Category Archives: Uncategorized

About a month ago, I read a columnist who said she[1] found it easy to write columns that were interesting, and easy to write columns that were true – but difficult to write columns that were both interesting and true. … Continue reading →

Vaughan Turekian and Peter Gluckman call for Rewiring science diplomacy in an August 21, 2025 Science editorial. They offer a valuable perspective on emerging challenges facing such work, the changes underway, and the new coping strategy needed. They note that … Continue reading →

In June I wrote a series of short LOTRW posts on the future of emergency management. ICYMI, here’s a link to the fourth of these, which in turn links to the three earlier posts. In part the series was motivated … Continue reading →

And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. – King Solomon[1], Ecclesiastes 4:4 (NIV) This Old Testament verse reminds us that our tendency … Continue reading →

Better than you think. Here’s why. The previous LOTRW post makes the case for Elijah the Tishbite as the greatest meteorologist of all time. 3000 years ago – before satellites and radar, before mathematics and computers, before AI – he … Continue reading →

(This post is a bit longer, and a bit different from the usual… my apologies in advance.) When I was growing up, “goat” was a somewhat derogatory term. Part of this stemmed from the qualities of goats themselves. They’re considered … Continue reading →

…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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

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 … Continue reading →

“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 … Continue reading →