Rethinking Readiness

Jeff Schlegelmilch is a research scholar and the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He previously worked for the Yale New Haven Health System Center for Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response, as well as the Boston Public Health Commission.Irwin Redlener is the founder and currently a senior research scholar and the director of the Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. His books include The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for Twenty-First-Century America (Columbia, 2017).

• ForewordPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Biothreats2. Climate Change3. Critical Infrastructure Failure4. Cyberthreats5. Nuclear Conflict6. Crosscutting Threats and VulnerabilitiesConclusion: Investing in Today, Investing in TomorrowNotesBibliographyIndex

It is often said that the tragedy of 9/11 was rooted in a failure to imagine a disaster of that particular character and scale. Jeff Schlegelmilch reminds us once again of the continued relevance of that hard-earned lesson. He guides us through extreme but plausible scenarios of some of the most existential threats we face—biological catastrophe, cyber infrastructure collapse, and other civilization-altering events—providing a straightforward account of what could be in store for us if we fail to invest in prevention and mitigation. Rethinking Readiness forces our leaders to answer the question—have we done all we can? Now is the time to imagine!