Pandemics

Globalization can impact us in ways that escape most people. Tight integration has given rise to new threats that have yet to play themselves out: global terrorism (evolving to become global guerrillas), pandemics, unregulated hedge funds (massive financial leverage), and multinational outsourcing (economic instability) -- this list goes on.

A tightly coupled global system can go non-linear faster than we can cope with. We don't have the experience or the mechanisms necessary to dampen this behavior. Good intentioned acts (like the invasion of Iraq) can actually serve to accelerate adverse trends.

An interesting threat on the horizon is an Avian flu pandemic (with a perfect storm of capabilities). Here's where blogs can help to get the word out. Nature has a "what if" weblog that runs us through a future Avian flu pandemic. Read it.

Comments

[Derek Curry]

It's interesting that you can simultaneously be wary of pandemics, yet "support 195,000 visas for qualified applicants from India alone" on the basis of something you call "vitality".

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2005/06/india_to_make_h.html

[JTH]

John:

1) been on road so catching up on reading, both blogs and pulp.
Behind in my own postings.

2) Pandemics : Foreign Affairs has "sister" issue to Nature with same topic. Letting Nature take the Sci side, FA taking the policy side.

Focus on H5N1 virus
Coordinated by Royal Institution World Science Assembly

Keep up the good work(s)