1/ 7 crew members died the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. The problem was O-rings that failed at launch. Some of the engineers worried about the O-rings but didn’t speak out. They knew but no one did anything.
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2/ More than 150 people died when an apartment building collapsed in Miami this week. A 2018 engineer’s report had warned of “major structural damage” to the building but no one had acted on the report. They knew but no one did anything.

Jun 27, 2021 · 10:51 AM UTC

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3/ Both situations reflect the way we’re dealing with climate change. The problem is urgent, the warnings are there, yet we’re acting on it with the speed of swimming through a vat of molasses. At the rate we’re going our descendants will say, “They knew but no one did anything.”
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4/ We keep acting as though we’ll solve our problems by accumulating more data, but lack of data isn’t the problem. Complacency and entrenched systemic resistance is the problem. Lack of courage, lack of wisdom and lack of leadership is the problem. The time for awakening is now.
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5/ Correction re O-ring story: one engineer famously did try to warn about the O-rings and was overruled at the time by management (the analogy is even better) spacesafetymagazine.com/spac…
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Replying to @marwilliamson
People are reactive and resist being proactive. The Surfside condo collapse is yet another example. They knew in 2018 but did nothing.
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Replying to @marwilliamson
We may not have the exact number or @PatrickLovell1 can help here in giving total number of lives/homes ruined by @emo_jamie_dimon. I guess quite a lot of people warned of 2008 Financial crimes/collapse & yet the same bankers continue to ruin American families/lives. None cares?
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Replying to @marwilliamson
In 2013, a ferry ship carrying 300 high school students sank just off the coast of South Korea. The engineers knew that there was an illegal weight in cargo, but the ferry company wanted to make money overloading the boat. They knew but no one did anything.