Post Carbon Institute promotes the strategy of relocalization—building resilience—through strong local communities.
What is relocalization?
Relocalization is a strategy to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of relocalization are to increase community energy security, to strengthen local economies, and to improve environmental conditions and social equity. The relocalization strategy developed in response to the environmental, social, political and economic impacts of global over-reliance on cheap energy.
Further Reading:
- Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money From Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity
- Vermont Dollars, Vermont Sense
What is resilience?
Resilience is commonly defined as the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks. Resilience is a rich and complex concept. It has roots in systems theory, and it has a variety of interpretations and applications including for ecosystems management, disaster preparedness, and even community planning. Our interpretation is based on the work of the Resilience Alliance, the leading scholarly body working on the resilience of social-ecological systems.
Further Reading:
- Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience
- Thinking Resilience
- What Can Communities Do?
- The Community Resilience Guides
- Visit resilience.org
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