Search Results for: learn from experience

Prologue: With each passing day, the Puerto Rican disaster reveals its true extent. It’s no mere disaster (a word cheaply tossed about), but a dire – and deepening – humanitarian crisis. Three million islanders need help now with food, water, … Continue reading →

Prologue: The daily news from Puerto Rico is excruciatingly tragic. A week after Hurricane Maria’s passage, some 3.5 million people are still picking their way through 3000 mi2 of debris in a search for food and water, and despair mounts. … Continue reading →

Many words could have been applied to America’s four-year swearing-in ceremony for new presidents, observed once again tomorrow. Why this particular word? Hard to find any history peculiar to its choice here in the United States, but generically, we’re told … Continue reading →

We close out our short series on Lewis Fry Richardson, on the 131st anniversary of his birth. _________________________________ WWJD? What would Jesus do? Most of us are familiar with this acronym. Many people wear it on one of those yellow … Continue reading →

If we took a poll of Earth scientists and their colleagues, what fraction do you think might have read Stephen R. Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People? This book was first published in 1989. To call it … Continue reading →

Seize the day! We all know we’re supposed to do this. Today, I’m living this out with an actual site visit to DIEM – the DHS Center of Excellence headquartered in Chapel Hill. Focusing on Natural Disasters, coastal Infrastructure, and … Continue reading →

An increasingly popular and visible feature of AMS Annual Meetings is a suite of so-called Town Halls. Often scheduled for the lunch hour (and therefore attracting primarily that minority of attendees who prefer food for thought to the competing invitation … Continue reading →

“When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging.” – Will Rogers Prior to arriving in Washington in the 1980’s, I’d led a sheltered life and never heard this expression. But I hadn’t been here long before a friend laughed … Continue reading →

Continuing the thread of the last post: “The threats from climate change, sea rise, drought and desertification, food security and many other slowly developing crises are not linked to dramatic events that focus media, public, and political attention. How well … Continue reading →

“It is better to heed a wise man’s rebuke than to listen to the song of fools.”                  Ecclesiastes 7:5 (NIV) Yesterday, Roger Pielke, Jr. commented as gently as he could about a factual error in my post on disaster losses. … Continue reading →