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Special New Year's Message from the President, STAEP
The harsh realities of natural hazards on this densely populated planet were on our television screens and websites during the final week of 2004, and they brazenly adjourned the year with trauma, tragedy, and unprecedented sadness. Impoverished people on the "other " side of the globe are facing hardship and survival closely kin to the most primitive and savage of circumstances: no family, no home, and no belongings.
All this was caused by the geologically simple and somewhat predictable event called a tsunami. This concentration of seismic energy, borne on the tailwind of one of the most powerful earthquakes in Earth history, methodically and effortlessly moved across the Indian Ocean, bringing unbelievable destruction and death to the low-lying, over-populated coastal regions of Indonesia.
As environmental professionals, these events hit us with a peculiar and significant awareness: it is our charge, our destiny, to be the Knowledgeable Ones; to be those professionals who intimately understand the fragile relationships of Man to the environment, and who strive to make human life more dynamic, progressive, sustainable, and safe in an environment that, at times, seems blatantly uninterested in our survival.
It is our charge to be sympathetic to the pain and misery resulting from the endless conflict between man's existence and nature's fury. As Men, it is our duty to promote the spread of Homo sapiens sapiens across this planet. That is our genetic purpose, our biologic quest. As Environmental Professionals, it is our duty to do so with a strict regard for environmental protection and a responsibility to recognize those instances when Nature, not Man, will ultimately prevail. It is our additional duty to lessen the impact of Man vrs. Nature by promoting sensible urban development, functional regulations, effective emergency preparedness, and ethical professional practice based on sound principles and honorable standards.
Could the unbelievable tragedies that occurred in Indonesia happen to us? The stark reality is Yes. It is our collective job as Environmental Professionals to prevent them.
No doubt that's the biggest and most important New Year's Resolution you'll ever have.
Thomas N. Smith, P.G.
President, STAEP