Cassandra Screaming
While I have a great deal of sympathy and compassion for people caught in disasters, I'm also often very frustrated because so much of it is often preventable.
According to Anderson Cooper on CNN, people spend about $2 billion a year on psychics. It's natural for people to want to know what might happen in the future in order to best prepare for it. We spend billions on psychics to predict the future for us.
And yet, when scientists, who have the best grasp on what the future might portend by virtue of the methods they use to study the world, try to warn people of impending disasters, they are all too frequently ignored. In fact, in today's anti-intellectual climate, they are often villified.
It's like Cassandra standing at the gates of Troy, telling her people not to bring the wooden horse into the city. Did the Trojans listen? No. She was just a crazy woman ranting nonsense. And they ignored her at their own peril.
In many cases, science is actually quite good at predicting the future. Scientists may not be able to predict the exact time and date. They may not be able to predict the exact details and severity. But they often can predict likelihood and provide estimates as to effects. Environmentalists predicted the disastrous flooding of New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina washed ashore.
I've been aware for over a year that the NYC subway system was one bad storm away from being flooded due to rising sea levels if the city didn't take measures to raise its floodwall.
Science tells us that it's only a matter of time before both Los Angeles and San Franscisco experience a devastating earthquake, and that much of the infrastructure and many of the buildings in those cities will not survive.
Science tells us that demand for water in western states will soon exceed capacity, creating critical water shortages in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Science tells us that our aquifers are being drained and our water poisoned by pharmacuetical drugs that aren't tested for by the agencies responsible for keeping our drinking water safe.
Science tells us that if you build in a flood plain, you're likely to get flooded. (That one is pretty much common sense, and yet people still seem to be shocked when it finally happens.)
Science tells us a lot of things that we don't want to hear. Science told us that smoking causes cancer long before tobacco companies fessed up to it. Science tells us that obesity is linked to heart attack and stroke. Sure, not everyone who smokes will develop cancer, and not every obese person will die of a heart attack, but science can predict the future of those who do smoke with more accuracy than a psychic reading a deck of tarot cards. If you're a smoker and you develop cancer, you shouldn't be surprised.
Science tells us that global warming will effect the entire planet in ways it can't even begin to predict, and frankly that scares the crap out of me. If you care about the future, it should scare the crap out of you, too.
If you want to know what the future will bring, start paying attention to the warnings provided by the people who study how the world works, who measure and quantify what is actually happening and project that information onto the future. Your future. Our future.
Now let's talk money. We complain and whine about improper and wasteful spending of tax dollars.
NYC could have saved millions, possibly billions of dollars if they had acted proactively to raise their seawalls instead of waiting to do it after the disaster actually struck.
New Orleans could have saved billions, not to mention 2,000-some lives, if they had listened to environmentalists before Katrina hit.
It's a terrible waste of tax payer dollars to address these issues retroactively instead of spending the money to prevent the disasters in the first place.
Troy would have done well to listen to Cassandra's screaming. We would do well to listen to our own voices of prophesy, the scientists warning us of the consequences of our actions and inactions and take measures to protect ourselves accordingly. Unfortunately, like Cassandra and Troy, we too often ignore them. What folly to let the city burn.
According to Anderson Cooper on CNN, people spend about $2 billion a year on psychics. It's natural for people to want to know what might happen in the future in order to best prepare for it. We spend billions on psychics to predict the future for us.
And yet, when scientists, who have the best grasp on what the future might portend by virtue of the methods they use to study the world, try to warn people of impending disasters, they are all too frequently ignored. In fact, in today's anti-intellectual climate, they are often villified.
It's like Cassandra standing at the gates of Troy, telling her people not to bring the wooden horse into the city. Did the Trojans listen? No. She was just a crazy woman ranting nonsense. And they ignored her at their own peril.
In many cases, science is actually quite good at predicting the future. Scientists may not be able to predict the exact time and date. They may not be able to predict the exact details and severity. But they often can predict likelihood and provide estimates as to effects. Environmentalists predicted the disastrous flooding of New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina washed ashore.
I've been aware for over a year that the NYC subway system was one bad storm away from being flooded due to rising sea levels if the city didn't take measures to raise its floodwall.
Science tells us that it's only a matter of time before both Los Angeles and San Franscisco experience a devastating earthquake, and that much of the infrastructure and many of the buildings in those cities will not survive.
Science tells us that demand for water in western states will soon exceed capacity, creating critical water shortages in places like Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Science tells us that our aquifers are being drained and our water poisoned by pharmacuetical drugs that aren't tested for by the agencies responsible for keeping our drinking water safe.
Science tells us that if you build in a flood plain, you're likely to get flooded. (That one is pretty much common sense, and yet people still seem to be shocked when it finally happens.)
Science tells us a lot of things that we don't want to hear. Science told us that smoking causes cancer long before tobacco companies fessed up to it. Science tells us that obesity is linked to heart attack and stroke. Sure, not everyone who smokes will develop cancer, and not every obese person will die of a heart attack, but science can predict the future of those who do smoke with more accuracy than a psychic reading a deck of tarot cards. If you're a smoker and you develop cancer, you shouldn't be surprised.
Science tells us that global warming will effect the entire planet in ways it can't even begin to predict, and frankly that scares the crap out of me. If you care about the future, it should scare the crap out of you, too.
If you want to know what the future will bring, start paying attention to the warnings provided by the people who study how the world works, who measure and quantify what is actually happening and project that information onto the future. Your future. Our future.
Now let's talk money. We complain and whine about improper and wasteful spending of tax dollars.
NYC could have saved millions, possibly billions of dollars if they had acted proactively to raise their seawalls instead of waiting to do it after the disaster actually struck.
New Orleans could have saved billions, not to mention 2,000-some lives, if they had listened to environmentalists before Katrina hit.
It's a terrible waste of tax payer dollars to address these issues retroactively instead of spending the money to prevent the disasters in the first place.
Troy would have done well to listen to Cassandra's screaming. We would do well to listen to our own voices of prophesy, the scientists warning us of the consequences of our actions and inactions and take measures to protect ourselves accordingly. Unfortunately, like Cassandra and Troy, we too often ignore them. What folly to let the city burn.