“Resilience” Makes More Sense

“Resilience” makes more sense than sustainability argues Melinda Harms Benson and Robin K. Craig in “The End of Sustainability.”  As I’ve said before in this blog, “sustainability” really isn’t what we should want or can realistically have.  The world is going to change – no matter what.  And good thing!  Our task is to figure out how to make those changes as good as we can make them and to avoid “tipping points” resulting in crashes we can’t cope with.  Benson and Harms say:

“What we need are new policies and institutions that accommodate uncertainty and anticipate nonlinear change, both of which are realities of the Anthropocene. Scientists, policy makers and others must work together to design and implement environmental policies that promote and build adaptive capacity while also providing stronger, more legally enforceable and institutionally supported goals — goals that reflect the adaptation strategies necessary to negotiate our complex and rapidly changing world.”

We need to be continually aware of what’s happening and whether we need to tweak here and there (again and again) to adapt and improve.  We need to work together to find solutions based on shared values.  Quit wasting time fantasizing about some never-changing utopia that never existed or never will and quit being knee-jerky against innovations. Change can be good.  It’s certainly inevitable.