Tag: resilience

What comes after Sustainability? Resilience?

According to Rob Hopkins of the Transition Movement, and following David Holmgren, the co-creator of the permaculture concept, sustainability is not enough and we need to move beyond it. But what comes after sustainability? The answer, it seems, is: resilience. How successful has the paradigm of sustainability been at achieving its aims? It makes an … Continue reading What comes after Sustainability? Resilience? →

The feedback loop as a symbol for life in the 21st Century

self-organisation is a high-level property that emerges from the underlying network, not a feature of any of the individual components. This has interesting consequences. Where any part of the mechanism is sensitive to the environment, the whole self-organising loop can be too. http://aeon.co/magazine/science/why-the-symbol-of-life-is-a-loop-not-a-helix/ Here's an example from the Resilience Alliance - the adaptive cycle - that … Continue reading The feedback loop as a symbol for life in the 21st Century →

Detroit: a city fit for superheroes?

Chatting with my young son this evening it occured to us that superheroes require certain types of cities, certain kinds of urban form, in order to thrive. Spiderman needs tall buildings closely packed in order to leap between them. The Hulk needs impressive edifices to knock down. Only certain types of urban form are fit … Continue reading Detroit: a city fit for superheroes? →

How to deviate from climate change destruction – the case of the Great Barrier Reef

A confession: I visited the Great Barrier Reef a couple of years ago and it was the most stunning experience of my life. The beauty, intricacy, diversity, were amazing. The experience of immersion in this underwater world was and is vivid – literally alive. But I felt profoundly uneasy participating iin the industrial system that … Continue reading How to deviate from climate change destruction – the case of the Great Barrier Reef →

Normal service is about to be resumed

Thanks for staying put while my computer had a very big melt down, while I reset my system with Ubuntu, and while floods and storms meant my broadband connection was down  for several days. It's enough to make me embarrassed to be mentioning the phrase 'resilient systems'. But fear not, Fourcultures is back online and … Continue reading Normal service is about to be resumed →

On the relationship between behaviour and context in Cultural Theory

In reply to Matthew Taylor's  question over at his RSA blog: "how can it be true both that there are some social environments which encourage particular attitudes and behaviours (which could be said broadly to fit an egalitarian outlook) while, at the same time, in relation to any specific problem or decision, a set of … Continue reading On the relationship between behaviour and context in Cultural Theory →

A Month of Resilience

This month Four Cultures is going to be considering Resilience and its connection with Grid-group Cultural Theory. By Resilience I mean the cross-disciplinary scientific approach inspired by the work of Canadian ecologist Buzz Holling, and promoted in a number of places, especially through the Resilience Alliance and through the Stockholm Resilience Centre. There's a video … Continue reading A Month of Resilience →

What the world needs now is… efficiency plus resilience

Economist Bernard Lietaer has an interesting paper on handling the current financial crisis. It’s based on the interplay between efficiency and resilience. http://www.lietaer.com/images/White_Paper_on_Systemic_Bank_Crises_December.pdf Lietaer's main point is that in going all out for efficiency, economic managers have failed to pay attention to the importance of resilience, which requires such seemingly 'inefficient' features such as redundancy. … Continue reading What the world needs now is… efficiency plus resilience →