A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry about the remarkable response of nature to the oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists were reporting that the oil slick in the Gulf appeared to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone had expected. They said that much oil had been biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria in the warm waters of the Gulf. My blog evoked a mixed response. Many readers wrote back enthusiastically about this “good news.” But I also received a few angry notes, some even suggesting I was serving certain corporate interests. Behind this discussion I see a major pattern in the way we view the relationship between the human species and nature. Let me explain.
The reports about bacteria cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf made me think about an experience many years ago. I was visiting an oil refinery in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, with a scientist who showed me that bacteria in the polluted, oil-drenched soil of the refinery were cleaning up the mess. As he said at the time, “When we close the refinery and leave this place and come back in a decade or so, nobody will be able to figure out from the soil that oil was spilled here.”
His message: Every human activity is met with a cleaning or healing response from nature. That is not because nature likes us so much or because nature is so forgiving; it is because the human species is part of nature. And that is something we find difficult to accept and trust. If we could, we would respond in a different way to disasters like the oil spill. We would not dump chemicals in the sea that threaten the very bacteria that nature provides to clean up our messes. We would, instead, try to figure out what these bacteria need to thrive, to be even more successful. In short: We would work with nature, not against it.
“It takes more than just growth for an ecosystem to flourish—it takes resilience,” writes Mark van Baal in this issue (see page 22). Resilience is cropping up with increasing frequency as the next step in thinking about sustainability. Resilience is a dynamic concept focused on incorporating inevitable change. Resilience is about how systems respond and how we can support such responses. Resilience is very different from sustainability. “Sustainable,” after all, means “capable of being maintained.” Sustainability features static control; resilience is about dynamic response. Resilient systems have a capacity to handle disruptions and reorganize themselves while preserving their function, structure and identity.
The promise of resilience isn’t that everything will always end right. We have lost civilizations and ecosystems, and human ingenuity can cause irreparable destruction. But resilience provides our best chance of survival. It inspires us to be part of nature and to work with it. As “natural” as that it is, it is not natural for the control freaks that we, modern human beings, have become. But the message of the polluted soil in Rotterdam and the polluted waters of the Gulf is clear: Nature responds and it is up to us to be part of that resilient response and to make it more successful.
