by admin | Mar 15, 2021 | Agriculture, Careers, Coastal Management, Disaster, Disaster policy, Economic development, Emergency Management, Environment, Geography, Government, Hazard Mitigation, Infrastructure, Natural Hazards, Parks, Public policy, Public safety, Resilience, Science, Social Equity, Urban Planning
Volcanoes pose a unique challenge for hazard mitigation and post-disaster recovery in the parts of the world where they occur. In the United States, these regions are along the Pacific Rim and in the middle of the ocean itself—in other words, the Pacific Northwest,...
by admin | Mar 10, 2021 | Activism, Books, Careers, Climate, Environment, Housing, Infrastructure, Nature, Public health, Renewable Energy, Resilience, Technology, Transportation, Urban Planning, Volunteerism, Water
About six weeks ago, as the Biden administration was first asserting its priorities regarding climate change and the environment, I reviewed a book about the positive actions already being taken by cities around the world in addressing the climate crisis. The...
by admin | Jan 28, 2021 | Activism, Books, Business, Climate, Energy Conservation, Environment, Government, Infrastructure, Politics, Resilience, Transportation, Urban Planning
One of the more remarkable facets of the political debate over climate change is the almost knee-jerk rejection among conservative skeptics of the science is that they abandon the same can-do spirit of capitalism that they would otherwise adopt when defending the...
by admin | Nov 23, 2020 | Activism, Agriculture, Books, Civil rights, Climate, Economic development, Environment, Government, Hazard Mitigation, History, Immigration, Industry, Nature, Politics, Public health, Public policy, Racism, Resilience, Science, Urban Planning, Water, Weather
A presidential transition has always been a time to look forward in American history, anticipating change, contemplating new directions. Sometimes we like the new direction, sometimes we don’t; sometimes we think it just doesn’t go far enough to remedy the problems we...
by admin | Oct 21, 2020 | Disaster, Disaster policy, Hazard Mitigation, History, Natural Hazards, Public policy, Urban Planning
When a law makes a powerful impact over time, it is sometimes hard to remember what life was like before it was enacted. In U.S. history, for example, both Social Security and, later, Medicare, created a new reality for the elderly that makes it almost impossible for...
by admin | Jul 20, 2020 | Activism, Business, Chicago, Coronavirus, Disaster, Disaster policy, Government, Healthcare, Natural Hazards, Politics, Public health, Public policy, Racism, Resilience, Transportation, Urban Planning
In recent years, the development of local or regional recovery plans following major natural disasters has become increasingly common. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has long encouraged such planning, and I led the production of two major FEMA-funded reports...
