People reading these notes might think that Roger and I are having a battle over this subject matter. That is not the case. We have been having these debates for years without any problems, and also without getting too much settled. However, I believe that I recently scored a major victory. Roger now admits, I believe, that earthquake triggering effects might be different from fault zone to fault zone. So, you can’t simply lump all fault zones together with regard to triggering effects.

Roger,

Your view of how society works is not too accurate in my opinion. And working in the international disaster mitigation area I can see that quite easily.

People don’t naturally do logical things such as check for earthquake precursors. If they and the people running their governments did what logic suggests or demands then we would not have had that oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, in my opinion. It cost the lives of about a dozen people and produced economic chaos for BP. Logic would have told BP and people working on the oil rig that regardless of the cost, it was imperative that they have safety precautions in place to prevent that type of blowout that was from what I have read apparently caused by their using an unsafe procedure with their original efforts to cap the well. The cost of a blowout like that and the public relations damage to the company probably far, far exceeded the cost of taking the necessary safety precautions.

The idea that people and their governments will automatically do logical things such as check for earthquake precursors or determine that an oil well is not going to take off like that does not match with reality. People, companies, and governments generally move towards whatever they consider to be a profit. Elected government officials might consider profits to be measured in votes. And they assume that someone else is going to make sure things are done correctly. Unfortunately, “someone else” frequently does not exist. And that is the case with the science of earthquake forecasting. There is no “someone else” doing the work that needs to be done. If there were, there would be no need for this EarthWaves bulletin board.

These are personal opinions.