As Japan basks in the success of its World Cup champion women’s soccer team, the impact of the recent tsunami on the country is still very real. Although it has been over four months since the tsunami struck Japan, and one may assume clean-up efforts are going smoothly, restoration progress has actually been greatly hindered. Not one organization or person is to blame for this slowing of progress, but one theme that stands out is the strict regulation the Japanese government has put on relief efforts.

Read more on Japan’s Slow Disaster Relief and a New Plan for Renewal…

I was thinking this morning about the moral calculus that goes into discussions about climate change policy. It’s the case that for any even or action, there are an infinite number of causes (conditions that are necessary but not sufficient for the event to occur).

Read more on The Moral Calculus of Climate Change…

Today’s WaPo has a story about Incident Commander, “a training simulator that gives players a lead role in managing crisis situations such as terrorist attacks and natural disasters.”

In “A Computer Game for Real-Life Crises: Disaster Simulator’s Maker Gives It to Municipal Emergency Departments,” Mike Musgrove writes about the video game software, which was used by an Illinois paradmedic just days before he was called into duty following Hurricane Katrina.

Read more on Disaster Video Gaming…

I got a copy of Marvin Olasky’s The Politics of Disaster: Katrina, Big Government, and a New Strategy for Future Crisis in the mail today, fittingly enough on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating storm surge.

Read more on Olasky on Politics and Natural Disasters…