Dyson College of Arts and Sciences
Issue link: http://dysoncollege.uberflip.com/i/128987
devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, by the recent Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, referring to the disappointing response to these disasters as a "black hole." So right from the start we are referring to a response to a vicious and intentional act of terrorism, to a powerful storm or act of nature, and to an accident or act of negligence. Is it useful to lump all of these dramatically different catastrophic events together? Margareta Wahlström, United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction, focused mostly on weather-related catastrophes, and was rather pessimistic as well, predicting more extremes and more unpredictability, and stating that people tend to have a shortterm view about such impending problems. In the first panel of speakers, both Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman of the Board of Verizon Communications, and William Rudin, CEO and Vice-Chairman of Rudin Management Company, painted a rather rosy and upbeat picture of the state of resilience through public-private partnerships in their respective fields of telecommunications and real estate, countering Friedman's earlier characterization of a "black hole." However, David Shulkin, President of the not-forprofit Morristown Medical Center, while on the one hand describing yearly safety and evacuation drills in his medical center, was less optimistic about his organization's resilience stating that they have finite and limited supplies, and that these will easily run out in a major disaster. So we see from even this small sample of speakers and panelists that what people pay attention to and what they conclude about resilience depends on their industry, or their field, or their particular area of specialization. Perceptions of the state of resilience may even come down to such basic personal dimensions as the personality of the individual participant or analyst. Is one individual merely a pessimist who sees the glass as half empty with little likelihood of being able to fill it to the top in a resilient manner, and another individual an optimist who sees the glass as half full and on the way to being filled in a resilient manner? Issue 2: Measuring Resilience As we saw from a review of several definitions of resilience offered above, most seem to focus on the idea of springing back, returning to a previous state or shape, or recovering. However, resilience was also defined in terms of overcoming challenges and turning them into opportunities. Thus we have rather passive or reactive, as well as proactive, interpretations of what resilience is or could be. So in addition to the issue of defining resilience and finding agreement as to what sort of entities or systems should the term best apply, there is the additional issue of deciding what the final outcome will be if resilience exists, and determining how or when we know that we have reached that desirable state. So, for example, if Haiti were to rebuild to exactly the way it was before the devastating earthquake hit (thus returning to its prior state or shape) would that constitute resilience? Or would we only be justified in saying that Haiti was resilient if it managed to construct much-improved housing that was earthquake resistant to replace all of its destroyed housing stock (overcoming challenges and turning them into opportunities)? If Thailand reconstructs all of its flooded factories in its floodplains as they were before, is that resilience? Or would resilience be evident only if Thailand diversified the location of its factories away from floodplains to minimize the likelihood of suffering similar losses in the future? One additional complicating issue is that each individual, organization, city, and society is at a different baseline before disasters strike, so should we perhaps best measure resilience by some percentage improvement or recovery or by some absolute agreed upon standard. Thus we clearly have a serious problem on our hands as to how to measure resilience, and deciding what yardsticks, metrics, or standards to use. Not surprisingly, whenever there are problems associated with defining and applying terms and concepts, these naturally 33