Well, Italy has just lost itself any prospect of decent monitoring of geophysical hazards for the foreseeable future. Residents of Naples and Catania and elsewhere can settle down to having stuff all understanding of the potential risks they are living under. They may as well ask the lawyers what the state of Vesuvius or Etna is, as any decent geologist or geophysicist is going to be fleeing from Italian research. A massive step backwards.
People can pretend they can pass the buck when things go bad, but it will be a whole lot worse if they wilfully neglect the best understanding we have of natural systems, be they climate, weather or geophysics. Medieval-scale understanding, here we come.
