Post Carbon Institute (PCI) is a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, Trust (business), trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of ...

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

based in Corvallis, Oregon, focused on

sustainability Sustainability is a social goal for people to co-exist on Earth over a long period of time. Definitions of this term are disputed and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability usually has three dimensions (or pillars): env ...

. It specializes in

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a flammable carbon compound- or hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the buried remains of prehistoric organisms (animals, plants or microplanktons), a process that occurs within geologica ...

renewable energy Renewable energy (also called green energy) is energy made from renewable resource, renewable natural resources that are replenished on a human lifetime, human timescale. The most widely used renewable energy types are solar energy, wind pow ...

, food, water, and population. Since 2009, it has published articles, reports, and books. It has also served as a speakers' bureau for its Fellows.

History

2003–2008

Post Carbon Institute (PCI) was founded by Julian Darley (President) and Celine Rich (Executive Director) in 2003 to implement programs which would educate the public on issues surrounding global fossil fuel depletion, such as the release of a film called "The End of Suburbia." PCI has promoted the concept of '' Relocalization'', a strategy to build community resilience based on the local production of food, energy, and goods, as well as the development of more localized governance, economy, and culture. The group also promoted the concept of

peak oil Peak oil is the point when global oil production reaches its maximum rate, after which it will begin to decline irreversibly. The main concern is that global transportation relies heavily on gasoline and diesel. Adoption of electric vehicles ...

, along with groups such as the International Forum on Globalization, the

Transition Towns The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability through ...

movement, and websites such as EnergyBulletin and

The Oil Drum ''The Oil Drum'' was a website devoted to analysis and discussion of energy and its impact on society that described itself as an "energy, peak oil & sustainability research and news site". ''The Oil Drum'' was published by the Institute for th ...

. PCI also operated an online network focused on community responses to peak oil and climate change called th
Relocalization Network
Major activities included:
Global Public Media
Audio and video interviews about the issues surrounding fossil fuel depletion.
The Relocalization Network
A network which attempts to educate local communities and help develop programs to re-localize food and energy production.
The Energy Farms Network
A demonstration and partnership program to explore production of feedstock, fuel and electricity by local farmers.
The Oil Depletion Protocol
(

Rimini Rimini ( , ; or ; ) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy. Sprawling along the Adriatic Sea, Rimini is situated at a strategically-important north-south passage along the coast at the southern tip of the Po Valley. It is ...

): An outline for an international agreement to avoid volatility problems associated with oil production.

Since 2009

Asher Miller
became Executive Director in 2009, and PCI restructured to concentrate its program activities on research and publishing. It broadened its focus to include

natural resource depletion Resource depletion occurs when a natural resource is consumed faster than it can be replenished. The value of a resource depends on its availability in nature and the cost of extracting it. By the law of supply and demand, the scarcer the reso ...

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

, and

human overpopulation Human overpopulation (or human population overshoot) is the idea that human populations may become too large to be sustainability, sustained by their environment or resources in the long term. The topic is usually discussed in the context of wor ...

. Most of its earlier programs were consolidated or discontinued, and it entered into partnerships wit
Transition US
and EnergyBulletin. Its roster o
Fellows
was significantly expanded to include notable figures such as

Bill McKibben William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)"Bill Ernest McKibben." ''Environmental Encyclopedia''. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, December 31, 2017. is a ...

Wes Jackson Wes Jackson (born 1936) co-founded the Land Institute with Dana Jackson. He is also a member of the World Future Council. Early life and education Jackson was born and raised on a farm near Topeka, Kansas. After earning a BA in biology from Ka ...

David Orr David Duvall Orr (born October 4, 1944) is an American Democratic politician who served as the Cook County Clerk from 1990 to 2018. Orr previously served as alderman for the 49th ward in Chicago City Council from 1979 to 1990. He briefly serve ...

, and

Majora Carter Majora Carter (born October 27, 1966) is an American urban revitalization strategist and public radio host from the South Bronx area of New York City. Carter founded and led the non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation Sustainable ...

Projects

Resilience.org
is a resource platform for communities building local self-reliance. It was launched in 2012 as the successor to the peak oil website EnergyBulletin.
Think Resilience
is an online course on building community resilience.

Articles

Energy articles

Richard Heinberg Richard William Heinberg (b. October 21, 1950) is an American journalist and educator who has written extensively on energy, economic, and ecological issues, including oil depletion. He is the author of 14 books, and presently serves as the senio ...

(2013) * Report
''Drill Baby Drill: Can Unconventional Fuels Usher in a New Era of Energy Abundance''
by J. David Hughes (2013) * Campaign: Th
Energy Reality Campaign
with various allies * Book
''ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth''
edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerthner, published b
Watershed Media
with th
Foundation for Deep Ecology
(2013). With essays by

Lester Brown Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is an American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC ...

Amory Lovins Amory Bloch Lovins (born November 13, 1947) is an American writer, physicist, and former chairman/chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written on energy policy and related areas for four decades, and served on the US Nation ...

and others. * Book
''The ENERGY Reader''
edited by Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner, published b
Watershed Media
with th
Foundation for Deep Ecology
(2013). With essays by

Winona LaDuke Winona LaDuke (born August 18, 1959) is an American environmentalist, writer, and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president ...

Vandana Shiva Vandana Shiva (born 5 November 1952) is an Indian scholar, environmental activist, food sovereignty advocate, ecofeminist and anti-globalization author. Based in Delhi, Shiva has written more than 20 books. She is often referred to as "Ga ...

, and others. * Report
''Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?''
by J. David Hughes (2011) * Video
300 years of fossil fuels in 300 seconds
Winner of a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

br>DoGooder
best non-profit video award (2011) * Report
''Searching for a Miracle: 'Net Energy' Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society''
by

, with th
International Forum on Globalization
(2010) * Report
''Preparing for Peak Oil: Local Authorities and the Energy Crisis''
by The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre ( ODAC) and Post Carbon Institute (2008) * Book
''Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty''
by Daniel Lerch (2007)

Community Resilience articles

* Book:
The Community Resilience Reader: Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval
', edited by Daniel Lerch with authors including Richard Heinberg, Chuck Collins & Sarah Byrnes, William Rees, Stephanie Mills, Brian Walker & David Salt, Rebecca Wodder, Denise Fairchild & Al Weinrub, and Mike Lydon; published by Island Press (2017) *Report
''Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience''
by Daniel Lerch (2015) *Book
''Vermont Dollars, Vermont Sense''
by Michael Shuman and Gwendolyn Hallsmith (2015) * Report
''Resilient Against What?: How Leading U.S. Municipalities Are Understanding and Acting on Resilience''
by Jim Thayer, Morgan Rider, and Daniel Lerch (2013) * Book
''Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems''
b
Philip Ackerman-Leist
published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2013) *Book
''Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects''
b
Greg Pahl
published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2012) *Book
''Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity''
b
Michael Shuman
published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2012) * 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 David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics Emeritus at Oberlin College, and presently Professor of Practice at Arizona State University. During his tenure at the Environmental Studies Center at O ...

, and Sandra Postel, published b
Watershed Media
(2010), winner of the Independent Publisher Book Awar
Gold Medal (Environment/Ecology/Nature)
ref>Jim Jubelirer
A Primer for the Post-Carbon World
GreenBiz, 10 December 2010.

Fellows

Its roster of fellows includes: *

Anthony Perl
*

* Bill Sheehan
Brian SchwartzCindy ParkerDavid FridleyDavid HughesDavid OrrErika AllenGloria Flora
*

Hillary Brown Hillary Brown is an American architect, and professor at City College of New York. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She won a Berlin Prize. Life She graduated from Oberlin College and Yale University. As assistant commis ...

Janelle OrsiJohn KaufmannJoshua Farley
*

Michael BomfordMichael Shuman
* Paul Gilding *

Rob Hopkins Rob Hopkins (born 24 June 1968) is an English environmental activist and writer, based in Totnes, England. He is best known as the founder and figurehead of the Transition movement, which he initiated in 2005. Hopkins has written six books on ...

Peter Whybrow
* Sandra Postel
Stephanie MillsTom WhippleWarren Karlenzig
*

* William E. Rees (academic)
William Ryerson

References

{{Authority control Non-profit organizations based in California Think tanks based in the United States 501(c)(3) organizations Environmental organizations established in 2003 Organizations established in 2003