From CNN: Texas disaster casts harsh light on America’s future, An excerpt:

“A nation starts losing ground when its leaders, instead of focusing on what’s best for their country, become more concerned with their personal interests. Disasters become catastrophes when partisanship overtakes patriotism; when ideological obedience turns policy into fanaticism; when political loyalty outranks competence in government staffing and when extracting political advantage becomes the overpowering goal of people who took office claiming they wanted to work for the people.”

From the GAO: Countering Violent Extremism: DHS Needs to Improve Grants Management and Data Collection. GAO-21-216: Published: Feb 1, 2021..

From CNN: Nation’s top governors under fire as three big states reckon with deadly crises, An excerpt:
“The devastating impact of the pandemic and the near collapse of Texas’ power grid has revealed the nation’s lack of cohesive planning for disasters — whether it is US readiness to treat and vaccinate millions of Americans in the grip of a deadly virus or to protect them from the alarming severity of major weather events, including winter storms, hurricanes and wildfires that have unfolded in the midst of a climate crisis.”

From The conversation: One Month In; How Biden Has Changed Disaster Management and the US Covid-19 Response, by Brian J. Gerber and Melanie Gall.

The Diva notes that Melanie Gall is one of the chapter authors in the book U.S. Emergency Management in the 21st Century; From Disaster to Catastrophe. the editors of which are Claire B. Rubin and Susan Cutter.

From the Converge group at the Univ. of CO/Boulder: Extreme Weather Events and Geohazards in a Time of COVID-19. The is a research-setting agenda paper.

This is one of the 90 Working Groups funded through CONVERGE. You can find all of them here: https://converge.colorado.edu/resources/covid-19/working-groups

Thanks to Dr. Lori Peek of the Univ of CO/Boulder for these citations..

From the WashPost: Opinion: A disaster expert died two days before he was set to be vaccinated. Here’s how to honor him.

From the National Academy of Sciences, free webinar on Feb. 25: Future of Electric Power in the United States: Public Briefing, by NASEM Energy and Environmental Systems

From the WashPost: Opinion: This Texas weather is a chilling reminder about our battered power grid

Another article on the same topic: How one Texas storm exposed an energy grid unprepared for climate change. Electric grid regulators said the U.S. will have to develop vast supplies of power storage — such as gigantic batteries — that rely on emerging technologies

From the NYTimes: Scientists Are Trying to Spot New Viruses Before They Cause Pandemics. Scientists want to build a weather system for viruses. It would require a big financial investment, plus buy-in from doctors, hospitals and blood banks.

The Diva is a subscriber of KM World, a knowledge management newsletter which I think is still free. The current issue is titled Looking into the Future: 2021 Insight and can be downloaded at no charge. This current issue contains several interesting articles, including “Knowledge Management in the Remote Work Era” and “The Enterprise of the Future.”