Module 2.3 Resilience 

(Development in progress)

Introduction

Resilience “is the ability of human communities to withstand and recover from stresses, such as environmental change or social, economic or political upheaval. Resilience in societies and their life-supporting ecosystems is crucial in maintaining options for future human development.” (www.Stockholmresilience.org ). There is discussion in the context of COVID that rather than merely recovering, or “bouncing back” society needs to “bounce forward” taking the opportunity afforded by crisis to make fundamental changes to technology and social organization. Talk of a green recovery, national plans for daycare and pharmacare, a housing strategy, and greater income equality are some of the elements touted by by government and civil society.  Against demands for a “green recovery” there are industry pressures for specific subsidies, like the incentives to buy new cars, but this won’t help the middle class or small business (Hill Times). These arguments are a microcosm of the larger debate about adjusting to a new reality and changing the economy and society. Are we facing a climate apocalypse that justifies dramatic action and unprecedented disruption, or can we continue with incremental changes. Central to this debate is the role of capitalism.  This week we will consider the arguments for apocalyptic visions (David Wallace-Wells, Mark Lynas) and less alarmist views (Shellenberger). Our focus will be on the policy implications of these alternative interpretations. Much of the debate divides along the lines of Malthusians versus Cornucopians.  Thomas Homer-Dixon  used these terms  in his book The Ingenuity Gap to describe the tension between those who believe in imminent shortages and technical failure, and those who believe that shortages and market mechanisms will drive new technical solutions - the horn of plenty will never run dry because of ingenuity.  Homer-Dixon’s point was that ingenious solutions require a functioning society. One of the central questions about resilience in the face of climate change, pandemics, and economic instability is whether the unregulated capitalism of the Washington Consensus provides a market-based problem-solving framework (the Cornucopian view) or exacerbates the problems we face by breaking down society. A related problem is whether successive and simultaneous shocks will overwhelm government and society’s coping mechanisms.  We’ll use the Last and Youssofzai (2014) framework to approach planning for resilience to think about this, but we’ll also consider the role of science and technology in driving change.  Jasanoff’s concept of the co-production of science and social order will help us think about resilience and response to crisis.

Learning objectives

• • Explain sustainable design and development
• • Explain environmental stewardship
• • Analyze social and governmental coping mechanisms

Required reading (372)

• • Last and Youssofzai (2014) “A Framework to Approach Planning for Resilience,” Public Policy and Administration Review, September 2014, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 01-21 

Other links and references (374)

• • Peter Victor (2019) Climate change will create disaster, which will slow the economy; we can achieve stasis by slowing the economy consciously to avoid disaster. 
• • Piketty (2014)  shows that unregulated capitalism leads to increasing inequality, thence to instability (Galbraith, 2012)
• • Escalating creative destruction has been pushed by interested ideologues (according to Polanyi, Blyth, Mirowski) 
• • Freeland (2014) Plutocrats - written while she was a journalist, she is now Canada’s Finance Minister. Combining the “working rich” with offshore banking and the “income defence industry” erodes even progressive governments’ ability to conserve income; Plutocratic philanthropy offers some hope, but 
• • Pool (1997) society shapes technology, but capitalism is the main driver, not civil society, (Polanyi, 1947; Blyth, 2002)
• • Zolli (2012)  Resilience: Why things bounce back - transformative leadership is the key - from the middle out, by leaders who understand 
• • Lynas, M. (2020) Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency
• • Shellenberger (2020) Apocalypse Never - this is not climate change denial, but it rejects apocalyptic visions because they paralyze action - How Climate Crisis Hysteria Hijacked Environmentalism (48 minute video), but a review by Peter Gleick in Yale Climate Connections says that Shellenberger uses bad science and bad arguments. (Review)
• • Homer-Dixon (2000) Ingenuity Gap - ingenuity to solve problems requires a functioning society; when societies break down they can’t solve problems and things collapse quickly.
• • Last (2019) Rise and Decline - trying to see the big picture - a short summary of some ideas about the patterns of history at an elementary level (POE116-Case X) 
• • Jasanoff (2004) co-production of science and social order, Ch 1 &2

Presentations

Lecture 1

The first lecture will start with the big picture (rise and decline) then survey drivers of change (capitalism and society - Blyth, Mirowski, Jasanoff, Piketty, Galbraith)  and the conditions that suggest Peter Victor’s proposal for a slower economy might be a solution to climate change. We’ll look at the Shellenberger-Gleick juxtaposition, Homer-Dixon’s ingenuity gap, and Zolli’s ideas of resilience, finishing with a framework for thinking about resilience from a policy perspective. 

Link to the slides

Lecture 2

The second lecture will consider the more dire depictions of climate threats (Lynas, Wallace-Wells) and their implications for policy, working through some examples using the resilience framework. 

Link to the slides

Seminar (for POE374, optional for POE372)

In the seminar, we will use the framework to approach planning for resilience as a foil to consider the best and worst cases.  Students will divide between cornucopians and malthusians to prepare policy responses to best and worst case scenarios.