When a leftist outlet like National Public Radio has a "Climate Desk," that can only mean it promotes "climate change" doom.

On Monday, NPR climate correspondent Rebecca Hersher ("she/her") wrote an article under the headline "Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose."

Hersher elaborated on her Morning Edition interview about the Trump administration's proposal to cut funding to the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. This incredibly expensive satellite program, designed to monitor climate change through carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, was touted as an essential part of the American people’s lives, never mind the almost entirely irrelevant data they provided. But while Hersher may not have understood why they were on the chopping block, it should have been more than obvious to any and all readers.

Described as “a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on” in the headline, the details provided show that neither group really needed this data. For farmers, Hershey explained that the satellites’ incidental ability to monitor plant growth was an invaluable resource to farmers. 

“For example,” Hersher wrote, “the U.S. Department of Agriculture and many private agricultural consulting companies use the data to forecast and track crop yield, drought conditions and more.” Notice that neither the Department of Agriculture nor consulting companies are the average farmer. For the majority of farm owners, this information was not a necessity, or even a concern.

The ones really concerned over losing this data were climate change scientists and activists. Hershey offered this ridiculous argument in favor of the satellites:

The information can also help predict future political instability, since crop failures are a major driver of mass migration all over the world. For example, persistent drought in Honduras is one factor that has led many farmers there to migrate north, NPR reporting found. And damage to crops and livestock from extreme weather in Northern Africa has contributed to migration from that region. "This is a national security issue, for sure," former NASA scientist David Crisp says.

Just a couple problems with that. One, these satellites had never once been used to predict political instability, including in the situations provided. Two, these satellites were far from the only way to obtain information about droughts. Just your average forecast can predict incoming droughts months in advance without these satellites.

Besides, it wasn’t like these were the only carbon dioxide-tracking satellites in existence. They were just the only ones the government was wasting their money on. Of course, Hersher argued it would be expensive for the government to shut down its satellites. 

Let’s take a look at the cost.

Hersher outlined the expense of producing and maintaining the satellites as such:

The two missions cost about $750 million to design, build and launch, according to David Crisp, the retired NASA scientist, and that number is even higher if you include the cost of an initial failed rocket launch that sent an identical carbon dioxide measuring instrument into the ocean in 2009. By comparison, maintaining both OCO missions in orbit costs about $15 million per year, Crisp says.

With over $750 million spent to produce these satellites and $15 million a year for 15 years spent to maintain them, this was an over $1 billion dollar waste of taxpayer money. The cost of shutting this program down must have been seriously expensive then, right?

According to Hersher, it wouldn’t cost a dollar. One would naturally burn up on its own, and the other just had to be turned off from the International Space Station.

“Just from an economic standpoint, it makes no economic sense to terminate NASA missions that are returning incredibly valuable data,” Hersher quoted Crisp once again. Saving hundreds of thousands of government dollars was not worth the cost of losing some irrelevant climate change studies available elsewhere? That’s what makes no sense.