Last time I visited Sequoia National Park, I learned the difference between conservation and preservation. Both are important in the maintenance of the environment, but conservation is the management of valuable resources and preservation is the protection of resources we already have. In the same way, I want to explore the difference between the strive for sustainability and the strive for resiliency in a place. In the last post, sustainability was defined as reducing our ecological impact so that we all don’t die. Resiliency, on the other hand, is recovering from or bouncing back from [ecological] damage.
In a reading by Starke and Simonds, we learned that nature cannot be conquered. In the past, we’ve seen humans attempting to control nature through ambitious design and over-consumption. They argue that nature is too grand to be known by man. We may have climbed the tallest mountain or dived the deepest trench, but so much more about our earth has yet to be discovered and/or explained. We don’t stand a chance against the forces of nature. This can be clearly seen through the increased frequencies of natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods. No matter what preventative measures we take, these natural disasters destroy everything we’ve so pridefully built.
An example of a resilient place we’ve recently studied in class is Ellicott city. This historically-rich community is located in the deepest part of a depression leading down to a river. This makes it extremely susceptible to flash flooding. In 2016 and 2018, it experienced two massive floods, both at a scale of 1/1000 chances of happening. The effects of this natural disaster were clearly devastating to the townspeople and the planners because right after the first blow, a second arrived. In addition to the loss of historically important buildings, cars, and railways which ended up in the river, the city’s economy was destroyed. City planners worked together to a) immediately restore what was in shambles and b) develop a long term plan that would mitigate the effects of future flash floods. Many changes to infrastructure occurred, such as building more flat, open areas upstream in attempt to slow streamflow as it moves downhill and gains dangerous velocity. Thinking of a solution that does not heavily affect the historic culture, but also builds resiliency in the community is challenging but literally life-saving.
Why is it so important? Although natural disasters are not necessarily caused by humans, anthropogenic factors are increasing the frequencies of them. And since nature is not conquerable, we must work on creating sustainable AND resilient communities. As Greta Thunberg pointed out in her speech at the UN convention, “we are at the beginning of a mass extinction.” People, including those in power, need to be doing more if an impact is to be made.
2 thoughts on “The Relevance of Resiliency”
I completely agree with you on the fact that we need to start doing more to protect our environment. I don’t understand why some people are opposed to this because it is something that directly affects everyone. Even the people who don’t believe in climate change being impacted by human behavior have to see there is no doubt that humans are detrimental to the environment. There is an island in the pacific ocean larger than Texas… and it is made of plastic. This is all from countries dumping their trash in rivers and the ocean. So even if people don’t think we as a human race are causing climate change, everyone should agree that we should do something about the mass amounts of pollution our air and oceans.
Griffin Smeltz
This post was honest and insightful about the world we live in. Too often we think that our resources are expendable, and thus there is no need to monitor how we treat the Earth. However, as you pointed out we don’t know as much about the Earth as we think we do and this is evident in the natural disaster that come and change people’s livelihoods all around the world for the worse. By this, we should have resilient plans that are prepared to handle the worst because the world is trending in that direction.
Michael Gaines