When we imagine emergency response, few would imagine the Department of Transportation (DOT) as a major player in the game. If we take a second to think about it, impacted roadways block folks from getting to work, goods cannot be distributed, medical personnel cannot get to persons in need, and the list goes on. Much like my earlier post on mobility corridors, roadway and transportation planning goes beyond laying pavement to get cars from point A to B. It’s quite apparent that human transportation planning directly impacts our access to resources, health and safety resources, and economic prosperity. But honestly, Brian’s talk went beyond discussing CDOT’s engineering woes. The key takeaways that Brian and his team presented are applicable to anyone working in emergency management, community coordination and outreach, and beyond. They are:

• Build resilience as a system. 

• Resiliency by… Retreat. Design. Technology. 

• Keep making friends outside your industry.

• Prepare for all disasters - we can control the stuff we put in nature’s way.

• Update your plans - know your risks and the available set of solutions.

• Support better practices.

• Never give up - run the marathon.

What’s So Special About Colorado?

Colorado is no exception in its environmental, atmospheric, and social complexity. While the impetus for the development of the 2020 Colorado Resiliency Framework largely came from major fire-flood events that hit the Colorado Front Range, the concepts within the framework are relevant for any federal, state, local, or community decision maker. Climate change and evolving environmental behaviors are forcing all of us to re-look our understanding of where risk is, where risk will be, and how we can take action now to reduce exposure in the future. 

In the near future I will write a more detailed article about the phenomena of the fire-flood relationship and why this is gaining attention for both physical scientists as well as the EM and policy world. In the meantime, I can summarily say that post-fire flood events exacerbate runoff (ie. larger flash flooding), increase soil erosion, can cause landslides, and impact water quality and lead to long-term water contamination issues. Colorado, like many other parts of the world, is experiencing this phenomena more frequently and has been seeing flooding happening outside regulatory floodplains and in areas that have not historically been impacted. Flooding also occurs in areas that have experienced historical flooding and roadway failures. So we have a situation where new flooding events and potential infrastructure failures are being added to recurring infrastructure failures. In addition to the potential for loss of life, this costs taxpayers and the state a lot of money every year due to revenue loss, repair costs, and dedicated manpower.

Something to put in your rucksack

As cheesy as it is, there’s a military saying for when someone gives you nuggets of wisdom. The term is to “put it in your rucksack”, meaning you take something useful that you will carry with you for a long time. You don’t know when you will need it, but it’s important enough to carry with you because when you do need it, it will be a lifesaver. The points Brian gave are definitely things I’ll put in my rucksack and hope you will, too. Because you never know when these will help you and your team or community in the future.

1. Build resilience as a system. There are two systems - environment and human - which compose the resilience system. Humans and the environment interact all the time and resilience is built by understanding and working with these two very dynamic systems and by using the appropriate tools and methods to make the system both elastic and robust.

2. Resiliency by: Retreat. Design. Technology. Resilience by retreat is the biggest concept I hope we embrace in this evolving age. The concept is to remove infrastructure from areas of high exposure. Say, a roadway gets washed out every year or there are homes in a known and active floodplain. Instead of building additional infrastructure and manipulating nature around existing infrastructure, why not remove the road or decommission the houses? This may seem costly or not “progressive”, but the long term economics and social impacts make sense. Resilience by design and resilience by technology are, again, two fundamental concepts which I anticipate will play a major role in how we increase the robustness of our resilience system. Humans’ lived experience and historical knowledge combined with machine learning and efficient technological systems can and will enable more dynamic designs, faster response and decision making, and ultimately lead to greater forecasting and planning tools.

3. Keep making friends outside your industry. For anyone who has worked in an interdisciplinary space, this goes without saying. But for those who have siloed themselves in their work and research, get out there and ask people about their experiences. I can almost guarantee you that someone you thought you had no similarities with faces the same challenges you do and they have come up with a unique way to solve it. We are all problem solvers navigating our corner of the world. We’ll be stronger if we have lifelines in far off places when the waters get rough.

4. Prepare for all disasters - we can control the stuff we put in nature’s way. When disaster strikes, people often view nature as the problem. Nature is unpredictable, it is unrelenting, and it has no boundaries. But by framing the human-nature dynamic in a new light, we gain agency. We can make efficient plans to reduce exposure and thus build more resilient systems. Nature is not in our way, we are in nature’s way.

5. Update your plans - know your risks and the available set of solutions. In my past life, I was responsible for building military courses of action based on knowing how the enemy behaves, their tools, and their objects. This knowledge enabled my team to present our decision makers with a suite of possible enemy actions. This then allowed our internal team to inventory our own capabilities against these threats and to make our own plans. Resilience planning is no different. When you understand the risk and you understand your own capabilities, you can act swiftly and efficiently.

6. Support better practices. Given all the previous advice, challenge what’s possible. Don’t rest on the laurels of the status quo. We should constantly challenge and test our resilience system to find better ways to interact with nature, to build our capabilities and tools, to expand our network and social networks, and to advocate for better policy.

7. Never give up - run the marathon. No matter how robust our resilience system is, we will continue to face disaster. This applies to flooding as much as it does to life in general. Murphy’s Law is always lingering around the corner and the best way to continue on is to have some grit, take it step by step, and keep on keepin’ on no matter what life throws your way.

Key Takeaways

• Two primary motivations for governments to censor: (1) concern for public safety, (2) establish power during periods of conflicting ideologies

• Regardless of censorship issues, public trust is fundamentally necessary for effective risk communication

• Public engagement and self-education is also critical for developing sustainable plans with and for communities in risk prone areas

• YouTube, blogs, podcasts can be a powerful tool not only for individuals to engage with information, but for educators as well to work around censorship or institutional constraints

Scientific Censorship

From Galileo to modern day, censorship has happened and will continue to happen for varied reasons. While there are limited empirical studies regarding censorship, Clark et al. published a paper that attempts to address the motivations behind censorship. I found this article as a helpful way to step back and critically look at our current situation and gain an understanding of how to navigate this period moving forward. The biggest take away from the study is that censorship typically happens for two main reasons: (1) concerns for general safety and (2) establishment of authority and power. I remember censorship of certain research in the late 00’s with the justification that certain knowledge could be used by terrorists to weaponize biological agents, such as anthrax or dirty bombs. [This NYT article provides additional details.] Sure, this is an understandable argument as to why knowledge is restricted for the general good. Contrarily, expunging climate change research and vocabularies around this phenomena are hardly grounds for protecting the general public.

Clark et al. state: “Although citizens in liberal democracies support free speech in the abstract, they often support censorship in ideologically challenging cases. Censorship may also signal in-group allegiances, as members denounce others to gain status and affirm their group’s superiority.” Given the divisive ideologies of the current administration, it is no surprise that this round of censorship is (likely) a move to consolidate power and propagate their dogma. When political institutions attempt to undermine and control scientific and academic institutions, it complicates the general public’s trust in competing authorities. While there is not specific evidence for this, it is rational to think that the COVID response fundamentally shook the public’s trust in various institutions and laid the foundation for political and social ideologies to overpower scientific findings. Since then, public trust is various institutions continues to degrade. Amidst these confusing times, we must remember: “the fundamental principle of science is that evidence—not authority, tradition, rhetorical eloquence, or social prestige—should triumph.” (Clark et al.)

Social Trust

Let us consider the crux of this issue. Whether you’re a professional in the medical field, mental health, or environmental research, we cannot effectively communicate with the people we serve when political authorities restrict our vocabulary, undermine institutional competency, and create unpredictable environments by restricting access to information and dramatically shifting research priorities. Through their studies regarding risk communication, Kasperson et al. determined that “trust is viewed as an important prerequisite for effective orientation and action at both the interindividual and societal levels of interaction.” Furthermore, they identified four key elements required for social trust: commitment, competence, caring, predictability. Each of these pillars crumbles when censorship occurs during ideological conflicts. This is likely nothing revelatory for any of you and something many of us have already likely been trying to navigate even before this year. The question now is how we rebuild these pillars.

Science Communication

The internet continues to grow as a tool for scientists and educators to reach broader audiences. Clark et al. state:

“Scientists now have other means (besides academic journals) to publicize their findings and claims of censorship. If the public routinely finds quality scholarship on blogs, social media, and online magazines by scientists who claim to have been censored, a redistribution of authority from established scientific outlets to newer, popular ones seems likely.” 

An intriguing point about YouTube and blogs is that individuals choose to engage with the content. In a way, this allows individuals across the general population to gain agency over what they engage with and how they choose to engage with that information. Studies regarding risk communication identify stakeholder engagement as a main source of effective communication. When discussing environmental risk communication, Bier state that “with direct stakeholder participation in the process of environmental decision-making, stakeholders no longer need to rely on trust in senior decision-makers or their institutions, since they will themselves be decision-makers and will be able to observe and influence virtually all aspects of the process.” Again, this concept challenges power dynamics and provides agency and decision making at an individual and community level. 

On one hand, these communication outlets allow various experts to communicate as they see fit without constraint, which is a unique way to work around censorship issues. However, the lack of institutional reviews also allows for quasi-anarchical scientific thought to spread, including disinformation and propaganda. There are quite a few science communicators who excel at refuting disinformation and can bridging institutional belonging and individual communication, such as Smarter Everyday, Miniminuteman, and Veritasium to name a few. I myself choose to communicate through blogs to provide discussion points and extend resources for self-education. I have not found any studies studies specifically looking at the effects of YouTube and blogs on public perceptions and social trust; however, educators and scientific communicators must maintain awareness of these effects as we move forward with public engagement.

Keep Calm and Communicate On

I have much more to say on this topic, but I’m sure I will lose you (if I haven’t already). Censorship is a historically common thing that challenges institutions, power dynamics, and complicates risk communication. Finding ways to effectively engage individuals and communities is essential to rebuild social trust. Regardless of your field of study or expertise, having awareness of science and risk communication is key to navigating turbulent times. Educate yourself, engage with those around you, and find ways to communicate your work and research in a positive and helpful way.

If you are interested in reading more articles related to this topic, please check out some of the resources listed below:

Bier, V.M. “On the State of the Art: Risk Communication to the Public.” Reliability Engineering & System Safety 71, no. 2 (February 2001): 139–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0951-8320(00)00090-9.

Burns, T. W., D. J. O’Connor, and S. M. Stocklmayer. “Science Communication: A Contemporary Definition.” Public Understanding of Science 12, no. 2 (April 2003): 183–202. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625030122004.

Clark, Cory J., Lee Jussim, Komi Frey, Sean T. Stevens, Musa al-Gharbi, Karl Aquino, J. Michael Bailey, et al. “Prosocial Motives Underlie Scientific Censorship by Scientists: A Perspective and Research Agenda.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 48 (November 28, 2023): e2301642120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301642120.

Davies, Sarah R. “STS and Science Communication: Reflecting on a Relationship.” Public Understanding of Science 31, no. 3 (April 2022): 305–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/09636625221075953.

Fischhoff, Baruch, and Dietram A. Scheufele. “The Science of Science Communication.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110, no. supplement_3 (August 20, 2013): 14031–32. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1312080110.

Frewer, L. “The Public and Effective Risk Communication.” Toxicology Letters 149, no. 1–3 (April 1, 2004): 391–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxlet.2003.12.049.

Grimm, Jannis, and Ilyas Saliba. “Free Research in Fearful Times: Conceptualizing an Index to Monitor Academic Freedom.” University of Salento, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1285/I20398573V3N1P41.

Kasperson, Roger E., Dominic Golding, and Seth Tuler. “Social Distrust as a Factor in Siting Hazardous Facilities and Communicating Risks.” Journal of Social Issues 48, no. 4 (January 1992): 161–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1992.tb01950.x.

Nielsen, Kristian H. “Scientific Communication and the Nature of Science.” Science & Education 22, no. 9 (September 2013): 2067–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-012-9475-3.

Palenchar, Michael J., and Robert L. Heath. “Strategic Risk Communication: Adding Value to Society.” Public Relations Review 33, no. 2 (June 2007): 120–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2006.11.014.

Rowan, Katherine E. “Goals, Obstacles, and Strategies in Risk Communication: A Problem‐solving Approach to Improving Communication about Risks.” Journal of Applied Communication Research 19, no. 4 (November 1991): 300–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909889109365311.

Zimmerman, Rae. “Social Equity and Environmental Risk1.” Risk Analysis 13, no. 6 (December 1993): 649–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1993.tb01327.x.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/31/trump-order-usda-websites-climate-crisis 

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/science/science-and-censorship-a-duel-lasting-centuries.html