Resilience Matters: Strengthening Communities in an Era of Upheaval (original) (raw)

Resilience Matters: Transformative Thinking in a Year of Crisis

These are trying times for those who care about equity, sustainability, and climate change—the issues that will shape our common future. In 2017, the United States confronted the costliest year on record for weather disasters, as deadly wildfires and devastating hurricanes wreaked havoc against the backdrop of a presidential administration that denies the reality of climate change. And yet, even in these trying times, there are extraordinary people working to create a greener, fairer world. Over the past year, the Island Press Urban Resilience Project has collaborated with a diverse group of activists, academics, and practitioners to share ideas of how to better prepare for an uncertain tomorrow. Those ideas—originally published as op-eds, articles, and other short-form writing—have now been collected in a new e-book Resilience Matters: Transformative Thinking in a Year of Crisis, available online at no cost. The articles collected in the e-book address the economic, ecological and social dimensions of resilience. They report on a variety of threats, from the vulnerability of our infrastructure to political efforts to undermine the public’s right to clean, affordable drinking water. Importantly, they showcase solutions that are sustainable and equitable. From community groups that are growing local economies while reducing carbon emissions, to red-state cities that are taking the lead on climate action in the absence of federal leadership, these stories illuminate the path forward in tumultuous times.

BOUNCE FORWARD: Urban Resilience in the Era of Climate Change (strategy paper)

In an era rocked by climate change and other large-scale disruptions, our cities must be resilient in order to survive and thrive. But what does that mean, exactly? What is known about urban resilience, and what remains to be explored? And how can we put thinking into practice to create the resilient cities of the future? To help answer those questions, Island Press launched the Urban Resilience Project in 2013, with support from The Kresge Foundation. We began with a survey of the existing literature on resilience and reached out to a diverse group of organizers, researchers, planners, and other urban change agents. In a series of interviews and an all-day assembly, we listened deeply to what they had to say. This report endeavors to capture what we learned.

Resilience Matters: Forging a Greener, Fairer Future for All

In an era rocked by climate change and other disruptions, our cities must be resilient to survive and thrive. But what does that mean, exactly? How can we address the problems facing cities today—poverty, job loss, crumbling infrastructure, pollution—while preparing for an uncertain tomorrow? To help answer those questions, Island Press launched the Urban Resilience Project, with support from The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation. We began by reaching out to a diverse group of thinkers— activists, academics, architects and many others. And we asked them to help envision the sustainable, equitable, resilient cities of the future. In 2015, those thinkers produced a wide-ranging series of articles, blogs and op-eds, which are collected in this volume.

Resilience Matters 2016: Sustainable, Equitable Solutions

In an era rocked by environmental, economic, and political upheaval, our cities and communities must be resilient in order to survive. But what does resilience mean, exactly? And how can we address the problems facing America today — poverty, job loss, crumbling infrastructure, pollution — while preparing for an uncertain tomorrow? Over the past year, the Island Press Urban Resilience Project has brought together some of the country’s leading resilience thinkers to produce a wide-ranging series of articles that sought to answer these challenging questions. A compilation of this work is now available in the e-book Resilience Matters 2016: Sustainable, Equitable Solutions.

Community resilience in the face of climate change

2016

Communities facing the effects of climate change are actively trying to boost their resilience. At the same time, governments are mainstreaming climate change into their development frameworks. Close examination of current practice, however, points at a disconnect between government policy and community initiatives. This study explores how strengthening specific capabilities at various levels can ensure synchronization of policy and practice and further community resilience in face of climate change. Choosing an approach that appreciates the interplay of top-­‐down and bottom-­‐up logics towards performance under stress, it illust rates that understanding resilience in terms of capacity opens the door to practical thinking on policies as well as practices. Evidence is taken from case studies in Chile and Vietnam to show how governments can play an enabling role when connecting their efforts to initiatives taken by communities. At the same time, top-­‐down structures, such as the Uni...

Building Community Resilience for Climate Change through Transformative

Journal, 2021

Human action has triggered a vast cascade of environmental problems that now threaten the continued ability of both natural and human systems. With the increased impacts of climate change related risk and disasters interest has shifted to seeking for more effective and sustainable ways to respond to these disaster and climate-risk with focus on resilience-building. This paper examines the concept of climate change causes and its effects, resilience and resilience building, transformation learning and strategies of building community resilience to climate change induced and related disasters. It advocates for building community resilience through transformative learning to improve the adaptive, anticipatory, absorptive and transformative resilience capacities anchored on transformational risk evaluation, decision making and adaptation. Transformative learning has the potential to instigating changes in behaviour that are capable of reducing climate risk related activities.