The Resilient World

People and Place provides another winning post, this time reporting on a 2009 National Research Council document. The six principles for effective decision-support are also six good principles for building resilient institutions.

Amplify’d from www.peopleandplace.net

Informing Decisions in a Changing Climate is a 2009 U.S. National Research Council publication. At the core of the book are six principles for effective decision support. (This text is shortened, without ellipses.)

We found that the same core principles that characterize effective decision support in such areas as public health, natural resource management, and environmental risk management apply to informing decisions about responses to climate change: (1) begin with users’ needs; (2) give priority to process over products; (3) link information producers and users; (4) build connections across disciplines and organizations; (5) seek institutional stability; and (6) design processes for learning. Read more at www.peopleandplace.net

Here's the concept of the day from the Sustainable Cities Collective.

Amplify’d from sustainablecitiescollective.com

"There's an extraordinary potential for 'sunburnt' cities to embrace the idea of smart decline" — doing more with less, whether it's fewer people, fewer home buyers or fewer jobs, says Justin Hollander, urban planning professor at Tufts University and author of Sunburnt Cities, which was published March 1. Read more at sustainablecitiescollective.com

BBC reports today of a caution issued by the UK's Royal Academy of Engineering that the country may be over-reliant on satnav systems. The failure of satellite navigation can result in system disruption because there are no backups. This has the potential to interrupt emergency services, law enforcement, and activities as mundane as stocking the grocery shelves (one of my favorite headlines of all time read "Nine Meals from Anarchy"*, from the Manchester Guardian concerning the challenges of stocking inner city grocery shelves during the blizzards of the winter of 2009-2010, an example of another kind of system disruption, from weather). Satnav systems could fail for reasons completely out of human control, such as solar flares.

This is an example of vulnerability in a critical control point in the distribution of information or materials in a tightly integrated system. Disruption at a control point can propagate throughout a system, causing cascading failure. This was the big concern of Y2K. Examples of the phenomenon include the great power outages of NE North America in 2003 and South America (Brazil and Paraguay) of 2009.

John Arquilla, a defense analyst with the US Naval Postgraduate School, coined with co-author David Ronfeldt, the term "netwar" to describe how networked cells (e.g., of insurgents) can disrupt and defeat much larger hierarchically organized forces, again by attacking critical control points and causing cascading failure. In response Arquilla argues persuasively for new tactical approaches based upon network design, with redundancy, mobility, autonomy of cells, and use of strategic communication to help create an enabling environment (public diplomacy to counter propaganda). He calls this formulation "outpost+outreach."

I can see many parallels here with other threads in the debate about the future. These threads share the characteristic of eschewing linearity, exemplified by hierarchical "command and control" structures in favor of networks of autonomous units.**

The "good governance" narrative, for example, predicated on public participation, and promoting access to information, transparency in decision-making processes, and involvement of all stakeholders in decisions. The "information and communications technology revolution" narrative revels in the evolution of communication from "one to one" and and "one to many" to "many to many" through social networking. Social networking, it would appear, is antithetical to command and control systems, such that despotic regimes are now faced with a stark choice - to share power or turn off the lights.

Over coming days, I want to consider ways in which the network approach applies to international development. Is the war on poverty being left behind - a vestige of linear thinking in a networked world? Is it evolving in ways that the old school doesn't recognize? Or is the netwar on poverty in full swing? In other words, what can we learn from the warning of the Royal Academy of Engineering about vulnerability of key control points, and how can we apply that to processes like certification.

* The expression was coined earlier by Lord Cameron of Dillington, a farmer and first head of the UK Countryside Commission, according to the Daily Mail.

**  In the United States, my home country, the tension between "command and control" and autonomous units, was present at the founding of the nation. The correct balance of local control and national authority remains a hotly debated topic.

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Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

The UK may have become dangerously over-reliant on satellite-navigation signals, according to a report from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Use of space-borne positioning and timing data is now widespread, in everything from freight movement to synchronisation of computer networks.

The academy fears that too many applications have little or no back-up were these signals to go down.

Dr Martyn Thomas, who chaired the group that wrote the report, told BBC News: "We're not saying that the sky is about to fall in; we're not saying there's a calamity around the corner.

"What we're saying is that there is a growing interdependence between systems that people think are backing each other up. And it might well be that if a number these systems fail simultaneously, it will cause commercial damage or just conceivably loss of life. This is wholly avoidable." Read more at www.bbc.co.uk

Image from Let Ideas Compete on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons 

Resilience is the ability to spring back from a perturbation.

Planning for resilience is planning for perturbation, and understanding how your system functions in the face of it.

Planning for perturbation can cover a wide range of problems, some of which are more important than others.

It is necessary therefore to prioritize which perturbations to address.

Understanding the probability of perturbation is risk assessment.

An assessment of the probability of risk involves modeling. Modeling is based upon known risks (though unanticipated risks may emerge from models). 

This modeling has to account for complexity. Perturbations occur within a system of systems, such that impacts in one system (e.g. economics) may have impacts in other systems (e.g., governance, ecology, geophysics etc).

Once risks are established, it is necessary to understand how different responses to avoid or mitigate them can generate different results.

It is necessary to understand empirically what factors generate better results.

It also requires an agreeable definition of "better results".  

Thus, the development of resilient communities is the development of risk-aware communities, and the stove-piping of expertise is a barrier to the development of such communities. 

A community self-assessment checklist would involve

1. an evaluation of the basic inputs and outputs of the ecological, economic, and social systems (the known knowns - labor, ecosystem services, finance)
2. an evaluation of gaps in knowledge (the known unknowns)
3. [some consideration - viz Taleb] of the unknown unknowns - those factors, which, based upon analysis, may promote the ability of a community to withstand a "black swan" event.

John Robb's excellent Global Guerillas blog describes the early adapters to the brave new world of "political failure, economic depression, financial panics, rampant corruption/criminality, and violence" who are voting with their feet. A "flight to safety" from the failing dollar, according to the Sovereign Man site. So we have guns and butter on the one hand, and capital flight on the other. A veritable self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next is circle the wagons, and gut-shoot'em at the border. Do these scenarios run history in reverse? Cumulating in what, slavery? Yikes.

Take a stand, folks. Make your communities as resilient as they can be. To begin, we need to understand how resilient they can be. What are our fall-back positions for food, energy, health care, and other necessities? Are we investing in the fundamentals? No more running.

Amplify’d from globalguerrillas.typepad.com

Had the opportunity to give the keynote at the Sovereign Man conference in Panama last week.  VERY cool conference (although it sold out in 24 hours, it's unlikely to be repeated anytime soon).  The topic of the conference:  methods for hedging sovereign risk.   The thought that kept going through my mind as I gave my talk to the 350 smart/successful people in the audience:  These people in front of me are just the start of a flood.  Early movers.  People that have seen the long run stagnation and recently accelerating decline of western middle classes as just the start of something much worse -- political failure,  economic depression, financial panics, rampant corruption/criminality, and violence.   In other words, they were the first real refugees of the formerly developed countries to the north.   Read more at globalguerrillas.typepad.com

In the Washington Post online's opinion pages, dated Friday Feb 25, Mike Tidwell, Executive Director of Chesapeake Climate Action Network, describes the measures that he is taking to prepare for an increasingly likely scenario of system disruption resulting from climate change.

I know several people who have concluded that things are likely to get much worst and are preparing with similar measures. Some have bolt holes in the mountains and a few are stockpiling weapons. Many are edging towards food self sufficiency by ramping up gardening or working out energy self-sufficiency options.

Measures to prepare for the worst may be prudent, but they aren't sufficient. There's probably some correlation between personal security measures and a sense of the absence of resilience in a community. The only meaningful way to prepare for the worst when it becomes a chronic problem is to work with your neighbors to improve the resilience of your community. What can you do?

Well in the first instance, it would be useful to assess your vulnerabilities - where your community is not likely to spring back easily after a shock. And although I have not yet developed such an analytical tool, I think that it is safe to say that many of us live within a system of systems that is very precise, and finely balanced - think "just in time" delivery of necessities. Last winter the Manchester Guardian, reporting on the difficulty of stocking shelves after heavy snows, warned that the region was "nine meals from anarchy".

Our system is so finely tuned that a failure in one component easily leads to cascading failures, culminating in a complete breakdown in social order such as was seen in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit.

Brothers and sisters, better locks on your doors, hidey holes in the mountains, and a generator may make you feel secure. But in the long term, will you be more secure? Will your community close ranks and help one another? Or is it every man for himself where you live? Women, do you agree? How then do we respond? That's the challenge.

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

As a longtime environmental activist, I was deeply alarmed by new studies on global warming, so I went all out. I did my part.

Now I'm changing my life again. Today, underneath the solar panels, there's a new set of deadbolt locks on all my doors. There's a new Honda GX390 portable power generator in my garage, ready to provide backup electricity. And last week I bought a starter kit to raise tomatoes and lettuce behind barred basement windows. Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

The idea that bright young things fresh out of college would beat down the demons of poverty and ignorance never really did hold water. But the critics miss the point - it isn't the world that needs the Peace Corps, its America.

Americans are astonishingly insular to this day, which is simply wrong given America's global reach and influence. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes does wonders for one's ability to engage with a strange and incomprehensible world. Where America misses the boat is making effective use of the pool of talent it has created by this post-graduate training in the school of hard knocks. Peace Corps volunteers, at least the ones who stick it out, typically know a thing or two about resilience.

(Disclaimer - RPCV Sierra Leone '85-'88)

Amplify’d from www.foreignpolicy.com

The Peace Corps turns 50 this year, and its friends will tell you that the U.S. government-run program is as spry as it ever was: It retains a strong reputation, considerable bipartisan popularity, and the vocal appreciation of generations of returned volunteers. But a less friendly observer might point out that the agency also exhibits the signature fault of its Baby Boomer peers: It can't seem to move on from the 1960s.

When it started, the Peace Corps had this playing field all to itself. In 1961, the agency was the only American volunteer organization operating internationally. But times have changed. For one thing, the corps no longer enjoys a monopoly on service abroad: In 2008, more than 1 million Americans reported volunteering in another country, according to Benjamin Lough at Washington University in St Louis. Alongside a number of other government-backed programs, organizations ranging from church groups to private companies to Doctors Without Borders send people overseas to provide everything from manual labor to advanced technical expertise.

The Peace Corps was designed to benefit its host countries by placing well-educated (if usually inexperienced) young Americans in undereducated developing economies. But in recent decades, those countries have stepped up their game in producing college and university graduates. Only 3 percent of the college-age population of Guatemala, a reliable favorite Peace Corps destination, actually attended college in 1970. That figure is 18 percent today. Read more at www.foreignpolicy.com