Post Carbon Institute

Post Carbon Institute (PCI) is a think tank which provides information and analysis on emerging responses and strategies to climate change, energy scarcity, overconsumption, economics and other issues related to sustainability and long term social resilience. Post Carbon's Fellows specialize in various fields related to the organization's mission, such as fossil fuels, food, water, and population. Post Carbon is incorporated as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and is based in Santa Rosa, California, USA.

History

Post Carbon Institute was established in 2003. From 2003 to 2008, under the leadership of Julian Darley (President) and Celine Rich (Executive Director), Post Carbon Institute implemented programs to educate the public on issues surrounding global fossil fuel depletion (see peak oil, peak coal, peak gas) and climate change, as well as on possible responses to these challenges. Post Carbon promoted the concept of "relocalization," a strategy to build community resilience based on the local production of food, energy, and goods, and the development of local currency, governance, and culture.^[1]

Post Carbon's programs during this period included:

• Global Public Media, a website streaming long format audio and video interviews about the issues surrounding fossil fuel depletion.
• The Relocalization Network,^[2][3] a network of groups and individuals working to educate their local communities and develop programs to re-localize food and energy production, and reduce local consumption.
• Post Carbon Cities, a program to help local governments understand and prepare for the challenges of peak oil and climate change, which published Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, a guidebook on peak oil and climate change and for U.S. and Canadian local government leaders.^[4]
• The Energy Farms Network, a demonstration and partnership program to build a broad body of knowledge to help farmers, citizens, and community leaders to understand the possibility of producing vital feedstocks, fuels and electricity by local farmers for local users.
• The Oil Depletion Protocol, (aka the Rimini or Uppsala Protocol) a blueprint for an international agreement to avoid price and supply volatility problems associated with global oil production decline by gradually and collaboratively lowering the global rate of oil production and oil consumption.

In 2008 Richard Heinberg,^[5] author of Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World, The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies and Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis joined PCI as a Senior Fellow-in-Residence.

Also in 2008, Post Carbon collaborated with U.K.-based ODAC to produce a report to help local authorities prepare for energy depletion.^[6]

In 2009, under the leadership of Asher Miller^[7] (Executive Director), Post Carbon restructured to concentrate its program activities on research and publishing, and to broaden its topical focus to include natural resource depletion, climate change, the limits to economic growth, overpopulation, food, and other issues (see Post Carbon Institute Manifesto). Post Carbon discontinued or consolidated most of its earlier programs, and entered into partnerships with Transition US — the United States arm of the international Transition Towns ^[8] — and Energy Bulletin.net, a clearinghouse website for news and commentary on issues surrounding global energy resource depletion. The organization also expanded its list of Fellows and Advisors to include notable figures such as Bill McKibben, Majora Carter, Wes Jackson.

Partnerships

• Energy Bulletin - a clearing house for news regarding the peak in global energy supply.
• Transition US - a grassroots movement building community resilience to the challenges of peak oil and climate change

Fellows

Advisors

• Colin Campbell (geologist)
• Mia Birk
• James Howard Kunstler
• Richard Gilbert
• Jason Bradford
• Sanjay Khanna

Publications

• Book: Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity, by Michael Shuman .^[9]
• Report: Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century, by J. David Hughes.
• Book: The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises, edited by Richard Heinberg & Daniel Lerch with authors including Peter C. Whybrow, David W. Orr, and Sandra Postel.^[10]
• Report: Searching for a Miracle: ‘Net Energy’ Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society by Richard Heinberg and International Forum on Globalization
• Report: The Food and Farming Transition by Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford (2009)
• Report: The Real New Deal: Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic, and Environmental Recovery by Richard Heinberg, Daniel Lerch, Asher Miller (2009)
• Book: Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty by Daniel Lerch^[11] (Post Carbon Press, 2007)
• Video: Peak Oil for Policymakers by Richard Heinberg and Julian Darley (2008)
• Report: Preparing for Peak Oil: Local Authorities and the Energy Crisis by The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC) and Post Carbon Institute (2008)

See also

• Peak oil
• Resource depletion
• Transition Towns
• Climate Change

References

v t e Peak oil Core issues Peak oil Mitigation of peak oil Predicting the timing of peak oil Hubbert peak theory Olduvai theory Results/responses Hirsch report Rimini protocol Price of petroleum 2000s energy crisis Energy crisis Export Land Model Food vs. fuel Oil reserves Pickens Plan Simple living Swing producer Transition Towns People Albert Bartlett Colin J. Campbell David Goodstein John Michael Greer Richard Heinberg M. King Hubbert James Kunstler Jeremy Leggett Dale Allen Pfeiffer Richard Rainwater Matthew Simmons Richard C. Duncan Kenneth S. Deffeyes Books The End of Oil The Long Emergency Out of Gas The Party's Over Power Down Beyond Oil Films A Crude Awakening Collapse The End of Suburbia Oil Factor PetroApocalypse Now? How Cuba Survived Peak Oil What a Way to Go Gashole Organizations ASPO The Oil Drum Energy Watch Group ODAC OPEC OAPEC IEA Post Carbon Institute Other "peaks" Peak car Peak coal Peak copper Peak phosphorus Peak gas Peak uranium Peak water Peak wheat