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Welcome to this edition of our Resilience 2:1 newsletter. We hope it provides some information and encouragement around climate change, mitigation, adaptation, and resilience. This summer has been a bit alarming with disaster after disaster in Canada and around the world. It seems never ending. The newsletter is a brief moment to stop and take a breath. We believe now is the moment for all of us to step it up and step out, to be more engaged and more active in whatever work you do to enable a better future. Take a few minutes to enjoy the newsletter. And let us know if you found something useful in it. Better yet, tell us what you are reading on the topic. Or what actions you are taking. We can all learn from one another. Resilience requires a community. Let's help one another do more and do it more effectively. |
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01 - Change is possible
By Aleksandar Janicijevic, Dipl. Ing. Arch.
02 - Resiliency is the goal
By Cheryl Bradbee, BPhil, MCS, MDiv, MLA, PhD
03 - Recommended reading
By Oruba Alwan, B.ARCH. LEED AP®. OAA Architect
04 - Local Food Production in Cameroon
By Elaine Bradbee
05 - Conclusion |
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01 - Change is possible
By Aleksandar Janicijevic, Dipl. Ing. Arch. |
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First came Covid 19, then extreme heat all over the world, followed by destruction produced by forest fires and floods. These events visibly shake our stand point. At Resilience 2:1, we mainly focus on scientific and educational aspect of climate effects on the environment, but recently a few more important topics have come into view.
After reading books like Generation Dread: Standing Up for a Sustainable World by Britt Wray and Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics and Diplomacy of Climate Change by Simone Sharpe, as well as reports from various UN bodies like UNEP, IPCC, c40 Cities, two important obstacles in our fight against climate change came to the forefront — economics and politics. |
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Economists have been using misleading calculations to influence political outcomes. Contrary to the phrasing, the terms 'balanced economics' and 'equilibrium economics' describe our usual approach to global economics. Sharpe would prefer to understand the economic system as more dynamic and fluid like an ecosystem. However, all economics needs to account for the loss of human life, animal species and habitat to climate catastrophe. Economics as currently done focuses on 'hard' economic impacts rather than taking a full and holistic view of losses and gains.
When protesters back in 2019 carried "Tell The Truth" banners, they demanded honesty about the gravity of the climate change threat. It was up to the politicians to respond. Nothing happened, a risk assessments process was never created. |
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Change is possible, but we must accelerate and scale up collective action now and add a multidisciplinary dimension. We need to incorporate natural, social and humanistic sciences in the search for a sustainable society. As each of us makes a contribution and applies pressure we can build global connections and trust which will result in system change. |
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02 - Resiliency is the goal
By Cheryl Bradbee, BPhil, MCS, MDiv, MLA, PhD
Five Times Faster, Rethinking the science, economics, and diplomacy of climate change by Simon Sharpe
End Times, Elites, counter-elites and the path of political disintegration
by Peter Turchin
In July we had work done on yard drainage. While inspecting the work, I spoke with the landscaper. He considered the work done sufficient to any storm we could have. I countered that we now live on a new planet with new rules unlike the old planet. His knowledge of past storms does not inform our future. A few days later Halifax got three months of rain in 24 hours.
We shape the next world. Our next economics, politics and cultures will arise from and evolve through the transition to the next climate. Resiliency is the goal. |
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Sharpe explains our failure to rightly understand the risks of climate change impacts. He examines the economic theories that constrain us from addressing the transition successfully. He wants to goad us, and give us the tools to move five times faster. Whatever we thought could be put off until 2050 needs to be moved up to 2030. We all need to get on it. |
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Turchin examines the long history of cycles of stability and instability in polities. The key driver of instability is overproduction of elites. That is, there are too many people who understand themselves entitled to positions of power vying for limited positions. Combine elites fighting among themselves for power with immiseration of the populace as a whole and the result is instability and often revolution. The reoccurring disasters and chronic stressors arising from this massive, global transition, driven by climate change, will result in instability. Governments must address instability quickly in order to continue with adaptation and mitigation initiatives.
The future is ours to shape. We should do so intentionally. We must not to sit back and give up. Our actions today will determine the fate of those coming after us. |
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03 - Recommended reading
By Oruba Alwan, B.ARCH. LEED AP®. OAA Architect
We love to read. It helps us all learn more and process what is happening in the world around us. I am an architect and I have recently read these four books and found them to be helpful. What are you reading? What helps you learn about climate change, mitigation, adaptation and resilience? Please let us know and share what has enlightened and educated you on your own journey.
This is what I am reading this summer 2023:
1. Sustainable Architectural Design: An Overview, by Kuppaswamy Lyengar
2. Heating, Cooling, Lighting: Sustainable Design Strategies Towards Net Zero,
Oct. 26, 2021 by Norbert M. Lechner (Author), Patricia Andrasik (Author)
3. Sustainable Design, A Critical Guide by David Bergman
4. Urban Futures: Designing the Digitalized City by Mark Burry (Guest Editor) |
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04 - Local Food Production in Cameroon
By Elaine Bradbee
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Food production and transportation add up to over 1 billion tons of CO2 in our overheated atmosphere annually. One solution is local production that cuts out the millions of kilometers/miles food travels. Food travel also adds costs to food, which puts a strain on the budgets of impoverished people – many cannot afford the food for sale in stores. |
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In Cameroon, 45.3% of the total Cameroonian population are multidimensionally poor and 17.3% are vulnerable to multidimensional poverty (UNDP, 2020), which includes not only income poverty, but also deprivations in health, education, and standards of living. That means that 62.6% of all Cameroonians are either multidimensionally poor or vulnerable to that level of poverty. This is over 1.7 million people. Further, due to the conflict and violence in the North-West and South-West regions as well as the incursion of Boka Haram in the Far North region, Cameroon has the second largest population of Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) in Central Africa at around 937,000 (IDMC, 2022). Many of whom are women trying to support their families while living in desperate poverty. They often live on the handouts of the communities in which they have settled. |
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ASAFE is a non-profit social enterprise created in 1989 to support and assist micro, small and medium-sized enterprises providing for impoverished women and youth, who do not have access to services from existing institutions. With a grant from Merck, ASAFE built a Vocational Education Center (Center) on 3 hectares of land in Sikoum, which is a suburb of Douala, the largest city in Cameroon with a population of 3 million people. The people approached to become a part of this project were IDPs, women, youths, and families from 13 villages near the Vocational Education Center.
The Center trains people in 10 income generating activities based on the needs of supermarkets in Douala. These activities were chosen by the villagers and IDPs. They include, raising poultry, horticulture, cuniculture (raising rabbits for meat), fish farming, entomophagy (the raising of palm worms, which is a delicacy in Cameroon), heliciculture (snail farming), apiculture (beekeeping), and hog farming. People are trained in financial skills, farming, business skills and life skills for their new enterprises. They are given seed money to start their enterprises and are already providing their locally grown food to 3 of the supermarkets in Douala. |
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This project just started in 2022, and already new villages are asking to join the Center. It is these local efforts that will help feed people and provide local solutions to food production and transportation.
The new Vocational Education Center in Sikoum has not been fully built yet, but below are the plans. The villages and ASAFE also plan to build a dike that collects water on the site and to build an on-site hydro-electric dam that will generate electricity to support the Center – making it self-sufficient in power and water supply. |
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Everybody can tell a story or explain something. Do you have something to contribute to the next newsletter? Would you be willing to share it with us? We can help with the writing or provide some light editing if that helps. Nothing is very long, rarely more than 300 words. It won't feel like much if you get going. Drop us an email and let us help you share your story and wisdom with this community. |
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Resilience 2:1
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
We are a non-profit, volunteer driven organization incorporated federally.
Members represent a diverse group of disciplines and interests, all focused
on the issue of resilience for Canada through a changing climate. |
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