What we missed
We see, we suspect, we worry — then (usually) do nothing
“India Ignored Repeated Warnings Before Tunnel Trapped 41 Men”.
Today when I saw this story in The New York Times, my mind immediately went to another similar story, not all that long ago, this one from The Guardian:
Multiple warnings about Titan sub were ignored.
Then it richocheted to this one:
Town Officials Ignored Residents’ Warnings About Site of Fatal Crash.
No; the stories are not about the same things. Except that they are, in a way. By far most of the stories of this nature are about killings from guns:
- Shooter Exhibited ‘Almost Every Warning Sign,’ Expert Says
- Authorities Had Ample Warning About Maine Mass Shooter
- Gunmen in 7 of 2023’s deadliest mass killings showed warning signs
- The warning signs almost everyone missed
But there are building collapses, bridge collapes, accidents of all sorts — tragedies all:
Inspection Records Show Complaints, Structural Issues at Collapsed Apartment Building.
For years, the EPA and Texas ignored warning signs at a chemical storage site. Then an inferno erupted.
All these follow-up stories seem to be telling us how these horrors could have, should have, been prevented. Why are they reported now, though, when it’s too late? Part of the answer, of course, is that news media always look for something to follow up the original report. And these kinds of stories are tailor-made for that. It’s a kind of second-guessing. People always want to know “why” — and this sort of satisfies that craving. Another part of the answer is that, of course, before the tragedy occurred, no media outlet would have thought to write about what might happen to something they didn’t even have on their radar — of the myriad things that could happen, everywhere, all at once. Yet another part of the answer is that when people speak out about something that hasn’t happened yet, it’s easier to simply ignore them; to say they’re obsessed, deluded, uniformed — pick your adjective. More than anything else, this applies to climate change — at least it used to. Finally, it seems, we’re sort of waking up to this one — but media still doesn’t really want to listen to those people now labeled “doomers.” It’s sort of the same thing.
We know; we see; we suspect … and yet, we do nothing. In many cases, the “doing nothing” is because no one will listen to what worriers are insisting is going to happen: “Environmentalists argued that a road project was destabilizing the fragile Himalayan landscape. The government maneuvered to continue it,” ran the most recent story, the one I began this article with. But in other cases, the story is that inspection reports are ignored; psychological test results are ignored; nobody knows really what to do even though the protocols are in place. People don’t want to “rock the boat.”
Whenever I see something — like I did today on the rescue in the tunnel — I find myself going through the same gyrations you’ve just read above. Why don’t we do something before the tragedy? Why don’t we act? And I end up, always, in the same place: that the biggest of these “we knew it was coming but didn’t act” scenarios concerns climate collapse.
I’ve come to call this “inagency” and I’ve written about it before. But as yet I don’t really understand much about why it happens — and I have nothing at all to offer in the way of suggestions to overcome it — suggestions, that is, which will actually work.
