  We expand the current understanding of ecological resilience to include the
nested hierarchy of cognitive submodules that particularly, if not uniquely,
delineates human ecosystems. These modules, ranging from the immune system to
the local social network, are embedded in a cultural milieu which, to take the
perspective of the evolutionary anthropologist Robert Boyd, ''is as much a part
of human biology as the enamel on our teeth''. We begin by extending recent
treatments of cognitive process as associated with characteristic information
sources to a certain class of ecosystems through a generalization of
coarse-graining. In the spirit of the Large Deviations Program, we then import
renormalization formalism via the Asymptotic Equipartition Theorem to obtain
punctuated response to parameters of increasing habitat degradation. A Legendre
transform of an appropriate joint information permits analysis away from
critical points, and generates the expected quasi-stability in a highly natural
manner. We interweave the discussion with applications to the public health
impacts of the massive deurbanization and deindustrialization presently
afflicting the United States.
