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| <back | home A Post Carbon Institute Primer Post Carbon Institute Reduce consumption, produce locally. Born in 2003 out of concern for the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy, particularly fossil fuels, Post Carbon Institute is a non-profit think-action-education tank whose mission is to assist communities in the process of relocalization and to adapt to an energy-constrained world. PCI’s main strategic response of relocalization aims to rebuild societies based on the local production of food and energy, along with relocalization of currency, governance and culture. Primary goals are to increase community energy security, strengthen local economies, and dramatically improve environmental conditions and social equity. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia. www.postcarbon.org. Co-Founders Julian Darley, author of High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis (Chelsea Green, 2004) and co-author of the forthcoming Relocalize Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap Oil (New Society, 2007). British-bon, Julian is an environmental philosopher and journalist with Masters degrees in environment and social research, journalism and communications, and a background in music and technology. Celine Rich, Executive Director of PCI since its inception in 2001, wife to Julian Darley, mother, and co-author of Relocalize Now! A creator of community cultural development projects in Vancouver, Celine has a background in fine arts and a Masters in design for the environment. Global Public Media Public service broadcasting for a post-carbon world. The brainchild of Julian Darley and launched two days after 9/11, Global Public Media became the foundation and outreach organ for Post Carbon Institute as an Internet broadcast portal featuring in-depth streaming media interviews of people concerned with biosphere destruction. www.globalpublicmedia.com Global Relocalization Climate change, the erosion of community, wars for oil-rich land and the instability of the global economic system have resulted from our dependence on cheap non-renewable fossil fuel energy. Relocalization is the re-claiming of our socio-cultural and economic systems so that each locality operates well within its regional ecological boundaries. Relocalization supports the production of local goods and services while also making a firm commitment to reducing consumption and improving environmental and social conditions. In this way, communities begin to develop a greater degree of economic self-reliance and stronger sense of community. Relocalization Network The Relocalization Network, currently with more than 110 participating communities, supports Local Post Carbon Groups as they work to develop and implement the strategy of relocalization in their communities. Coordinators support the Network by providing on-line communication tools, developing resources, facilitating meaningful and useful connections between Local Groups and cultivating a sense of working together globally on local responses. www.relocalize.net Energy Farm Network One of the boldest components of the Relocalization Network, Post Carbon Institute has launched the Local Energy Farm Demonstration Project in collaboration with the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems at the University of British Columbia. This project, on 2? acres, has been designed to show how to dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate community dependence on fossil fuels for energy, which would ensure that after the oil (and gas) peak, public provisioning systems delivering electricity, water, sanitation, transportation, food and many other essential services could continue. Local renewable energy systems could also dramatically reduce the CO2 production in communities helping them to meet their Kyoto commitments and to improve local environmental conditions. “We’re trying to combine every way that one can imagine of harvesting and collecting energy, both through soil and solar,” says Darley. This is the single energy farm in the network to date, but other Local Post Carbon Groups are expected to follow suit. www.energyfarms.net. <back | top^ |