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.”
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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…

Jun 27, 2021 · 11:24 AM UTC

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Replying to @marwilliamson
Isn’t it always the way that whistleblowers and truth tellers are ignored or marginalized? Example, Colonel Vindman, now DC Police Officer Michael Fanone…
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Replying to @marwilliamson
"Before the Challenger disaster, Mr. Boisjoly sent a memo to his superiors at Morton ThiokolIn ... In the memo, he warned that the seals connecting the sections of the boosters could fail in cold weather, saying that 'the result could be a catastrophe loss of human life.' "
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