Resilience

The Cascadia Subduction Zone requires those of us in the Northwest to focus on resilience.  Furthermore as Kathryn Schulz sums up in her Pulitzer Prize winning The New Yorker article “The Really Big One”:

“The Cascadia situation, a calamity in its own right, is also a parable for this age of ecological reckoning, and the questions it raises are ones that we all now face. How should a society respond to a looming crisis of uncertain timing but of catastrophic proportions? How can it begin to right itself when its entire infrastructure and culture developed in a way that leaves it profoundly vulnerable to natural disaster?”

Resilience is also the natural evolution of green building.  As the US Green Building Council characterizes their priority:

“Like globalization and sustainability before it, resilience is the mot juste for a forward thinking world facing numerous multidimensional threats, hazards and disasters. Resilience is not just the right descriptive word; it is the right paradigm, requiring foresight and broad societal understanding and support. The concept of resilience is especially suitable in a world more interconnected, more urbanized, more complex, and yet more fragile than ever.”