Some of you may have been reading the words against a grey background appearing at the top of recent LOTRW posts:
Living on the Real World is joining the AMS Headlines content hub. This site will stop being updated as of December, 2025. Please visit AMS Headlines for science and community news from AMS!
AMS Headlines is a big deal. The Society is taking an important step to augment the access, breadth, quality and timeliness of the resources it provides the community. This starts with an unbundling of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. For years, each issue of BAMS has blended peer-reviewed science articles with a mix of other material that might better be characterized as news (upcoming meetings, chapter activities, 45-Beacon Street updates, etc.). Those latter bits matter to the broader Weather, Climate and Water Enterprise, but sit awkwardly in a technical journal. They can also often be perishable; they’re most valuable when input and made accessible continuously and in near-real time, versus monthly after a delay of two months or more. Going forward, this- and additional news material will be available through AMS Headlines (see About and FAQ’s.) Access will be free even to non-AMS members.
The month some years ago when BAMS started publishing one of my posts in each issue was a happy day – I will always remain grateful. But in this new AMS Headlines format, the posts will receive greater exposure, and more quickly.
Thus fifteen-plus years of quasi-independent WordPress support have come to an end. The site will no longer be updated, but the posts from that period will remain accessible. Thank you, thank you, WordPress (and AMS)! Thanks as well to all the readers who have provided feedback and encouragement over the past fifteen years (and the more-than-1100 posts). Most of all, thanks to the community that has done so much through research and services to tap the Earth’s natural resources, to foster more sustainable and equitable societies, to protect the environment, and at the same time build resilience to Earth’s natural hazards – all to the benefit of Earth’s eight billion human beings, and the natural world on which we live and depend.
More needs to be done in each respect. For its part, LOTRW will stay true to its focus going forward. It will continue to address the human relationship with the real world, that is, the solid Earth, the oceans, the atmosphere, and the plant and animal life that enable all human affairs – a real world that we merely live on (as on that outermost skin of 197 million square miles), not in (as in that 260 billion cubic miles of crust, mantle, and core). But the transition requires we review some historical context and tie up some loose ends, even as we identify and spin up new topics. The next post – the first to appear on the new platform – lays out a road map for LOTRW in January.
Remain mindful – LOTRW is only the tiniest speck of this much bigger AMS story. AMS Headlines will offer all of the larger community, not just AMS membership, additional means and opportunity to reflect-, to celebrate-, and to build upon the far-reaching implications of our essential work.
Good reason in itself to look forward to 2026. More soon on the fuller rationale for hope.
With that in mind, my first post on the AMS Headlines website provides a plan/overview for Living on the Real World posts for January.
May thecoming years bring each of you fulfillment and satisfaction as you work to build a better world.