Post-Carbon Collective Italia

WE are a local, grassroots organization promoting social awareness in sustainable agriculture, re-localization, peak oil, and post-carbon living. We believe that an idea of locality and those practices associated with this concept need to be laid out prominently as necessary adaptations to a post-carbon environment.

Our main goal, as a newly-founded voice of relocalization in Italy, is to spread awareness of the strategic changes that pave the way towards an effective localized way of life, while at the same time advocating a gradual switch towards a low-intensity, low-impact lifestyle. As a way of introducing this idea of relocalization, we have included an edited, 6-point approach to relocalization provided by an expert in the field, Jason Bradford. This concise definition of relocalization provides a first look into the many ways this organization is trying to make small but noticeable changes in people’s lives across the country.

1. Relocalization is based on a systems approach that doesn’t solve one set of problems only to make another problem worse.

2. Relocalization is based on an ethic of protecting the Earth System--or Natural Capital-- knowing that despite our cleverness, human well-being is fundamentally derived from the ecological and geological richness of Earth.

3. Relocalization starts from the premise that the world is a finite place and that humanity is in a state of overshoot. Perpetual growth of the economy and the population is neither possible nor desirable. It is wise to start planning now for a world with less available energy, not more.

4. While we can’t know future threats precisely, scientists do agree that creating a carbon-cycle neutral economy should be the dominant task occupying our minds. This is exactly what Relocalization aims to do.

5. Relocalization advocates rebuilding more balanced local economies that emphasize securing basic needs. Local food, energy and water systems are perhaps the most critical to build. In the absence of reliable trade partners, whether from peak oil, natural disaster or political instability, a local economy that at least produces its essential goods will have a true comparative advantage.

6. Relocalization takes a different perspective altogether. Instead of working to keep a system going that has no future, it calls us to develop means of livelihood that pollute as little as possible and that promote local and regional stability. Since much of our pollution results from the distances goods travel, we must shorten distances between production and consumption as much as we can.