recording data. All they did is stop publishing the data.

[1] https://xk.usembassy.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/133/2016/0...

[2] https://store.bluinter.com/product/bam-1020-beta-attenuation...

YetAnotherNick• 1 year ago

My $150 air purifier does all of that and working perfectly for 4 years. It gets data and syncs with cloud. I can't think of any reason apart from protest from the Department and cutting high visibility thing that cost nothing.

bvan• 1 year ago

Absolutely tragic. Trump is literally dragging the country back into the proverbial cave or dark ages. Just take NOAA for example: gutting this agency has widespread 2nd and 3rd order consequences the Trump administration is either clueless or willfully ignorant about. This administration is screwing over generations to come.

Aeolun• 1 year ago

In light of all recent news, this seems stupid, but almost banal in comparison to everything else.

refurb5• 1 year ago

If I open IQAir, I see dozens of monitoring stations in every country. Even in Myanmar, which is a developing country in the middle of a civil war there are 7 monitoring stations in Yangon.

Considering the US typically has only a handful of embassies and consultants in countries, and they are located in major cities, it comes across as a hyperbole when describing the loss of a few stations as setting back air quality monitoring globally.

ImaCake2• 1 year ago

Not all stations are built equal, but I do agree that this is mostly symbolic. But it could be a harbinger of much more problematic censoring of US air quality data.

insane_dreamer9• 1 year ago

It's the symbolism of it that has the greatest impact.

But in Beijing specifically, the US embassy air quality measurements had a significant impact on government policy to improve air quality. The same can be true in other countries where information is tightly controlled.

declan_roberts• 1 year ago

I think this is a good place for a public/private partnership.

The govt installs and collects the sensors around the world and makes it available to private companies who contractually provide a suitable and free API.

That sounds like a decent enough division of labor. We can even give a private company a tax credit for providing the API.

the_sleaze_3• 1 year ago

I'll set up a server tonight.

kelnos4• 1 year ago

Or we can just keep using the system that's already there and already works, rather than tearing it down and funneling money into some company run by a buddy of Trump or Musk to build it again, with likely worse reliability and fewer features, and charge people for access to it.

Because of course they're going to charge for it. Free API? Right.

mola2• 1 year ago

So the people pay for the system, then pay again for access to data?

While some oligarch turns a profit.. So efficient

sitkack• 1 year ago

1984 was a manual.

lunarboy• 1 year ago

How does this reduce the fraud in the federal spending? How does this decrease inflation, and make america great again?

andreygrehov2• 1 year ago

DOGE is sharing all the data. Is there a specific line item that addresses the defunding of air quality monitoring? I couldn’t find one. If I were anti-DOGE, I could say, “Hey, people love air quality. Let’s stop sharing the air quality data and blame it on Musk! That’ll make people really angry at him.”

apical_dendrite3• 1 year ago

The quality of the data DOGE is sharing is terrible.

For example: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-con...

There are many reports like this.

1986• 1 year ago

DOGE's shared data has been consistently off: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/doge-says-i... https://www.npr.org/2025/03/01/nx-s1-5313853/doge-savings-re... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/03/us/politics/doge-musk-con...

And just to be clear - Occam's razor to you suggests that this project hasn't actually been defunded, but rather that the people working on this project have chosen to stop work on it in order to project the appearance that it has been defunded?

andreygrehov2• 1 year ago

So, is there a specific line item? The AP wrote a low-quality article with zero proof.

Have people stopped working at the embassies? According to the submission, embassies will simply stop sharing air quality data.

Why are you all downvoting me? Am I not allowed to ask questions? Or am I only allowed to ask questions that don’t make DOGE look good because everyone who is anti-Musk is obviously correct, and the rest are wrong?

dyauspitr• 1 year ago

Our president is an enemy of the state.

oneshtein• 1 year ago

... or friend of an enemy state.

He uses same arguments as other friends of RF.

feverzsj2• 1 year ago

Good or bad, influence is the most powerful weapon of a superpower in peace time. Cutting it off won't save your money but instead weaken the country.

teekert• 1 year ago

Thank you US for providing us with air quality data for all those years!

eliaskg• 1 year ago

Have you said thank you once?

xdkyx• 1 year ago

he isn't wearing a suit either

ZeroGravitas2• 1 year ago

Beijing air quality problems famously put China's renewables and EV programs into overdrive. I don't think you needed scientific measurements to know there was a problem but I wonder how much the outside data helped crystallize a real engineering response rather than a coverup.

"The air we breathe: lessons from Beijing’s airpocalypse"

https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/news/air-we-breathe-lessons...

If this isn't just random unplugging of things and there's not a Trump aligned oligarch selling competing data (like the AccuWeather guy) it might be fossil fuel corps looking to hide the damage they do.

meindnoch• 1 year ago

This is just petty. I refuse to believe any measurable amount of money could be saved here.

DiogenesKynikos2• 1 year ago

That's the story of most of the cuts.

And then they'll cut taxes, which will instantly blow the saved money 10x over.

Havoc• 1 year ago

If they keep going with this sort of self imposed irrelevance it’ll eventually threatened USD reserve currency status.

xyst• 1 year ago

Yet another blow to the American hegemony by the kleptocracy cabinet.

nelblu• 1 year ago

I'm going to strongly recommend they consider defunding NASA's APOD /s

bsaul2• 1 year ago

i’m surprised by the relatively low number of posts on this site regarding the craziness that currently takes place at the white house. This is for sure going to have a huge impact on the future of tech companies, and on the economy in general. Is this because of moderation ?

howard941• 1 year ago

Flagging. Try browsing the site in chronological order with showdead on.

bsaul2• 1 year ago

ha, indeed, now i see. seems like users (and @dang apparently) decided this topic was too hot to let it go through. it’s a bit sad, as it’s probably the largest news since the fall of USSR, but i get the idea. maybe let just a few pass each day ?

zkmon2• 1 year ago

The pampered people complain about every change. Say that they need to pay tariff to sell their products in our country, they complain. Say that we can't provide them with free climate data, they complain. Say that we can't provide them with free billions or security guarantees, they complain. And if we say they can't enter or live in USA illegally, they complain.

Actually, we are helping them to grow up and use their own legs. Distributed development, self-sustainability are some words.

urbandw311er• 1 year ago

I think the issue is more that the guy you elected seems to think it’s ok to ignore climate change and destroy the planet, which in case you’d forgotten, doesn’t actually belong to the US.

zkmon2• 1 year ago

USA is not the caretaker of the planet. We are not even allowed to own greenland :)

consteval4• 1 year ago

And making other countries more independent helps the US… how?

Ultimately we rely on partnerships because - news flash - pretty much nothing is made entirely in the US. This is a Tom and Jerry level “bending the shotgun in your face” moment.

N_Lens• 1 year ago

I remember when I was a wee lad and wanted to optimise the free space on my windows 95 computer. I deleted program files and everything in the windows directory to free up some space on my 1.2GB Hard Disk. The pc, ofcourse, stopped booting (in hindsight it was weird that I could delete system files on a running machine, but in some ways Win95 gave a lot more power to the user I suppose).

I sense that this is the level analysis that is going into these “cuts” and “optimisations”.

Etheryte• 1 year ago

On the flip side, when you did this to a Windows 95 system a few times in a row, you eventually came to learn what was really critical and what wasn't. I remember young me thinking "Spooler? Why would anyone need that?". Truth be told, looking at corporate life today, I think young me was on to something.

Naturally all of this does not carry over to the government where you can't just reinstall the whole thing if you mess it up.

hypercube33• 1 year ago

I remember doing this as a kid trying to install visual basic and having a very small hard drive in my 386. Good times. Who needs fonts anyway?

But to the parents point we did figure out a bunch of things you could blast away and never use and the system would still boot (help files for example)

L_226• 1 year ago

Similar experience here with task manager and killing processes to free up RAM

nedt• 1 year ago

I had Windows 95 running with just 4 MB of RAM. Obviously it kept swapping to disk. When shutting down it always crashed, because in the process it turned of swapping and couldn't run some of the drivers anymore. Even Microsoft support didn't know how to solve it. That thing was wild. After adding 16 MB of RAM I never had this issue again.

gtirloni• 1 year ago

Trump wants a world of private government deals and he's showing other governments they can count on him if they want to join the game.

Your country has bad air quality? Of course we know it. Perhaps we will release that data, perhaps not. What can you give us back in return for keeping it private? Also, you have embarrassing data about my government? Let's talk and fix a deal so we (not the population) benefit the most.

landsman• 1 year ago

I saw that there is some communith, open source project who manage database by volunteering. That's the way.

kopirgan• 1 year ago

It's silly to assume countries like India that are democracies can't address pollution without data from one or two embassy buildings in a 2.3m sq km nation!

These NGO types will obviously sing one tune. They'll be even more worried if pollution is finally addressed. They'll do their best to stop that from happening.

sylware• 1 year ago

How many tens of billions of $ was that program paid by US tax payers?

The US stops sharing air quality data from embassies worldwide

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