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The term resilience is ambiguous, but is popular enough to spread widely throughout culture. Resilience literally means to ‘bounce back’. It is used virtually everywhere, from sport to science, environmental, economic and global policy. As far as science is concerned, it seems to have been used in physics and ecology first (C.S. Holling), but it is also used frequently in the social sciences (see ‘Putting a Face on Resilience’ in HRR magazine). Psychologists and psychiatrists talk about examples of personal resilience, especially in young people (see Norman Garmezy).
One big question about resilience is whether it actually means something universal or has its repeated use reduced it to nonsense? During times of disaster, a radically changing climate and global financial crisis, it seems resilience allows people to talk about methods of recovery that were either unknown, not thought about as much, or never existed.
I thought it would be interesting to check on how often resilience has been used in books using Google’s Ngram tool. Researchers with the Tipping Points project use data from Ngrams in many of their studies on the use of emotion words for example as well as the use of climate science terms, both of which are on downward trends at the moment. The term ‘tipping point’ itself has also been studied by researchers and reached its peak in academic publications some years ago. Read more
Extreme weather events like Hurricane Sandy may make people think differently about the implications of the planet’s changing climate.
While climate takes place over much longer periods of time than weather people can still perceive it with some level of accuracy. A range of recent studies have shown that climate knowledge can spread through communities within a number of different settings. Indigenous communities for example, many of whom live most of their lives outdoors, likely experience changes in climate much differently from people who spend most of their time indoors within more controlled settings (see Making indigenous voices on climate change heard).
The context of climate change is important for communicating its impacts on the planet and society. If climate change science can’t relate to people’s everyday lives it makes it seem less important, even though we may have only a small glimpse of what climate change actually means for the planet as a whole and the flora and fauna that inhabit it.
In many cases people’s ideas about climate change may come primarily from the mass media, but to see this problem of climate communication as the responsibility of the media alone seems rather unrealistic. The fact remains that most media organisations have their own values embedded within their respective institutions and they normally succumb to market demands, rather than social or cultural values that are much wider ranging and long-term including those of science. Reportage of climate change is often influenced by political orientation especially for publications that give ‘climate scepticism’ equal footing with scientific consensus on climate change. Read more
The city of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Air pollution is a problem in many parts of the world, but especially India, China, Bangladesh and a number of other countries in Asia. During the World Economic Forum it was announced that India has the world’s worst air quality. Is the air pollution experienced in these countries primarily due to human activities such as heavy industry? Likely. A combination of emissions from vehicles, coal power plants and other sources is enough to make populations vulnerable to diseases caused by breathing in polluted air. But it’s not like this is a new problem, many of the more developed countries have had similar if not the same problems with poor air quality and in many cases still do. For example, London’s air decreases the life expectancy of its residents. Read more
Desertification is not only a problem for the countries that experience it, but for the entire planet. In this talk given by Allan Savory on TED, he explains how managing grasslands ‘holistically’ can reduce desertification, namely ‘by keeping cattle more densely packed on small plots of land and moving them frequently‘. This keeps herds from overgrazing and fertilises the land at the same time, restoring its nutrients. And if you can prevent grasslands from turning into desert they can remove carbon dioxide from the air, helping to mitigate carbon emissions that cause climate change. Simple, yet effective and cattle grazing, often viewed as ecologically destructive, becomes an environmental solution, not a problem. It also seems a great way to assist pastoralist communities in Africa.
An interesting infographic from LearnStuff.com for provoking discussion about climate change and could be used as an educational tool for younger audiences. I think it’s also important to keep in mind that further research, discussion and debate on the degree of environmental change that human-induced climate change plays a role in is imperative to adaptation efforts. How people experience climate change firsthand is an area of research that will likely play a greater role in both climate change mitigation and adaptation throughout the world.
