Executive Message

“Communications”

The South Asian tsunami must have caught most of you wondering why so many lives were lost even though there was ample time to warn the people. In fact, attempts were made to warn people in those countries long before the tsunami hit. Was it a lack of political will, funding or a disbelief in science, or more particularly – geophysics?

I remembered watching a show on television 3 years ago about the tsunami that hit near Vancouver a few hundred years ago. It certainly caught my awareness then. I had been telling my friends, especially those living in Vancouver, about the potential danger. My efforts, as a geoscientist, often fell on deaf ears. It was much like the attempts to warn people in South Asia of the tsunami. More amusingly, after the disastrous tsunami, there was a news article that made the headlines in some parts of Asia. This article caught many people’s attention better than a scientific report would have. It was about a turtle that warned someone in a village on the impending flood. The villagers claimed that the whole village was saved because of this higher level, talking turtle.

My belief is that with enough political will, most of these people could have been saved. The majority of these people don’t even know what a tsunami is. For example if the governments in those affected countries had an awareness program that showed a tsunami documentary 3-4 times a year, then the people would have known that they could have saved their own lives with simply a few minutes of running to higher ground. Instead they stayed back in amazement watching the tide recede.

It is sad in this day and age that we are still meeting with such resistance to scientific explanation by the average person in this world. I would not be surprised that another disaster will strike at the cost of many lives, in a case where science could have helped save lives. Who knows in a few thousand years when the earth goes through its next polar reversal, will mankind have accepted science enough to save itself from extinction?

We do not need to go too far to feel this resistance to science, even among the scientists. I have heard far too many stories about engineers hesitating to believe in geophysics, about some companies not even relying on seismic to help pick a well location. The list of resistance goes on and on – how geophysics could be playing a much bigger role in saving the environment and many living creatures in this world; how geophysics can even be used to save the accountants many dollars. Why would a house be built below a slide prone area, even after being proven unsafe in a geotechnical report in N. Vancouver?

Is this all a result of our inability to communicate properly? We have many forums for geophysicists to seek out scientific information, for example on the web or even at our own CSEG website. Please check this site out www.cseg.ca, if you haven’t already done so. You might be surprised at what you can find. So on whom shall we blame this resistance? Perhaps I should just say it does take both sides interested enough to allow for this transfer of information.

Is this all a result of our inability to communicate properly? We have many forums for geophysicists to seek out scientific information, for example on the web or even at our own CSEG website. Please check this site out www.cseg.ca, if you haven’t already done so. You might be surprised at what you can find. So on whom shall we blame this resistance? Perhaps I should just say it does take both sides interested enough to allow for this transfer of information.

Finally, CSEG offers 2 main vehicles for communications. One is through the RECORDER and the other is through the CSEG web site. Another important means of communication is through word of mouth by its multitude of volunteers and committee members. There are already various forums that the CSEG uses to bring information and knowledge to a wide spectrum of the population in Canada and throughout the world. To name just a few of them, there are geophysical courses, publications, conventions and outreach public awareness programs. Please feel free to suggest ways for CSEG to help spread this geophysical or scientific knowledge around. Let’s give a big thank you to all the dedicated volunteers in CSEG, who are willing to sacrifice their valuable time to help spread this information. Maybe some day we will be able to help avert a major disaster.