Early Warning Conference

Dealing with the disasters of recent years, the world has learned one thing: early warnings save lives. From the South-East Asian Tsunami to the Katrina's visit on New Orleans, better preparedness for the impending disaster would have been the best preventative measures that could have been taken. The UN took the lead and convened a World Conference on Disaster Reduction -- held in Hyogo, Japan, from Jan. 18-22, 2005. Although disaster preparedness has been an interest of the UN for sometime, it was probably the SEA tsunami that really motivated the nations of the world to do something. Whether the interest continues is another story. For our sake, the interest better continue, as there appears to be no end of disasters promised for the future.

This year, the third International Conference on Early Warning is being held this week in Bonn, Germany -- and the focus is on less talk, and more action. An interesting read coming out of the conference is the UN's Global Survey of Early Warning Systems [PDF] -- a look at just where the world is in preparedness for natural disasters. Other news from the conference is the relative strides that some of the third world nations seem to be taking in addressing education and early warning strategies. All promising in a world that seems to throw up a disaster every day.

Makes me wonder, with all the problems we have trying to survive and keep each other alive, why do we keep trying so hard to kill each other.