Hi Juliet,

This information is indirectly related to what you are discussing. And it represents personal opinions. I have stated this here before. But you were not posting notes at the time.

A major problem with earthquake forecasting efforts has to do with the transient nature of the earthquakes themselves. With something like cancer there are always people who are ill and as a result constant pressure on the medical and political communities to get something done. However highly destructive earthquakes rarely occur in a given location. And when they do people become quite vocal about the need to develop effective earthquake forecasting programs. But then as time passes and no new earthquakes occur the need to develop those programs slips into the background. And little gets done.

The following might be a good example of that.

Out in California right now there is an intense debate in progress regarding who will be the head of the government in the coming years. And all of the candidates are probably saying that they can cure the state’s problems if they are given the chance. But I would expect that a catastrophic earthquake in a major California city would have an absolutely devastating effect on the economy of the state and on people’s lives. In spite of that I would be surprised to hear that even one person had asked any of the people running for office what they were planning to do to protect state residents from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

Now if just before this coming election there were a powerful and destructive earthquake in California do you think that the situation would change? I imagine that it would. Each of the candidates would have to scramble to formulate some earthquake policy which was aimed at making the voters happy. But that is not happening right now as far as I can see. As the saying goes, “Out of sight is out of mind.”

The point of this discussion is, regardless of what major earthquake discovery might have been made you should probably not expect it to get too much attention.