Elements of Resilience
Building up resilience in the world economy is often considered to involve a push for strong local action. Instead of long and complicated global supply chains, communal and regional value creation is envisioned to take over. But how might that work in the context of a world population that will be nearing 10 billion people, many of who live in high-density urban areas? Only focusing on local aspects will likely not be enough. In addition, we will need the regional and global levels as well, and we will need to also strengthen their resilience.
Proposals for resilience-oriented economic innovations seem to predominantly contain local solutions, for example in the permaculture movement. Resilience is often positioned as a counterpoint to globalization, with the hope that strengthening local action will also have positive effects on the global scale. While local action and its potential for positive effects on all scales should not be underestimated, there are other factors at play which encourage us to look at regional and global scales as well.
Local action in the context of resilience is designed to first of all cover basic needs, so that in the face of climate-induced or other uncertainties, local communities can remain less affected than in a state with less resilience. This includes local food production and storage, water management, health and security services. To power all of this, electricity will need to be produced. If all of this is set up (which is a big if, as we will discuss in different articles), then value flows might run smoothly on a local scale. Indeed, it is possible and advised to run the local value flows as circular as possible, to reduce the required inflow of energy and materials to sustain local activity.
As soon as we look beyond pure survival-level subsistence in resilience, we will encounter value flows that need to scale to at least the regional context. These include food beyond the absolute essentials, as well as a wide range of consumer and professional goods that require specialized labor, such as building materials, precision instruments, and IT equipment. At this regional level, circularity of value flows will need to be replicated to ensure less dependency on global supply chains.
Resilience on a global scale will favor open source technology and universal access to published ideas.
There is a clear need for continued value creation on a global scale, so pure anti-globalization cannot be the answer. The global scale is the natural environment of technological innovation, if we allow for the free flow of information and a constructive competition of ideas. To maximize the integration with the regional and local levels, resilience on a global scale will favor open source technology and universal access to published ideas.
In the face of uncertainty generated by the climate crisis and other all-encompassing developments, local communities need to be engaged in support structures on the regional and global levels. Natural disasters that are exacerbated by global climate change will nevertheless have the most dire effects on select local communities. A community hit by a natural disaster might be better of if it has built resilient structures, but it may well still require significant help from elsewhere. This may not be limited to immediate disaster relief, but potentially include support in feeding its population for months or even years to come. In a world of very high uncertainty, networks of solidarity on all levels are more important than ever.
