Category: Resilience Imperative

Resilience Imperative

Rebuilding for a Better Future

Resilience Intel Principles for Reinventing Prosperity We urge the nations of the G20 to lead the world in putting these principles into practice, starting right away, to ensure a rapid, inclusive, sustainable recovery from the COVID crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly, and radically, altered the everyday assumptions of people around the world. Where science has guided decision-making, the virus has done less damage; where … Continue reading Rebuilding for a Better Future

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

UK is Stress-Testing Banks for Climate Risk; All Nations Should

A week before Christmas, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, wrote in the Financial Times that the UK is now stress-testing banks for climate risk and resilience. Specifically, he writes: Modelling for the full extent of climate-related financial risk is complex and challenging. Britain can lead the way next year, when we and Italy host COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow. This critical … Continue reading UK is Stress-Testing Banks for Climate Risk; All Nations Should

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

Net-Zero by 2040 is Common Sense

Global heating is happening faster and with deeper compounding impacts than we had expected. Sir David King, former chief science advisor for the government of the United Kingdom, is calling for an upgraded long-term goal of net-zero by 2040. Simple arithmetic shows there is not enough money in circulation to cover the extreme costs of carbon fuel subsidies and the extreme and rising costs of … Continue reading Net-Zero by 2040 is Common Sense

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

Biodiversity Shapes & Sustains Opportunity

Catalyzing Resilience Value through Nature-Based Solutions Resilience is the ability to weather and emerge from shock events. Resilience intelligence is the complex work of understanding whether we are positioned to do so. Structured, evolving guidance, rooted in Earth-systems science, is a critical tool for achieving operational resilience and shared prosperity. Human wellbeing is enhanced by healthy natural systems and degraded by their degradation. We are … Continue reading Biodiversity Shapes & Sustains Opportunity

Resilience Intel
Resilience Imperative

Exploitation is Not Enterprise

Our study of the natural world is providing ever more detailed data about human impact on natural systems and the effect of these impacts on human health and wellbeing and the stability of institutions. Without major improvements across a broad spectrum of sustainability metrics, we will face serious degradation of both ecosystems and human security by 2050. Industries accustomed to reducing their own capital costs … Continue reading Exploitation is Not Enterprise

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

The Amazon Rainforest is Not for Sale

Four extremely worrying trends are converging right now to make the Amazon rainforest the most important single global priority at this moment: An unprecedented number of fires are raging across the entire Amazon basin. The rate of deforestation has quadrupled in the last year. IPCC scientific examination of land use and land degradation shows a rapidly accelerating vicious cycle, where exploitative land use contributes to … Continue reading The Amazon Rainforest is Not for Sale

Engage4Climate
Resilience Imperative

Land use could shape all our future possibilities

When we talk about land use, most people immediately get a sense we are talking about something other people do. But land use is deeply involved in our everyday experience, our personal choices, the places we live and how we move through them. Increasingly, in countries large and small, rich and poor, people are migrating to cities. Agriculture and forestry are major widespread uses of … Continue reading Land use could shape all our future possibilities

Resilience Intel
Resilience Imperative

WEAVE GKG: Visualizing Earth-Systems Value

When we scan the solar system for signs of life, we look for water. Earth life requires water. The whereabouts and availability of water on Earth are determined by geology, life, and activity in the climate system, which is made up of thermal energy flows moving between the atmosphere and the ocean. Biodiversity is driven by the presence of water and life, under stable climate … Continue reading WEAVE GKG: Visualizing Earth-Systems Value

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

Science is Not Negotiable

If global heating exceeds an average of 1.5ºC across the world, we will collectively face so much risk and damage, the costs will spill over into every area of human experience. The climate system does not respect political borders or bank account balances. An Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund once framed the crisis in these simple, haunting terms: When a small island nation … Continue reading Science is Not Negotiable

Joseph Robertson
Resilience Imperative

WEAVE: Whole-Earth Active-Value Economics

The new economics of Earth-systems integrity Whole-Earth Active Value Economics (WEAVE) starts from the recognition that all artificial value — everything we account for in monetary terms — is like foam on the deep ocean of what makes life on Earth feasible. Natural system value is worth far more, and is ultimately the source and the measure of all that we account for. Our exclusion … Continue reading WEAVE: Whole-Earth Active-Value Economics

Joseph Robertson