Resilience is Patriotic

The need and urgency for increasing climate resilience have been framed many ways—from a purely financial perspective of avoiding infrastructure impact and operational disruption to businesses and critical services, to a moral obligation to care for the Earth and its people. In climate communication, we continually consider ways to connect with and engage individuals, communities, organizations, and businesses by identifying their priorities and values and relating those to the benefits of resilience, adaptation, and mitigation. But on May 5, 2026, at the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Building Resilience Conference, speaker Tom Fanning from the Alliance for Critical Infrastructure said something I have never heard in 10+ years of working in climate resilience: the work we do in resilience, to make our country and its people safer, is patriotic.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines patriotic as “inspired by love and devotion for one’s country.” As professionals, we don’t talk about love often in our work, but maybe we should. Whether you are part of the adaptation community as a volunteer or a consultant, whether you work for a government agency, a nonprofit, or a for-profit company, in some way you are motivated to do this work and very likely care deeply about it. The people and communities, the natural world and its resources, the wildlife and their habitats, and the infrastructure that people have built are, after all, what make up the physical manifestation of a country. Making any of these things more resilient to current and changing climate conditions is a form of protection, and we protect what we love and value.

Happy 4th of July to my colleagues in the United States, and thank you for your work to protect all of us.

You are patriots.

Note: The views expressed on What's Next are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of my employer.