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.
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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.”

Jun 27, 2021 · 10:55 AM UTC

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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
I'm glad you are tweeting You made a lot of sense way back when.
Replying to @marwilliamson
They are saying already
Replying to @marwilliamson
It's more like an ocean of molasses, and instead of swimming, we're treading molasses as the molasses level rises, and sort of talking with increasing concern about how we probably should start swimming
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Replying to @marwilliamson
That's 100% why I rant-tweet: at least I can't be accused of having stayed silent. There are real costs to speaking up. I've found that out too!
Replying to @marwilliamson
History will show, "they saw this 'toon and heard wind & solar both lose-to-the-losers, but they stupidly-ignored the only option with any chance of working to solve the CO2 problem because its snarky 'Energy Density Matters!' proponents mocked them!" imgs.xkcd.com/comics/log_sca…
Replying to @marwilliamson
They also knew about 9/11 and Covid 19 and didn’t do anything about it.