Uncertainty

Plain English word, but in policy and science it carries specific technical weight. The IPCC distinguishes between quantifiable risk (known probabilities) and "deep uncertainty" — where experts cannot agree on the models, the probabilities, or even the range of possible outcomes. In resilience and foresight work, uncertainty is increasingly understood not as a problem to be solved but as a condition to be navigated because the foundational pairing of certainty and preparedness is unravelling. Genuine resilience requires the capacity to embrace uncertainty rather than eliminate it.

Uncertainty is politically charged because it determines who gets to act and who is told to wait. Powerful actors invoke uncertainty to delay action ("we need more evidence before we can regulate"). But the same uncertainty is ignored when it suits: markets, military operations, and infrastructure projects proceed under massive uncertainty every day without anyone demanding certainty first. In climate policy, uncertainty has been weaponised by fossil fuel interests to justify inaction — even though the IPCC's own framework shows that deep uncertainty is a reason for precautionary action, not paralysis. Conversely, progressive and foresight communities are reclaiming uncertainty as generative: a space where imagination, adaptation, and transformation become possible precisely because the future is not fixed. The question is always: who benefits from demanding certainty, and who benefits from acknowledging that we cannot have it?

"We don't know what's coming" / "Nobody can predict this"

Arguing for adaptive rather than predictive approaches; challenging demands for certainty as a precondition for action; discussing why traditional planning fails in polycrisis conditions; distinguishing between risk (calculable) and genuine uncertainty (not calculable).