It's time to change the mind-set that natural disasters are inevitable.

It's time to change the mindset of governments, who tend to plan too little for natural disasters.

We can't actually stop hurricanes or tsunamis or other extremes of nature. But ... we can avoid a lot of unnecessary human and economic losses.

Scientists have to get involved with the policy-making community right from the beginning and try to understand what the constraints on policy-making are.

We have an opportunity right now right after disasters while governments are more receptive to influence policy from the start.

I wasn't throwing down a gauntlet, I was trying to change the customer's mind. A lot of these things would have happened anyhow,