Policy and political perceptions of risk: the challenges to building resilient energy systems.

Decisions relating to energy systems resilience must take into account a range of environmental and societal transitions together with an array of future threats. These must be assessed broadly and systematically but also must consider how risks and vulnerabilities are linked, and that small events can cascade across a system and between systems to escalate into large-scale collapse. Developing resilience involves not only identifying such threats and potential points of failure but acting upon them with an appropriate level of future planning. Decision-making in complex systems is often affected by cognitive biases and runs into contestation and obstacles of politics, policy complexities and differing views of potential futures. This paper discusses the challenges to building resilient systems for the future, given the inevitable biases and differing risk perspectives of decision-makers at all levels that often confound expert analysis. This article is part of the theme issue 'Developing resilient energy systems'.

Towards Post-Pandemic Sustainable and Ethical Food Systems.

The current global COVID-19 pandemic has led to a deep and multidimensional crisis across all sectors of society. As countries contemplate their mobility and social-distancing policy restrictions, we have a unique opportunity to re-imagine the deliberative frameworks and value priorities in our food systems. Pre-pandemic food systems at global, national, regional and local scales already needed revision to chart a common vision for sustainable and ethical food futures. Re-orientation is also needed by the relevant sciences, traditionally siloed in their disciplines and without adequate attention paid to how the food system problem is variously framed by diverse stakeholders according to their values. From the transdisciplinary perspective of food ethics, we argue that a post-pandemic scheme focused on bottom-up, regional, cross-sectoral and non-partisan deliberation may provide the re-orientation and benchmarks needed for not only more sustainable, but also more ethical food futures.