Living on the Real World

…life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

         And heated hot with burning fears,

         And dipt in baths of hissing tears,

And batter’d with the shocks of doom – Tennyson (from In Memoriam, 118)

Flash flooding of the Guadalupe River during the pre-dawn hours of Independence Day produced tragedy along its length, most notably in Kerrville, Texas. More than 100 people have died, including vacationers and far too many young children at summer camps. More remain missing; the death toll continues to mount.

The grief is beyond any expressing.

We live on a planet that does its business through such extreme events. Floods can and do raise creek levels twenty feet in a few minutes. Events hit hardest at the local scale and are no respecters of location or time of day, or the lives and fortunes of those young or old who happen to be in the path of destruction. This heartbreak will not be the last.

Americans remain challenged and vulnerable, especially when warning lead times are short, when the threats develop at night, when the danger develops in underserved rural areas, and when those in harm’s way are not at home, but on travel or vacation (where risks and the appropriate actions needed are unfamiliar).

That is why we have an emergency management community, a closely-knit, coordinated network of federal-, state-, and local agencies, corporations and small businesses, NGOs, and others – to provide 340 million Americans a measure of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (those July 4^th values) in the face of Earth’s real and present dangers. It is the motivation and vision for federal programs and resources at the national level that designed to be vigilant everywhere, 24/7 (even and especially during evenings and holidays), and to push out weather warnings and communicate risk (along with options for action) to that last mile, to those who are in harm’s way, to those who must act.

For all our efforts in emergency response to date, there is still work to do. There is still room for improvement. There always will be.

The early stages of the Guadalupe aftermath have seen a bit of finger-pointing. In retrospect, all involved can see how they might have done a bit more. One point of agreement, whether admitted or not; hazard risks do not lessen if we summarily do away with or diminish the operational capacity of the federal agencies – or when we do away with the supporting research and development that are the means to “doing better the next time.”

Nevertheless, that is the path that for the moment we have chosen.

So, in the face of the recent federal withdrawal (see also here), while waiting for the rebuilding of that infrastructure (which must eventually come), what are the opportunities for initiative, for agency? Clearly the federal operations and related R&D have to be rebuilt (even if along different lines). That will fully occupy a good part of today’s emergency management community – especially those who will remain in DHS, who will be charged with continuing maintenance and delivery of residual FEMA functions. But what else can be done in the meantime? What might the remainder do?

Here are three (of many) emerging narratives, that illustrate, but by no means exhaust the possibilities. They are offered here to stimulate ideas, to inspire imitation, experiment, action.

As FEMA shrinks, a grassroots disaster response is taking shape. This New York Times article starts out:

They were just drills, but each felt urgent and real. A group of volunteers searched a wooded area for someone who had been injured and stranded, ready to provide aid. Then they practiced a river rescue, attaching a rope near the bank to help pull the victim to shore.

This was Rescue HQ, a gathering in rural Tennessee last month where the founding members of several newly formed disaster response groups ran through emergency scenarios and discussed how to better coordinate in the chaotic aftermath of a storm or a flood.

Groups like this are growing in number — a new model of disaster response taking shape outside of government channels. Many volunteers are deeply religious and have military backgrounds.

They’re an unequal match for what the government can do, especially when it comes to long-term rebuilding efforts after natural disasters. But with the Trump administration pulling back staffing and funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency — and even pledging to eliminate it — communities may soon rely far more on volunteer help.

The article looked at two or three such efforts, surfacing reasons for hope as well as grounds for caution (all while driving-home the need for federal leadership).

After Lahaina burned, an experiment in housing the most vulnerable. Following the Paradise California wildfire of 2018, which destroyed 10,000 homes, rebuilding has been slow. Only 2500 structures had been rebuilt as of November of 2024. It’s possible to do better, as the Washington Post reported from Lahaina:

Almost two years after wildfires ripped through Lahaina, this is where global supply chains, disaster relief and a novel solution to America’s housing crisis come together. On track for full occupancy this summer, the 57-acre development is part of Hawaii’s attempt to house some of its most vulnerable residents, using hundreds of prefab homes in a way that has never been tried elsewhere. It’s also a test of how quickly the government and private companies can work together to prop up housing when there are few options — and whether other places will do the same.

At the Ka Laʻi Ola development, 450 structures will house roughly 1,500 people. The earliest waves of residents moved into their new homes one year after the fires — much faster than they likely could have in the rest of town as the recovery grinds on. More traditional construction is often hard to ramp up in remote or devastated areas. But here, the faster pace is possible because the development revolves around factory-built housing and a full-steam-ahead approach by local and state officials…

(A similar public-private collaboration is underway in rebuilding Altadena.)

Financing local emergency management. All this raises the question, given the FEMA cuts, where can the money for rebuilding infrastructure be found? Susan Crawford (not the newly-elected judge on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but Susan Crawford the Harvard law professor emeritus), writing on Substack, suggests looking to individual states. She offers this (the post is worth a careful read in its entirety):

What’s a local government looking for abundant, inexpensive capital supposed to do? Well, federal government assistance aimed at climate adaptation may be a thing of the past, but the municipal bond market (which includes state bonds, despite the name) remains highly attractive to investors—thanks to an apparent Congressional inclination to keep the exemption of bond interest from federal taxation in place. Record-breaking numbers of muni bonds are being issued these days. And Gaughan wants everyone to consider what state-level public finance agencies can do for local governments when it comes to adapting to the ferocious physical effects of climate change.

“Bond banks have the back of local governments as they face ongoing climate challenges,” Gaughan says. “At the end of the day, we want our cities, towns, and villages to be successful,” he adds. “So that’s why we’re so vested in trying to figure this thing out.” He’s implying that relying on individual towns to figure out adaptation, each on their own, won’t work.

How could state bond banks—there are only about 14 of them—step in to assist municipalities? To start, they can act like a powerful financial uncle, by pooling borrowing needs, taking advantage of the state’s stronger credit guarantee, and attracting a diverse portfolio of projects, then passing along to municipalities the money they’re able to borrow at lower interest rates than many cities, particularly smaller ones, could access on their own.

Three ideas. Addressing only small, diverse slivers of emergency response and recovery. But accomplished by small numbers of people, leaving many others free to copy these approaches or to formulate and try out other ideas. Much of the opportunity is likely to be local. Though resource-constrained, local governments see hazards risks as existential. America comprises over 3000 counties. The Guadalupe-Kent County experience is (or should be) causing thousands of county officials to lose sleep at night. Absent FEMA, they need help revisiting their emergency management plans, starting with traditional what-to-do-with-warnings strategies, but extending further, into minimizing the numbers of their populations living, working, and sleeping in floodplains, on earthquake fault zones, etc., in unsafe construction. They need help instilling hazard-awareness in their populations, beginning with K-12 public education on hazards. They’ll want to hire professional expertise, but they will also be interested in new tools that might make their task less expensive and more robust. In particular they’ll be on the lookout for ideas on how to harness artificial intelligence to augment and backstop every phase of the emergency management task.

The bad news is that none of the options will be easy, and success is by no means guaranteed.

Tennyson offers a valuable perspective. The poet reminds us that a meaningful life is not a matter of effortlessly scooping gold nuggets or rough diamonds from some creek. Life, especially a life worth living, demands sweaty, sustained effort, too often accomplished amid anxiety and sadness, and – punctuated by the very disasters that in this instance we’re trying to prevent.

The good news is that the possibilities are unlimited.

Emergency management – that is, emergency management as “a community, an idea” – has been hit by disaster. This present-day reality is the starting point from which emergency management must move into the future. In the short term, say the next decade, even as emergency managers attempt to “recover” from slashed budgets, personnel cuts, reduced mission-scope, and more, they will be called upon to manage disasters of even greater complexity and broader reach. That is because emergencies and disasters are on the rise, fueled by decades of population growth, especially in dangerous places and in fragile built settlements. In addition, disasters are mutating in response to unprecedented and unforeseen vulnerabilities emerging from social change and scientific and technological advance[1]. But while emergency managers are “doing their day job,” they must at the same time achieve a greater long-term goal: an actual reduction in the number, the economic and human cost, and the geographic reach of the disasters in the future’s pipeline[2]. Already, disasters are fraying the fabric of society; civilization cannot survive (let alone prosper) indefinitely in the face of the relentless growth of disasters of every stripe.

The double task – coping with the disasters of today while reducing the disaster risks of tomorrow – requires action at state and local, national, and international levels. There’s overlap, but a somewhat different emphasis is required at each scale. To illustrate:

At the state and local level. Individual disasters (most, not all – more about that later) are confined geographically. Floods, drought, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc., hit hardest at local and statewide populations. In the past, these events would prompt help from a surrounding, less-impacted nation. But today those larger populations are themselves are less able and correspondingly less willing to help. Their aid rarely matches the urgent requirements of the minority trying to recover – to get their shattered lives back on track. The announced U.S. intent to eliminate FEMA is one sign of the emerging passivity in the face of need.

Here in the United States the President balances the interests and priorities of more than 300 million people living in 3000 counties. County officials and their residents care most about just one, their own, with an average population of 100,000[3]. The personal stakes are existential for residents in any immediate disaster area; attention should therefore be greatest there. Disaster reduction – avoiding settlement and commercial development in floodplains or seismic zones; establishing and enforcing robust building codes; building resilience into roadways, electrical grids, water and sewage systems, etc. – is a local matter. In this framing, it becomes a responsibility and task for the entire local (and state) community, not just the tiny subpopulation employeded by the fire department, local police, and county-level EOC’s. Emergency management is participatory; it is not a spectator sport. It is everyone’s business. The public needs to demand accountability from its political and corporate leaders; and needs to shoulder responsibility for individual and family safety. But as matters now stand, any specific public confronts this reality only episodically. Many people have little firsthand experience with hazards, and little opportunity to internalize what hazard mitigation looks like and requires in terms of daily actions and conditions on the ground.

Most of the population who will be making disaster risk and emergency management decisions in future decades are children today. Insertion of emergency management concepts and responsibilities in K-12 public education would therefore be a partial remedy. Such a curriculum emphasis would also confer several side benefits. Young people are extremely interested in natural hazards; the topic can develop interest in and passion for science and technology more broadly. And it’s not simply a portal to STEM education; it threads through civics as well and encourages critical thinking more generally. In the United States public education is under local and state control; hazard risks and emergency management issues also vary locally, so there’s a good match between in scales of the challenge and coping responsibilities and challenges.

Another need at state and local scales is the need to develop scenarios for emergencies and plans for emergency response at these scales with the local specifics in mind. This reality brings us to

The national level. Coping with disasters of today while at the same time reducing the disasters of tomorrow exposes the efforts of national leaders to wash their hands of the problem for what it is – wishful thinking. At a minimum, in the short term, the national government needs to backstop the ability of private-sector insurance and reinsurance to spread the financial risk, to provide other forms of assistance in community rebuilding and retrofitting. The importance of this should not be underestimated. Unity is what makes a nation. Nowhere is the notion of “we are all in this together” either displayed or abdicated in fuller view than in times of emergency.  

Already straitened, state and local budgets are continuing to tighten even as they come up against a future of increasing disasters and emergencies. These opposing trends make innovation necessary.  It will be impossible to reduce the disasters of tomorrow with the tools of yesterday. We must fight the disasters of tomorrow with tomorrow’s tools.

This need for innovation also requires national-level action. A key challenge for disaster- and emergency management lies in identifying particular risks, understanding which are the most likely, and of those which are the most consequential. This requires a predictive understanding of weather-, climate-, geological-, and even biological (think pandemic) processes. But that’s only the beginning. It extends to an understanding of how these different risks will work through the economic and social life of individual communities to disrupt their functionality and safety.  Many branches of science and engineering must be brought to bear. In addition, a major priority should be the harnessing of artificial intelligence to the emergency management problem. AI holds great potential for developing the needed K-12 public educational materials, and for identifying detailed disaster scenarios tailored to the risks and capabilities of specific local communities.

Because of the enhanced effectiveness and savings that can be realized at scale, the natural science and social science databases needed for this task should be the responsibility of the federal government agencies and partners at the national level, along with the insurance and reinsurance to spread the financial portion of disaster risk. In addition, national help to localities is fundamental to building the domestic unity and trust that are the hallmark of a great nation. To do less is to risk being reduced to third-world status or splintering of the country or both. To be blunt, we were already doing this right, before we decided to cut federal budgets for NOAA, USGS, EPA, NASA, NSF, NIH, and DoE.

The international level. Keep in mind the historic truth. Recovery from natural disasters has relied almost entirely on the existence of larger, unaffected areas, and help from those areas. To some degree, nations in the past have provided help at some level to other nations recovering from natural disasters. But such relief is intermittent, patchy, limited, and undependable. U.S. efforts have been compromised by the recent elimination of USAID, as well as failure to support UN agencies such as WHO and other infrastructure for meeting such needs. Such practices need to be institutionalized, made more robust.

The risk, however, only begins there. For some disasters – climate change, or pandemics, or asteroid strike, or world war, or the insidious spread of microplastics, or a rampant spread in totalitarian governments – there are not, nor will there be, unaffected areas to draw upon. Recent experience with covid, meltdowns in the global financial sector, and the current pervasive climate of war and turmoil on every continent has demonstrated that we’re handling these global emergencies poorly, and recovering slowly, if at all. They’re intensifying. Countries need to find more means and incentives and instrumentalities to foster collaboration, build trust, and discover unity – and do so with some urgency.

The good news? We all want our lives to matter. Now’s our chance! This agenda alone (and it’s only one of dozens of global challenges) gives each of us a chance to make a difference. You may have heard it said:

The magic we want is in the work we’re avoiding.

Let’s get to it!

[1] This is argued in more detail over the history of earlier LOTRW posts –  for example, here and here.

[2] Also as argued in earlier posts, and in the book Living on the Real World

[3] There’s quite a range here; Los Angeles County has a population of ten million; Loving County, TX, and Kalawao County, HI, each have populations just less than 100.

The future of emergency management starts with the present. And today, emergency management in the United States is in growing disarray. At the federal level, the most recent blow (of a series) was last Wednesday’s announced decision to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season. You could see this coming. In prior months and weeks, the agency had already been put on notice and under stress. Mass, indiscriminate firings at FEMA eliminated hundreds of jobs in mid-February. In May the acting head of FEMA was removed after mentioning to Congress that in his opinion abolishing the agency wouldn’t be in the best interests of the American people. Meanwhile, backlogs of emergency aid requests have been piling up.

And that’s just FEMA. The majority of U.S. disasters are due to weather, water, and climate hazards, but the National Weather Service and NOAA have also seen similar abrupt personnel and budget cuts, threatening to degrade warning accuracy during the current hurricane season. Other federal agencies, including USGS (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, riverine flooding), EPA (toxic spills, air-quality alerts), DoE (nuclear accidents), and NIH (pandemics), NASA (novel hazard monitoring capabilities) also play roles in monitoring natural hazards and emergency response and recovery at the federal level. They too face cuts in their missions and partial dissolution.

These breakdowns at the federal level have a domino effect. They place an increased emergency response and recovery burden on the states, who are inadequately equipped to handle the load. The funding and personnel needed are not available at the state levels. The ripple effect extends to emergency management at the local level. This is not just a matter of money and people. The need for federal coordination stems from three realities: hazards originate from sources distributed globally, even other countries, not just the immediate vicinity of the resulting disaster; the climactic phases of individual natural emergencies and disasters are themselves no respecters of state boundaries; and the loss of life, property, and the business disruption can be so great for any disaster location that response and recovery efforts have to be orchestrated over much larger areas and across levels of government.

Such emergencies will not end with the 2025 hurricane season. Natural disasters and emergencies are on the rise.

Three closing points:

“A rose by any other name is still a rose.” – Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet). Even Shakespeare’s lovestruck, teenage Juliet would be wise enough to know that eradicating the label emergency from natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes will not eliminate the future need for coordinated emergency management of those and similar events at federal, state, and local levels. America appears to be choosing to abandon a fully resourced, chartered, publicly-visible all-hazards emergency management system in order to focus what remains of DHS on immigration as essentially the sole national emergency[1]. As natural disasters come up, and they will, remaining DHS employees will continue to respond – but only within that infamously limp frame of “other duties as assigned.”

“Physician, heal yourself.” – Jesus, Luke 4:23 (NIV). FEMA, in company with all other human endeavors, could stand improvement. Every FEMA employee, from boots on the ground to leadership, would acknowledge this. But the path to improvement would not seem to lie in crippling the agency, then demanding that those finding their former responsibilities subsumed within a larger agency do more with less.  

Recall that disaster is disruption of an entire community (which can be a community of practice as well as a geographical community), persisting after the hazard has come and gone (in this case, federal budget cuts are still ongoing – the disaster in question remains underway), and exceeding the ability of the community to recover on its own. In most instances, community recovery is largely accomplished with help from the larger unaffected population.

Under ideal conditions, the ravaged FEMA would not be required to improve itself unaided. And yet the simultaneous damage to closely related agencies at federal state and local levels reduces their ability to help.

“You can’t go home again.” – Thomas Wolfe. The challenge is great. For those left behind at FEMA (assimilated into DHS), just as for communities such as Asheville and Altadena still struggling to rebuild, there will be no return to the prior state – to the way things were. Similarly, there’s no moving on – that is, some new beginning with an entirely clean slate. The only choice is to move forward – building a better future founded on the experience and suffering and harsh lessons of the past.

Something very special has to happen. Though rare and difficult, the feat is not impossible. In fact, FEMA itself has seen this movie before. James Lee Witt, the incoming FEMA administrator in 1993, found a FEMA that had been established decades earlier primarily to contend with the Cold War threat of a nuclear attack. Happily (almost miraculously), decades had passed without a single such event. However, the agency remained heavily focused on that single risk. In the meantime, the pressing reality was the multiple natural disasters that were recurring every single year. Under Witt, FEMA reordered its priorities to focus on what had been a glaring blind spot, becoming a much more vibrant, effective force for national resilience in the process.

U.S. government history offers other success stories. One such, on a large scale, was the the recovery and remaking of the US military following the Vietnam War. Some of the key changes? The military transitioned to an all-volunteer force as a means of building a more dedicated, skilled personnel. It focused on more realistic training under battlefield conditions and broadened that focus to cover a full spectrum ranging from counter-insurgency to large-scale global threats. It placed greater emphasis on doctrinal training for officers, and especially on learning from past mistakes. It worked to regain the trust of the American people.

Difficult? Sure. Taking decades? Indeed? Continuous effort versus one-off initiatives? Absolutely. But it has been done and can be done again.  

More on that next time.

[1] An update: this week there are (conflicting) hints that the government may be carving out slowdowns in the deportation of farm-, hotel-, and restaurant workers (see also here). This an acknowledgment of the vital role such workers have been playing across the economy in harvesting American crops, etc. Illegal immigration is a problem. But immigration more broadly is also an opportunity.

“If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if no one is around to hear it?”

The previous LOTRW post noted that nations institute public weather services not just to provide forecasts, but to save lives and property. That national need is met only when weather services work in partnership with emergency managers. Their futures are necessarily intertwined.

Just what is that future? The outlook reveals problems as well as opportunities. This and the next few posts to follow consider both.

Start with emergencies per se. If emergencies themselves were for some reason to decline, the need for emergency management would decrease. But emergencies are likely to increase in number and impact.

A brief aside: this is a matter of reality more than mere nomenclature. Two variations on today’s quote help us see that[1]. The first:

“If no tree falls in the forest, but someone says one did fall, there is indeed a sound.”

In the year 2025, “a state of national emergency” is being used as the legal basis for draconian forms of government action with respect to immigration (framed as invasion) and with respect to tariffs (framed as economic warfare). Here the debate is whether such a state of emergency actually exists.

Meanwhile, natural disasters are driving a separate national conversation in the opposite direction:

“If a tree falls in a forest, but someone says, ‘that didn’t happen,’ then there is no sound.”

Something of this order is going on with respect to presidential disaster declarations dealing with hazards such as flood, drought, storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires and the like. In 2024, President Biden issued 90 such declarations, almost two a week. But in 2025 inaction has been the order of the day. The federal government is slow-walking or denying requests for assistance, arguing that natural disasters are a state-level problem.  (Media coverage of this shift has been extensive; samples can be found in both local– and national news outlets.)

In addition to after-the-fact action, there’s also debate about hazard warnings.

“A tree in the forest is about to fall near you.”

Budget cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service, to the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies would appear to compromise pre-existing improvements in the advance notice and accuracy of warnings. Again, the problem exists at both national and local levels.

George Berkeley’s original reflections on falling trees (footnote) have triggered more than a century of relatively calm discussion by scientists and philosophers. By contrast, the two latter debates about national emergencies are being fast-tracked in the courts. In the first case, political stakes are high. In the second, big bills are coming due, raising questions of who pays – the federal or state governments.

Natural disasters and their accompanying emergencies are the focus here. These are on the rise, both in terms of frequency and in terms of cost. Extremes of wind, flood and drought are nature’s way of doing business; they’re not going to lessen. The damage they do is increasing – the result of population growth and greater property exposure, as well as the mounting costs of business disruption. Social decisions – poor land use (allowing populations and economic activity to move into hazardous areas), inadequate building codes, and fragile critical infrastructure – all combine to magnify the risk.

A quick refresher on disasters-versus-emergencies. A disaster is a disruption of an entire community, persisting after the hazard has come and gone, and exceeding the ability of the community to recover on its own. Emergency management usually refers to the actions during the acute phase when the hazard (the hurricane, tornado, wildfire, etc.) is active: (warnings, evacuations, rescue, and other actions to reduce immediate loss). Here and in the next few posts the term will be expanded slightly to include activities sometimes labeled hazard mitigation, as well as other activities associated with risk management more broadly.

Bottom line: disasters and emergencies are both ascendant. The only choice is between effective versus inadequate emergency management, whether by that name, or some other.

Next time: The emergency management community in the United States (the researchers and the practitioners, extending to first responders) is itself experiencing a disaster – a precipitous, haphazard, and seemingly arbitrary withdrawal of multiple forms of support at the federal level. For emergency managers, this community disruption will persist long after the hazard has come and gone, and will exceed the community’s ability to recover on its own. In fact, recovery is an oxymoron. Things will not go back to the way they were. We need to move forward. That set of realities applies to the emergency-management community just as it does to any geographical community such as Asheville or Altadena, or Boulder or New Orleans.

[1]BTW, was surprised just now to discover that the above quote has its own Wikipedia entry. But (shame on me) of course it does! And it’s not simply that there’s a Wikipedia entry for everything. The article lays out the philosophical question about the role of observers, the emergence of the problem in quantum mechanics, and more. Folks give some credit to George Berkeley for originating the discussion (but not so much for the exact quote).

Meteorologists are hardly celebrities. They’re not visible on the world stage in the same way as entertainers or political figures or the wealthy. Fact is, their work is often most successful when their accomplishments are least noticeable: a forecast of adverse flight conditions enabling the FAA to redirect air traffic; a forecast of coming severe weather that prompts the farmer to harvest a crop a day earlier; a prediction that a hurricane will intensify overnight that puts coastal emergency services on heightened alert; and so on.

For that reason, attempting to identify and rank meteorologists whose immediate past work has most influenced the weather services of today would be a challenge, even for those in the field.

But the name Richard Hallgren should be on a lot of top-ten lists. Repeating a bit of background: Dick’s career began in the 1950’s and spanned more than a half-century, including stints with the Air Force, IBM, NOAA, and the American Meteorological Society, and a continuing role at the World Meteorological Organization; he was actively mentoring service meteorologists and researchers worldwide through regular phone calls until a few weeks before his passing in late 2023. During his nine-year tenure as Director of the National Weather Service (1979-1988) he formulated and led substantial Agency modernization. He reinvented NWS outreach to and partnership with what is today’s vibrant meteorological private-sector. He increased America’s contributions and stature in provision and coordination of weather services globally. His work led to greater safety for all Americans – from farmers to the flying public to those facing immediate threats from floods and drought, winter storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and more.

Our world today is weathering a season of another kind of tempest and hazard. Weather extremes are hitting once-resilient populations rendered vulnerable by recent years of pandemic, disease, poverty, war, terrorism, political turmoil, and civic polarization. Too many of these wounds and their accompanying weather vulnerabilities are self-inflicted. Armed conflicts rage across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Much of the fighting and global unrest is driven by a handful of leaders (not the majority) who care more for a peculiar, unfathomable idea of personal gain than the true needs of their people.

It’s common in time like this when recalling great figures from the past (or our parents or loved ones, for that matter) to think or say something along the lines of “it’s a good thing he or she didn’t live to see this day.”

That’s not the case with Dick. He was made of stern stuff; he wouldn’t be happy with present events or trends, but he wouldn’t cringe. He’d have wanted to be here, and in the action. He’d be vigorously articulating and promoting a raft of good ideas to make for a more peaceful, fair, prosperous, and safer world.

He’d be thinking broadly, but he’d also have strong views on matters closer to home: in particular, the forced retirements, indiscriminant firings, and hollowed-out staff levels of the National Weather Service today, and the implications for the American public.

How would he see things? What would be his message today? Well, here’s a guess – with a little presumption (but not much, because he was so clear and outspoken on a range of similar challenges throughout his life and career).

He would begin with thanks. He would offer praise and encouragement to every NWS employee, from Ken Graham and the leadership at the top to the shift forecasters and other staff at the local forecast offices. This praise would cover present employees but also those of the recent past. It would include those retired, those let go, not just those remaining. He’d salute their acumen and their energy and commitment to public service. He’d commend the service improvements they’d accomplished in recent years and the truly heroic effort they’re making in the face of budget cuts, organizational downsizing, etc. to maintain those high standards.

He would stress mission. He’d emphasize now, as he did in life, that the mission of NOAA and NWS is not simply to make forecasts. The mission is to protect life and public safety in the face of hazardous weather. And in the next breath he’d remind us all that Americans face the world’s greatest weather hazards: the same number of winter storms as Canada and Russia. The same number of hurricanes as tropical Pacific and Atlantic nations. Much more dangerous summer convective weather – including a virtual monopoly on the world’s tornadoes. He’d explain that it would always be tempting to save a bit here and there on the costs of any level of mere forecasting skill, but it would never be acceptable for any responsible administration to make budget-, personnel-, and facility cuts that would put American lives, incomes and property at risk.

He would put people first. As clear from the mission, that would start with the interests and needs of the American public in harm’s way. But it would extend to all people worldwide. Dick would note that weather knows no boundaries; therefore, to know what the weather will do next requires continuous observations and inputs from all corners of the globe. Because the work and costs are distributed worldwide, the benefits should be shared universally as well. Because the important weather impacts are human, he’d know that artificial intelligence and other technologies notwithstanding, it will always be vital to keep human beings in the weather services loop. And because that very human work matters, nations should do their best to maintain stable and functional meteorological work environments.

Accordingly, he would see weather warnings in the face of hazard as a public good. He would note that rich or poor, all live on a planet that does much of its business through extremes of heat and cold, flood and drought, storms and calm (the latter equally hazardous because of its implications for air quality). He would remind all parties that access to life-saving weather information is a basic human right.

He would stress public-private partnership. Just over one percent of American workers are civilian federal employees (a similar fraction are in the uniformed services). This figure is dwarfed by public-sector employees at the state and local level – perhaps 12% of the total workforce. The figures are similar to the worldwide demographics. The vast majority of people live and work in the private sector. That’s where particular weather-related vulnerabilities and opportunities lie. Partnerships are necessary to get weather information to the global public. But that dissemination is not itself the end. That accomplished, other partnerships are vital to then realize weather’s economic and recreational opportunities and to protect against weather risks.  And partnership is not accomplished by savaging or doing away with either the public- or private partners.

He would call for continuous innovation. That would extend beyond merely “doing things right,” to also “doing the right things.” He was always aware that weather is natural, but weather vulnerabilities are a human construct and therefore are constantly changing in response to social change and technological advance. He was always careful to describe the NWS modernization carried out during his tenure as “the Tenth Modernization.” Because he saw the vital importance of people (there’s that idea again!) he used the full title “NWS Modernization and Associated Restructuring,” before launching into a short speech about enabling and empowering the NWS workforce in the execution of its mission. The Modernization reduced the number of offices from some 300 to about 120, while at the same time better equipping the staff, and keeping them close to the local publics and partners they served.

He would stand for identifying and exploring options. Dick was not a member of the ready-fire-aim school. He would decry any break-things-and-see-what-happens approaches to weather services. He’d want to see options before settling on any particular plan or course of action. And he’d want to see multiple options, not just a coin toss to choose among two. He frequently said that the worst human mistake was the invention of coins that only had two sides.

He would be unable to resist telling us “I told you so.” An example, especially poignant in light of recent U.S. events: For decades, Dick railed against each of a multi-year series of small agency steps and actions that have separated NOAA’s weather and climate services, and using those two labels. He understood how different natural processes come into play at longer time scales. But he argued that nature made no sharp distinction or strict boundary line separating “weather” vs. “climate.” Instead, the atmosphere was resolutely variable from minute-to-minute to days to seasons to centuries, and across local and regional and global geographies. He thought we should respect that unity in the corresponding services and their delivery. He also was mildly offended whenever (and this was on a daily basis) different governmental forecasts and private-sector forecasts contradicted each other with regard to forecasts of temperatures, precipitation, and timing and location of events, outside their claimed error bars. He thought this led to public skepticism. He wanted more care in forecast uncertainties.

And being Dick, he’d look at this LOTRW blogpost and spend a half hour listing its omissions, misrepresentations, and other shortcomings, relieving the pain only slightly with an occasional grin. Where’s something on connection of research to services (and the need to fence and protect their budgets)? What about the dangers of content-free leadership? What about…? Such debriefs would usually be terminated only by a smartphone interruption from Australia or the like.

We miss you, Dick.

In 2010, Laura Hillenbrand[1] published her biography of Louis Zamperini, entitled Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption. According to Wikipedia, the book spent more than four years on The New York Times best seller list, including 14 weeks at number one, making it the 5th longest-running nonfiction best seller of all time. Unbroken was subsequently made into a 2014 war-drama movie hit, produced and directed by Angelina Jolie.

A recap, ICYMI: Louis Zamperini had a rocky, largely delinquent youth, but in high school became an accomplished runner, competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the 5000 meters (!). He then ran track at USC, graduating in 1940. World War II interrupted his athletic aspirations. He served in the Army Air Force in the Pacific theater, miraculously surviving several harrowing combat missions, before his B-24 aircraft suffered mechanical failure while conducting a supposedly routine search. Of the eleven crew members, only he and two others survived the crash into open water, 800 miles from Hawaii. They drifted by raft 2000 miles westward for 47 days (one of the three died during this phase of the ordeal) before making landfall on the Marshall Islands, where they were immediately captured by Japanese. Zamperini spent the next two years as a POW, surviving hard labor and torture. His plight was exacerbated by one of his Japanese captors, one Mutshiro Watanabe[2], who held him in a high degree of personal animus, relentlessly tormenting him both physically and mentally. Zamperini had been listed as dead throughout this period and was not released and reunited with his family until war’s end.

The movie, like the book, was a big hit. Zamperini’s grit and courage in the face of a series of adversities of such unimaginable nature and duration is hard to witness even secondhand. At the same time it is inspiring. If you’re an LOTRW reader, and of a certain age, you may well have seen the movie, read the book, or both.

So why bring it up now?

Because, if you’re an NWS or NOAA civil servant – whether you’ve been (prematurely and precipitously) retired; or abruptly terminated; or are still employed, trying to do your job as well as take on some of the work of those no longer at your side – your experiences have much in common with Louis Zamperini.  

You might say that the moment-by-moment threat to life is not similar, and you’d be right. But you endure substantial challenges just the same. For those prematurely retired or fired – there’s the loss of income and its accompanying series of individual and family hardships and emergencies. There’s the additional stress of being all too close to the trials and suffering of onetime-co-workers and being unable to help. But there’s also the loss of a long-held purpose and vision – your dedication to a career of public service, saving lives and property in the face of natural hazards. If you are one of those still in the NWS/NOAA workplace, it’s a daily battle to keep that vision in mind amidst the pressure of doing-less-with-less; running the next forecast, putting out the next outlook in the uncertainty of wondering whether it’ll be your last, or whether it will adequately protect lives and property. It’s being part of something you never thought you would see – an agency struggling to keep the lights on the face of 24/7 weather. All this is worsened, for all three groups, by the isolation and the lack of any script – not knowing how or when or even if the nightmare will end. And stress and trauma extends across the whole of the federal workforce.

You are indeed sharing some of the wartime experience of Louis Zamperini. But you’re not merely imitating him. You’re providing your own unique story of heroism, of bravery (not a lack of fear, but the mastery of fear), that will be captured by another generation of journalists and biographers.

You probably don’t see yourself as heroic. But keep this in mind: He didn’t either. He was just a survivor – for the moment. He was in the business of getting through one more hour of one more day. And he didn’t know when there would be an end, whether in one day or a thousand, and the end-scenarios most likely for him were not happy ones. He saw a hostile environment – the suffering wasn’t the result of a freak accident, a twist of fate. It was suffering deliberately caused by others.

He didn’t see himself as a hero. But he was.

And so are you. Yours, like his, is a Story of Survival and Resilience.

As for Redemption, that too will come, just as it did for Zamperini – and for Hillenbrand herself. Here’s the backstory.

Zamperini, the sequel. According to Wikipedia, Louis Zamperini may have been “unbroken” by his wartime experience, but he suffered severe PTSD (like today’s federal workforce). After the war, he would frequently dream of strangling his captors. He buried himself in alcohol, and in one episode unintentionally strangled his wife when she was pregnant with their child. Then one day she convinced him to go to a Billy Graham Crusade. There he remembered the promises he’d made to God in his wartime prayers, and he followed through, embarking on a changed life. Billy Graham subsequently helped him become an evangelist. He spent much of the rest of his days working with kids at risk in Los Angeles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Zamperini focused much of his message on forgiveness. Over the years, as opportunities came his way, he met with several of his Japanese guards from POW days; some subsequently became Christians themselves. Zamperini even reached out to Watanabe, but never heard back.

If Zamperini was able to find it in his heart to forgive his captors, perhaps at some future point in your life there will be that same opportunity for you to forgive those responsible for all you’re going through now.

Laura Hillenbrand’s story. While a student at Kenyon College, Hillenbrand fell ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis, better known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a disabling chronic illness.  Symptoms include but are not limited to vertigo, faintness and pain, as well as a deep fatigue unrelieved by rest. Symptoms worsen with exertion; subsequent “crashes” can endure for months. People with ME/CFS sleep issues and problems with memory or concentration. The hallmark symptom is post-exertional malaise, a worsening of the illness which can start immediately or hours to days after even minor physical or mental activity. This “crash” can last from hours or days to several months. Forced to drop out of college, Hillenbrand became a journalist and writer.

Imagine what effort it took in the face of an illness of that nature to write non-fiction – let alone truly powerful non-fiction. But Hillenbrand’s ordeals yielded an unexpected payoff. Zamperini had read an essay she’d written about her experiences. He figured she could be trusted to grasp what he’d been through. He opened up to her over the course of many phone interviews in the writing of her book, inspiring her in the process.

So, just a thought – in the midst of these present storms in your life, perhaps you’ll be able to carve out a few hours to stream that Unbroken video, or read or reread Hillenbrand’s excellent book. Maybe the exercise will get you in touch with your own heroism. Though different, your bravery is no less real than theirs.

A forecast: your redemption will be just as real as well.

[1] already well known as the author of the Seabiscuit: an American Legend (1999)

[2] After the war, Watanabe would go into hiding for years to avoid punishment for his war crimes, until the charges were dropped in 1952.

This past week, the five living former directors of the National Weather Service issued an open letter to the American people. Their letter makes a powerful statement on an unfolding national risk, and a moving tribute to unsung NWS employees. With permission, the letter is reprinted here, verbatim:

An Open Letter to the American People

From All Former National Weather Service Directors

The proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, just released by the White House, cuts the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by more than 25%. While details aren’t yet available, if earlier indications hold true this budget would essentially eliminate NOAA’s research functions for weather, slash funding for next generation satellite procurement, and severely limit ocean data observations.

Even if the National Weather Service remains level funded, given the interconnectedness of all of the parts of NOAA, there will be impacts to weather forecasting as well. We cannot let this happen. 

NOAA’s satellites provide vital information about the formation and pathways of storms. NOAA research on severe storms has paved the way for tools we now use every day, such as Doppler radar and storm modeling advancements. NOAA Corps pilots fly into hurricanes to bring us real-time information on these increasingly severe storms. And data from ocean buoys add breadth and depth to our understanding of the interaction between the atmosphere and the sea.

These proposed cuts come just days after approximately 300 National Weather Service (NWS) employees left the public service to which they had devoted their lives and careers. That’s on top of the approximately 250 NWS employees who were fired as a result of their probationary status in new–often higher-level positions–or took the initial buyout offered by the Trump Administration in early February. That leaves the nation’s official weather forecasting entity at a significant deficit–down more than 10% of its staffing– just as we head into the busiest time for severe storm predictions like tornadoes and hurricanes.

NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services.  Some forecast offices will be so short-staffed that they may be forced to go to part time services. Not only are there fewer forecasters, there are also fewer electronic technicians, who are responsible for maintaining the critical NEXRAD radars. Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that’s a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines—and by the people who depend on their efforts.

For example, airplanes can’t fly without weather observations and forecasts; ships crossing the oceans rely on storm forecasts to avoid the high seas; farmers rely on seasonal forecasts to plant and harvest their crops which feed us. Additionally, dam and reservoir operators rely on rainfall and snowfall forecasts to manage the water supply; fishermen in the $320 billion commercial fisheries sector rely on forecasts to stay safe as do tourism and recreational boating communities. Perhaps most importantly, NWS issues all of the tornado warnings, hurricane warnings, flood warnings, extreme wildfire conditions, and other information during extreme weather events. The dedicated staff at weather forecast offices around the country work 24/7/365 to make sure you get that information.

A word about these public servants. They aren’t nameless, faceless bureaucrats. They are your neighbors; your friends; the people who provide lifesaving information when you need it. They live and work in every community in the country. Their dedication to public service – and public safety – is unparalleled. They will often sleep in weather forecast offices to make sure poor weather conditions don’t stop them from being on time for their shifts to do their critical work. They stay at their stations during hurricanes, tornadoes and other severe storms, even when extreme weather affects their own families. They make sure the complicated technology, like the radars we all see on television or on our apps, stay up and operating. They are the everyday heroes that often go unsung.

The NWS heroes who remain know that lives and livelihoods literally depend on the accuracy of weather forecasts as well as the prompt dissemination of that information to the people who need it. As former directors of the National Weather Service, we know firsthand what it takes to make accurate forecasts happen and we stand united against the loss of staff  and resources at NWS and are deeply concerned about NOAA as a whole. Join us and raise your voice too.

Louis Uccellini, Ph.D., NWS Director  2013-2022

Jack Hayes, Ph.D., NWS Director 2007-2012

Brigadier General D.L. Johnson, USAF (Ret),NWS Director 2004-2007

Brigadier General John J. Kelly Jr., USAF (Ret), NWS Director 1998-2004

E.W. (Joe) Friday, Ph.D., Colonel USAF (Ret), NWS Director, 1988-1997

Amen. In any given year the United States endures as many severe winter storms as other polar nations; as many hurricanes as any tropical country; and a virtual lock on the world’s severe tornadic storms. The five men co-signing this letter have led four decades of U.S. improvement in weather forecasts and warnings. Together they have served our country throughout their entire careers – well over a man-century of service in total. They’ve combined here to make a sobering forecast of a different kind. In the plain, dispassionate language they are warning that the personnel reductions underway and the budget cuts contemplated will critically undermine NWS and NOAA services needed to keep America safe and economically productive going forward.

We owe these men, and every NWS and NOAA public servant, our gratitude. We ignore this warning at our cost.

The previous LOTRW post, occasioned by the conjunction of Easter, Earth Week, and the passing of Pope Francis, took a brief retrospective look at his climate-change encyclical Laudato si,’ published in 2015.

As noted many times in this blog, I continue to marvel with a mix of lament and delighted wonder at the ability of eight billion people to accomplish so much, on matters both great and small, while my back is turned. Unsurprising that FOMO is a thing.

This week’s belated catch? Perhaps I’m the only one, but ICYMI, in 2023 Pope Francis issued what the Vatican called an apostolic exhortation (not an encyclical) entitled Laudate Deum – a follow-up to Laudato si’. A much shorter read, it revisits the same ground after the passage of eight years. Papal frustration with the slow pace of progress (and possibly with the lack of any evidence that his prior encyclical had worked significant change), though controlled and thoughtfully expressed, is evident throughout.

In Laudate Deum, the pope argues that the science, which he had considered established in the earlier document, is indisputable, and chastises deniers. He is vexed that the powerful continue to minimize the threat through marketing and misinformation. He continues to push back against the idea that technology and economic power together will be sufficient to stem the damage. He reiterates the moral nature of the challenge, pointing out that the impacts of the environmental degradation will primarily affect the already-poor-and-disenfranchised of the world and will persist for hundreds of years at a minimum, diminishing the prospects of generations yet unborn. He reemphasizes the need for concerted action, sustained by all nations, by international leaders and governments, and by each of us as individuals. But he sees mixed benefits at best from climate conferences. He notes the increasing urgency of the problem.

It’s natural to share the Pope Francis’ concerns (a sign of our mental and spiritual health, really). Here in the United States, the pace of progress is threatened by formal U.S. withdrawal from climate-change agreements, the reopening of federal lands to fossil-fuel extraction, the dismantling of NOAA and EPA now underway, the termination of climate-change related work in other federal agencies, other federal-level policy inconsistencies and more.

However: at the same time, American corporations, especially those competing in global commerce, have ignored such policy shifts in favor of competing for market share worldwide. Renewable energy costs are falling rapidly, slowing growth In world- and domestic appetite for fossil fuels. At the state- and local levels, climate-change abatement policies remain in force. Artificial intelligence, while increasing demand for electricity, points the way toward energy-saving across a range of economic activities. There are reasons for hope.

To repeat a forecast I’ve made before[1]: two-three hundred years from now, humanity will look back on this period in history. From that vantage our descendants will see the year 2000 (plus-or-minus) as a turning point. They’ll say that high-tech observing tools and computing technology produced a flowering of understanding about the Earth system, and that the information arrived just in time, because eight billion people had been inadvertently turning the planet into an ash can. They’ll envy us. They’ll say: It must have been exciting to live and work during that period of discovery and positive progress. At the same time, they ‘ll talk about their present circumstance (living in the year 2200 or thereabouts): It’s not like today. Today all we have is a polarized population and governmental dysfunction as we confront a raft of unsolvable problems. That’s a mere forecast, so of course it carries uncertainty.

But I can also provide a near-guarantee: like Pope Francis, never, during the rest of our lifetimes, will we feel anything but frustration with our slow pace of progress towards this desired end.

Unspeakable personal and institutional tragedies, compounded on one another. Pain and suffering beyond description. But sometimes this is how it feels on the ground when things are going well…

[1] Living on the Real World: How thinking and acting like meteorologists will help save the planet, William H. Hooke, American Meteorological Society 2014, Epilogue, pp 235-237.

Praise be to you!

Pope Francis died this morning. The news media are saturated with material and that material is being augmented and updated so rapidly that there is no need to offer a single link or two here. Much of the remembrance recalls his support of the marginalized, balanced by clashes with traditionalists, on a range of issues. He called for a more inclusive church. To this layman these attributes reflected the life and spirit of Jesus himself. Laudato si’ indeed.

Pope Francis also cared deeply about humanity’s relationship with the rest of God’s creation – especially the planet we live on. These views were most profoundly (and beautifully) expressed in his encyclical from 2015, Laudato si.’

It’s Easter Monday. Worldwide, thoughts of resurrection are in the air. It’s also Earth Week. So perhaps it’s appropriate for me to do something I don’t recall doing before – republish a previous LOTRW post in its entirety – this from June 20, 2015. Here goes, beginning with a quote from the pope’s namesake:

Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs   

– Saint Francis of Assisi

This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters.

– Pope Francis

Praise be to God indeed! Thursday’s Papal encyclical on climate change breathes fresh air and spirit on a world and on a climate-change debate sorely in need of both. The depth and breadth of the discussion defy casual summary. To attempt to identify and lift nuggets from the larger whole or to pick-and-choose cafeteria-style among the arguments presented is misdirected if not futile, though we’ve seen numerous attempts in all the news and social media in the days since. What makes the nuggets truly golden are their settings – the precise wording and the carefully-woven context. That weaving is so deft and intricate that attempts to unravel particular bits from the fuller exposition leave something far inferior to the whole.

In other words, to feel the impact you and I had best read the encyclical in its entirety. That encouragement doesn’t even go far enough. To go further – not merely to feel its impact but to derive its benefit, to experience its healing – we need to meditate on it. And we’re not talking about meditating on it over a single weekend. The encyclical deserves regular revisits. Over months. Years. It’s going to stand the test of time.

Ten comments.

The encyclical is more about human nature than Earth’s nature. In fact it sees the two as inextricably intertwined, inseparable. Furthermore, it sees climate change not as a separate issue, or even as an issue in its own right. Instead it’s a symptom of human failings and shortcomings: greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, mendacity, etc. You could add shortsightedness except that at several points the text notes that we’re not merely oblivious to our wrongs and how they exacerbate the problem. Our actions are premeditated. We possess the needed self-awareness, and we see the bow wave of problems we’re creating for the poor and disenfranchised, for those less fortunate – and yet we proceed anyway.

It’s a Rorschach test. Scientists may be tempted to ignore the spiritual dimension, and focus on the realities of environmental degradation, loss of habitat and biodiversity. NGO’s focused on the plight of the poor, whether the poor nations or the poor within each nation, will exult over the papal support for their cause. Free-market voices of a certain stripe will decry papal attempts to “make all of us poor.” Political leaders of a certain persuasion will grouse about religious meddling in economic and social matters. Check the news summaries and the blogs. You’ll find everyone finding in the encyclical support for long-held positions and personally and institutionally-cherished preferences. (LOTRW is surely no exception; another reason you should read the encyclical from start to finish and draw your own conclusions.)

It’s reality-based. In support, here’s a snippet from section 201 of the encyclical: realities are greater than ideas (the original text includes a citation to an earlier Vatican work). But (especially scientist-friends) be warned; reality here is assumed to have physical, social, and spiritual dimensions. (An aside. Some scientists make it clear that non-experts should be cautious in arguing with scientists about climate change. Understood. But we scientists ought to be equally attentive to those who’ve studied spirituality in a disciplined way when they share what their studies on such matters have revealed. And if we’re reluctant to be blindly submissive on these latter subjects, then perhaps we ought to be more respectful to those who dare question our science.)

It sees these realities and our human challenges as fully integrated and inseparable. For example, the encyclical makes clear that our environmental problems stems from seeing nature and all its life and creatures as being mere objects as opposed to essential manifestations of the love and power and nature of God. It sees our indifference to the plight of lifeforms and landforms as intimately related to our disinterest in the suffering of others. It describes us as having allowed ourselves to drift into a state of slavery to technology as opposed to retaining mastery over it.

It is fully comfortable with both science and faith. At one and the same time the encyclical holds true to the idea of a created universe and embraces findings of science with respect to the size of the universe, the age of the earth, evolution of life, and the nature of reality at the quantum level. It is positive about the contributions of science and technology not just to material human welfare but beauty and the elevation of the human spirit. And interestingly, it doesn’t dither over these concerns; it simply blows right through them. Surely an encouragement to the rest of us to follow suit.

The moral message ought to arouse us more than the economic message. The encyclical makes much of our interest in individual material well-being as measured by conventional means. This has already come under attack from some quarters as “the pope urging us to all be poor.” But the deeper message of the encyclical is that when we enrich ourselves while turning a blind eye to the basic human needs of others – whether for food, or water, or shelter, or respect – we do great and indelible harm to our souls, and that this is the greater danger.

The encyclical is more celebratory than condemnatory. Throughout – in every section and every reflection, the encyclical reminds us that the Creation is good. It sees every aspect of physical reality both animate and inanimate as carrying a message about God’s love, power, interest in our well-being, and forgiving nature. It speaks to our access to joy and peace in light of this understanding. It speaks to the possibility of building a richer, more equitable, more sustainable, future.

It is a group construct. Surely Pope Francis called for it. Surely he made editorial comments as the work proceeded, and had a good deal to say about both its substance and tenor. But the encyclical clearly has as much in common with an IPCC report as it does with the prayerful reflection of a saintly, devout individual. There are frequent, quoted references to thoughts and contributions from bishops from around the world. Much as an IPCC report, the chapters and conclusions are informed by the scholarship and study of many other individuals, past and present, who are extensively and thoroughly cited.

It is a valuable addition to the ongoing global dialog. While, as an encyclical, it’s intended to represent a “final” or definitive papal word in some sense, it’s not intended to supplant discussion so much as contribute to it. The latter sections of the encyclical encourage continuing dialog of all kinds: international, national and local, dialog leading to transparency in decision-making, politics and economy in dialog for human fulfillment, religions in dialog with science. In section 188, the Pope emphasizes all this:

There are certain environmental issues where it is not easy to achieve a broad consensus. Here I would state once more that the Church does not presume to settle scientific questions or to replace politics. But I am concerned to encourage an honest and open debate so that particular interests or ideologies will not prejudice the common good.

Did I say you ought to read the whole thing for yourself and draw your own conclusions? Yes. Is the encyclical the last word? No. Is it a perfect document? No. Is it something you and I would do well to discuss seriously with each other? Build on and improve? Absolutely, no matter who we are or what our role.

Let’s get at it.

(back to April 21, 2025) Thank you, Pope Francis! Requiescat in pace.

The previous post revisited resilience to hazards and hazards recovery, LOTRW topics covered multiple times over past years. That reflection prompted a thoughtful comment from John Plodinec, who offered a range of reasons why FEMA needs a rethink, and a few suggestions for improvement.

Comments tend to get buried in blogs; to ensure that John’s thoughts see the light of day, I’m reprinting them here, verbatim (thank you, John!):

I don’t think anyone can argue with your conclusion – “An attack on one state is an attack on all.” But it doesn’t necessarily follow that FEMA, as she is now, best suits today’s needs.

The GAO has been justly critical of many aspects of FEMA’s operations. The national flood insurance program is … a mess. Sadly, parts of recent FEMA actions have been sullied by partisan games. And too often, there have been conflicts between the states’ and FEMA’s approach to recovery.

Three other aspects of the current situation are more subtle, but also indicate a need for rethinking FEMA:
• Even more problematic, the funding and responsibility for response and recovery funding is spread across several agencies. FEMA, SBA, HUD, HHS …
• Similarly, there are programs in several agencies (FEMA, Dept of Energy, HUD, EPA…) aimed at (or at least impacting) various aspects of mitigation.
• Emergency response and recovery funding is off-budget. In effect, a bad year (in terms of storms and other adverse events) adds to our already overwhelming federal debt.

I look at all of this and conclude that there may not be a better time than this to re-examine FEMA. For example, suppose we set up a disaster “bank” at the national level to manage flood insurance, and emergency response and recovery funding. Every year, it would receive say 60% of the maximum funding spent on response and recovery and flood insurance payouts. If one or more states declared a disaster, they could draw on those funds. In good years the “bank” would build up a cushion; in bad years, it would draw it down. There would be some requirements (as there are now), but the each state would be responsible for managing the funds. We might begin to see some significant innovation in the “laboratories of the states.” Further suppose that, instead of FEMA Regional Offices, we have regional compacts so that the state EMA’s provide support to each other (similar to what utilities do now).

I don’t claim that these ideas are either original or all that great – only that this is an ideal time to figure out how to fix current problems and actually get better bangs for our bucks. If we don’t make changes, we are saying we can’t do any better; to me, that’s an abdication of responsibility.

Well said! And a reminder to me that in these blogposts I’m never so articulate as I imagine or wish. I made mention of FEMA in the post, but that was in passing, while trying to address a bigger point: namely, that since we all find ourselves living on a planet that does much of its business through extreme events, the task of constructing a safety net – building resilience to hazards and recovering from hazards – is everybody’s business, every day. The fifty separate United States are in it together. As are 320 million Americans.

Call me defensive, but I wasn’t suggesting we absolve FEMA from a rethink. Rather I was suggesting that the current finger-pointing and focus on FEMA in isolation is misplaced. I was implying, apparently too timidly or vaguely, that to deal with hazards effectively will require substantive change by all institutions in all sectors, and at all levels. Emphasis needs to be less on fixing blame, and more (and more urgently) on fixing the problem. State and local governments need to place more emphasis on building codes and land use, and on the public education (both K-12 and adult-) needed to sustain political awareness of and support for hazard resilience. The private sector needs to focus more proactively on business continuity in the face of hazards (looking not just at facilities and supply chains but also the larger challenges of critical infrastructure and protecting workers and their families, homes and communities).

In light of the localized nature of most natural disasters and the technical and political complexities and expense of actually reducing disaster losses, insuring/spreading risk across larger regions and populations has appeal. The dollar risks alone are large and growing^[1]. Hence the emergence over recent decades of property and casualty insurance, reinsurance, the much-maligned flood insurance, catastrophe bonds, and other financial instruments. Furthermore, disasters disrupt every aspect of daily life and work in different ways and through every societal interconnection. Risk management is rarely any government agency’s or company’s top concern; but it’s almost always in any sector’s Top Ten. It’s therefore unsurprising that efforts to build resiliency, recover, etc., can’t be confined to any single agency, such as a FEMA. They are spread throughout government and the private sector. The work can’t be compartmentalized.

That brings us to the individual level. We were all born on this planet of earthquakes, cycles of flood and drought, violent storms, disease outbreaks (and more). We can’t avoid risk; at best, we can only choose our risk preference through where and how we live and work. In particular, we can’t eliminate risk through some level of spending. No dollar level of effort will be enough. We must balance our respective family allocations of resources between risk management and life’s other aspirations.

As a practical matter, none of us enjoys universal options; we find our range of choice is constrained by where we were born, our birth circumstances, and the vagaries of life (geography, ethnicity, culture, poverty, wealth, etc.) But in the end, we must each shoulder personal responsibility and live with the consequences of our choices.

One special pain point in all this is the deep longing of most disaster survivors to return to the prior state-of-things. This applies especially to sense of place, but more broadly inclines us to rebuild-as-before. Perhaps we can aim no higher, but we should realize that natural hazards recur. Rebuilding-no-better therefore condemns some future generation to a repetition of the current grief and suffering.

A closing thought. That same longing follows other loss – the death of a loved-one, say. In that instance, however, there is no possibility of going back. As social scientists have explained, moving on, with its implication of somehow forgetting the past and the person, and the relationship, is an unsatisfying path. The path that beckons is moving forward – continuing to remember and honor the relationship and the person, acknowledging the loss and its reality for our present circumstances – but then going boldly into the future.

During this Passover/Easter season, with resurrection in the air, that future might reasonably look a little brighter.

[1] Two (of many) references. The estimated cost to the municipality of Los Angeles of the Altadena fire was $2B. The actual property loss was somewhere between $20-40B. A NYTimes Climate Forward article warns that climate costs could $40 trillion dollars annually by 2050. (The US has 3000 counties; that averages to more than $10B/year per county; assuming our population remains 320M or so, it comes to $100K/year per man, woman, and child). on the city of Los Angeles.