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Resilience, conversely, accepts that change is inevitable and in many cases out of our hands, focusing instead on the need to be able to withstand the unexpected. Greed, accident, or malice may have harmful results, but, barring something truly apocalyptic, a resilient system can absorb such results without its overall health being threatened.

…retail commercial activity within resilient communities will be growing and in some cases exceeding the activity seen before the depression. The reason?  The effort these communities made in building locally viable open markets that promoted the wares of local producers.  

In the first years of the 21st century, our capacities for imagining new realities have proved inadequate. From Madrid to London, Bali to Mumbai, from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans to the tsunami's devastation all around the Indian Ocean, to the most recent financial crisis, the alarms went unheeded until after disaster had struck. Now, as the first decade of the century has drawn to a close, its many shocks make plain that we are living in a world with greater potential for surprise, uncertainty, and threats to resilience. In a time of poorly understood interacting causes and consequences, we require new habits of thinking, new approaches to assessment, and new ways of engaging with the world. Emerging is a world filled with just as much opportunity as risk, but seeing both of those forces and appreciating their interrelatedness requires new lenses and an unflagging awareness of diverse perspectives. It means investing all of our energies to profoundly challenge the status quo.

"Join world-renowned futurist Lynne Franks for a pathbreaking 5-part online course that explores how a feminine approach to the future can create social unity within cultural diversity. For this course, Lynne has gathered four extraordinary women leaders from the world of media, education, business and spirituality - women who are helping to move us forward into a future we want: Gabrielle Roth, Hazel Henderson, Denise Linn, and Jayanti Kirpalani. Starts June 19. Catch the early bird special until June 7."

Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some of its earliest adopters to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks. The technologies that are beginning to make smart mobs possible are mobile communication devices and pervasive computing - inexpensive microprocessors embedded in everyday objects and environments. Already, governments have fallen, youth subcultures have blossomed from Asia to Scandinavia, new industries have been born and older industries have launched furious counterattacks.

"China saw $54.5 billion invested into its clean energy sector, mostly to wind power projects, according to analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Germany was second with $41.2 billion of investment, largely in small-scale solar. Some of the biggest growth in investment was in India and Latin America."