VIEWPOINT: What eggs will hatch from the Gleneagles nest?

Reuters AlertNet article:

"Sir David King, Britain's chief science advisor, put it this way in an interview with the BBC: 'What we're looking at is...setting up a system where the best scientific understanding of volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and near-Earth objects striking our planet is pooled together and brought to those international bodies through the appropriate channels.'

"This initiative has the potential for wasteful and confusing duplication. The U.N.'s inter-agency secretariat for coordinating disaster reduction strategy, the ISDR, has working groups that already bring together some of the world's best scientists on some of these hazards, as do many other initiatives through the International Council of Scientific Unions, UNESCO and other organisations. "