The Dawn of the Age of Ignorance and Misinformation

The following item is an op-ed piece that I was encouraged by the editor of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics to publish in their newsletter relating to problems arising following the L’Aquila, Italy earthquake (where civic authorities refused to take action to earthquake-proof historical structures and, subsequently, blamed and imprisoned 6 seismologists for the ensuing disaster) as well as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy (which had a very strong climate change connection but where the public refused to respond to evacuation orders resulting in many avoidable deaths). Earthquake retrofitting, location of housing, etc. are part of a broader perspective of sustainability sometimes referred to as “resiliency.” However, given the potential for catastrophes which take 100s of thousands of lives, I prefer to cite such measures as being illustrations of pursuing “survivability.”