Resilience: Why's It Important & How to Build it

The idea of resilience intrigues me and guides me more and more. Why is resilience so important when shaping who we are? I've outlined 4 major reasons below.

1.  Peak Oil: The industrial growth economy was built on cheap, excess energy. We have plucked all the low hanging fruit off the tree. Mining oil is now getting more expensive as we have to use more energy to mine it. I don't think we're in danger of running out of oil anytime soon, but the process of oil extraction is getting increasingly complex. This has further reaching effects on the price of oil.
2. Peak Debt: Our money systems are driven by debt. Since the financial crisis in 2008 more people have been plunged into debt than in the history of mankind. Money is created out of thin air by banks as interest bearing debt. With the money system we've created it's almost impossible to escape this from the time you take out a student loan to the time you buy your first car/house.
3. Peak Soil: Industrial agriculture, with it's use of heavy machinery and chemical fertilizers and pesticides has ravaged the soil of all its nutrients. Furthermore, 24% of greenhouse gas emissions come from industrialized agriculture, encompassing methane from livestock, nitrous oxide from fertilizers, carbon dioxide from machinery and fertilizers, and land change. There are other factors to consider like deforestation, rising sea levels, mass slaughter of ocean life as a result of industrial fishing and increasing water demands due to rising population (the UN projects global population will grow from 7 billion today to 9.3 billion mid century.)
4. Climate change: climate change is occurring 10 times faster than at any time in the past 65 million years. If this rate of change is sustained it will put severe stress on ecosystems world-wide. In the wake of climate change, global weather patterns (heat waves, rainfall) will become more extreme and more frequent. The risks of advanced climate change can be mitigated though. However, this wholly depends on how we respond. And this doesn't take into account the lag effects of for example CO2 emissions.

So how do we respond to such radical signals that our systems are spiraling out of control, gorging themselves from the inside out. Rather than occupy a dooms-day prepper mindset, we can instead work smart in a resilient manner. What does this mean? It means...

• Produce your own energy: the price of electricity (coal, oil, gas) is getting exponentially more expensive. You can rewire the way you think about energy production by producing it yourself for free from mother earth. In other words use solar, wind, water (rain harvesting) to generate your own sources of energy production.
• Grow your own food or support local farmers: instead of purchasing food from large retail outlets who use vast amounts of energy and chemicals to get the food to you, start a veggie garden at home or in your neighborhood. Producing your own food is not only better for you, but you can actually generate a surplus for friends, family, neighbors or farmers markets.
• Create community exchange systems: these could be money systems. For example, Bristol in the UK has created its own Bristol pound, so when a global financial melt-down occurs, they won't be effected. You can also create sharing programs such as bike or car share systems, or instead of booking into a hotel, hire a room in someone's house for the night like Air BnB. There are infinite ways to re-localize our economies and work together for the good of people and planet alike.

Building resilience gives you the opportunity to reconnect with what's truly important to you. The industrial growth complex has been so driven by the need to exploit cheap energy and make money, that we've lost our sense of identity and community. Building resilience not only requires that you realign with your own well being, but also how you relate to your community and the planet at large.