Resilience

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, long-time public-radio reporter Elizabeth Arnold has issued a challenge to her fellow journalist. Having pivoted away from one form of false balance in climate-change reporting (which used to provide equal treatment to mainstream and fringe science), she suggests adjusting balance in a different aspect of reporting on the topic. A different balance needs to be found, she suggests, between reporting on the perils of climate change and reporting on remedies.

Newtok, Alaska has been the subject of much negative -- and true -- reporting about climate change. One of those reporters is urging her colleagues to report on the steps Newtok residents and their allies are taking toward resilience and remedies.

I read Arnold's essay while visiting Maryland, where the beloved historic district of Ellicott City was devastated by a "1,000-year flood" for the second time in two years. Clearly, it is a place where resilience efforts are not keeping up with changes in land use and the climate.

The keyword in her essay is the same one used in a new degree program that our department recently submitted for university approval: Resilience. The title of our proposed new concentration is Environmental Sustainability and Climate Resilience. In addition to courses in human, physical, and environmental geography, the proposed concentration will include courses in communications, natural sciences, and global languages.

It is an ambitious proposal, but one that we think will position our future graduates to rise to the challenge that Dr. Mary Robinson issued to geographers upon receipt of the AAG Atlas Award. In asking us to take up the challenge of climate justice, the former president of Ireland and human-rights commissioner said, "You understand how our planet works."

Pivoting our program more squarely in the direction of the growing resilience movement is a direct response to that challenge, and to the one posed by Elizabeth Arnold.

Lagniappe

Stay tuned, GeoBears, for more information about the resilience program and three others we recently submitted for approval:

Geography and International Development BA
Applied Geography BS
Geography for Educators BA

Two of these are relatively minor changes to our existing programs, while the other two are substantially new programs. All of the changes result from careful review over a period of several years, including input from experts, students, and alumni. All four programs will require study of a global language (currently Spanish, Portuguese, or Japanese). We have submitted all of the programs for review by university governance committees during the Fall 2019 semester, with the hopes of implementing them in 2020.