Resilience

Wikipedia: Resilience is the ability of a material to recover from a shock, insult, or disturbance.
Its also psychological resilience. We need both physical and psychological resilience in the near future. Another way to view resilience is short-term and long-term resilience. My mother told me about a 1960 short-film describing how the whole of society is hanging in a tread - and that is how vulnerable the society is. Resilience is the opposite to this.

Psychological resilience.
As I have described earlier we have become true believers in progress and a better society (still praying to the unknown God). So if we are meet with the opposite (a crises), most people will react badly to this - denial, anger (especially at the messenger), despair and so on. We need psychological resilience to deal with the crises and we need resilience in dealing with the transition to a carbon starved future.

The Swedish state has a department called Department for psychological defense - www.psycdef.se (this sends you to another URL with a more acceptable name).

The goal of the Swedish PsyDef is;
"The task of the MSB is to enhance and support societal capacities for preparedness for and prevention of emergencies and crises. When one does occur, we support the stakeholders involved by taking the right measures to control the situation".

That sounds very good - maybe the word "stakeholders" is a little strange. Does that mean the citizens or does it mean the institutions, the government?

There is a dilemma when you try to build up the resilience in the country.
One of the most destructive forces that can be unleashed in a country is panic and chaos. Ex. looting can destroy a working society in short time (see Iraq).
To get through the first shock without panic and chaos is vital. Therefore you want the citizens to be calm in a crises and the listen to the authorities.
THEN you want the citizens to have personal resilience and stamina, being able to cope without authorities (for a while). The state knows it can not be everywhere in times of crises and that people have to make it through on there own.
So there is needed 2 sorts of resilience:

• Shock resilience (short term, trusting authorities, centralized)
• Abandonment resilience (long term, self sustaining, localized) 

Shock resilience is mostly needed in case of a war, a great catastrophe, breakdown of the banking system or the electric grid, an outbreak of a pandemic, in the hours and days following the crises.
 
Abandonment resilience is needed needed in the aftermath of war, catastrophes and is needed to cope with slow moving negative changes like rising unemployment, rising prices, shortages, living with the consequences of interruptions in the electric grid, the banking system, in the month following the crises.     

Physical resilience.
This can be translated to sustainability, invulnerability, independence, durability.
Often described as the capacity to keep vital parts of the society functioning (mostly police, hospitals, government, military, banking system, electric power is meant by that). Ideas of self sustainability has long been abandoned and the trend going towards globalism. Ideas of local self independence is not part of any central governments thinking or policy. Some local people think about this, but when it comes to actually prioritize and build resilience in the rural areas there is nothing. The trend since 1960 has been going towards centralization.
Again its reasonable to talk in terms of short and long time resilience in the society.
The development of bigger faster machines and transportation plus pervasive communication technology has greatly improved the short term resilience since WW2, but the long term resilience is since WW2 been greatly reduced. A power-cut will cripple the society instantly and the petrol reserve will last max. 90 days. After 90 days are we in very unplaned territory.
The long term physical resilience is just not there - lack of petrol and lack of spare-parts will grind the current society structure to a halt.

The planing for long term resilience was on mind of those in power after the war, but this focus withered away gradually until it was silently totally gone somewhere in the late 1980s. 
I have found an example of some one of the last long term resilience efforts.
As late as 1980 there was still a university department in Sweden looking in to how the biggest Swedish car manufacture could prepare Volvo cars to run on gasified wood gas if needed. During the second world war more than 1.000.000 cars and trucks was modified to run on wood-gas. It was this effort made it possible to have continuation of the civil society during the war. This lesson was finally lost 1986 and today we are even more vulnerable than 1939 because modern cars can for the most not be modified to run on wood-gas without a major intrusive intervention on the car. Read more on www.gengas.nu och här.

Here is another sad story from Sweden. This story is of now. The expansion of wind power is being hampered by many "stakeholders", one of them being the military. Modern wind turbines are big and they shadow the radars of the military. That means that the military turns down many application for wind turbines. The military do this on the base of national security (and has done for many years). That brings us to question of national security and that brings us to the question of resilience - short term and long term. A more energy independent Sweden would be more resilient and more secure as I understand security - national security. Today Sweden is participation in the "operation" in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is about natural gas and gas-pipelines. I doubt very much that Sweden would be there if Sweden was energy independent - fighting wars in faraway countries is a question of national security and I don't believe its a good solution to our energy dependency (I'm not interested in the moral aspect of the question). Permitting Sweden to become this vulnerable to factors we can not control in countries very far from Sweden is irresponsible to say the least. This policy has weakened the Swedish (and EUs and USAs) national security to a state where we have to be aggressors in order to get the resources we need. This is the result of a very faulted security policy. That politicians have acted in this short-sided manor is not surprising, but how security expert within the military and intelligence haven't protested loudly during the last 35 years is a mystery to me. To build the wellbeing of the society on a dwindling oil resource is more than critical. The facts have been around for 35 years! Even the US military has faced the facts. And again its not me and some other nobodies who think that the peak oil is a fact - Its the IEA, The International Energy Agency. We are prepare for the Ruskies, but not trivial facts of live.

And when it comes to preparing the population for a carbon-starved future the policy's are just as depressing. Somehow the risk of scaring people and thereby damaging the stock marked outweighs the risk of social chaos and shock when the bubble burst. This is VERY much contra to what the whole idea of a psychological defense. The trust in authorities is paramount in times to come and the time has come to face the facts - The stock marked and the financial system can not be saved by optimism. The last bailout was the last bailout and it kept us warm for 1,5 years, but the smile is wearing thin. Trust is a hard won currency. Who is going to listen politicians excusing them self, saying that nobody could have known? The public servants should consider how they can keep some of their credibility in the coming times.    
I'm afraid the only plan is the "don't panic - help will come" and that is not a plan.