2005 Issues

Welcome to 2005 Issues, Opinions and Essays

By Roy D. Follendore III

2004 was a year of enormous tragedy for our planet. Hundreds of thousands of human lives were destroyed both through intentional acts and through natural events. In retrospect, had even a small fraction of the cost of our war on terror been put into a tsunami warning system, a large percentage of a hundred and fifty thousand lives could have been saved. We knew the tsunami problem just as we knew about the threats to destroy the World Trade Center.

We took steps to protect our west coast from the threat of the tsunami. But we chose to do nothing about it on the east coast and in other places around the world. Perhaps this says something less about our science than the state of our international scientific leadership. Our parochial bureaucratic system are not doing a good job at the analysis of risk.

2004 was also of course an election year in America. The decisions that were made Americans in November will once again be a cause of change within our nation and our world. This time last year I had hope that we would have learned something by now. It is sad to say that in retrospect it now seems that a slight voting majority of us didn't learn a damned thing. During the next four years America will have to learn about the futility and inequitable and unprofitable nature of fighting unwinable nebulous wars once again.

There continues to be so much that needs to be said.

Regards,

Roy D. Follendore III

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