Relocalization

In this article for HopeDance Magazine, Post Carbon Institute founder Julian Darley
discusses the connections between food and energy, both globally and as locally as your kitchen table.

In this freewheeling conversation, Jason Bradford and Brian Weller, co-founders of Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL), discuss local food security, creating a farm at a nearby grade school, being rooted in community, urban / rural friction in wealth and land use, regional trading partners, reinventing local public transportation, and more. Episode 95.

Jason Bradford and Brian Weller, co-founders of Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL), discuss their group's approach to educating and enrolling their townsfolk about declining oil and the imperative to reduce dependencies on imported energy, food, and other goods. They view their group as a mid-WIFE: a Watchdog, Incubator, Facilitator and Educator. They're pioneering "rediscovering where we live--and it's exciting." Episode 94.

Jay Martin of Provident Organic Farm in Maryland talks to GPM volunteer Brian Magee about the nuts and bolts of practically implemented community supported agriculture (CSA). Martin also consults for LESSON, Lower Eastern Shore Sustainable/Organic Network.

Author James Howard Kunstler talks with Duncan Crary of the Institute for Humanist Studies about the tragedy/comedy of suburban sprawl, what makes a successful town, and the fantasy of alternative fuels.

In November 2007, Deconstructing Dinner attended one of the first regional food security conferences ever held in Canada. With a population of less than 10,000 people, the City of Nelson, British Columbia, hosted over 250 people for the first evening of keynote speakers. With an equally impressive 170 in attendance on the second day of keynote speakers and workshops, the conference acts as an example for other communities wishing to begin organizing themselves to take greater control over the food available to them.

Our global food system faces a crisis of unprecedented scope. This crisis, which threatens to imperil the lives of hundreds of millions and possibly billions of human beings, consists of four simultaneously colliding dilemmas, all arising from our relatively recent pattern of dependence on depleting fossil fuels.

Former professor and author David Korten told close to 300 applauding peak oil activists that they are not a fringe minority but the leading edge of a super-majority "and it's time we start acting like it." Korten issued his rallying call in October at the "Fourth U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions" where activists from 30 some states discussed ways to respond to declining oil production and other coming planetary woes. Korten joined a dozen other speakers in "Planning for Hard Times," the theme of the three-day conference sponsored by Community Solution at Antioch College.

Klaus Harvey of Transition Town Kinsale (TTK) shares with Global Public Media's Andi Hazelwood the benefit of two years of experience in striving for sustainability in Kinsale, Cork, Ireland since the town's local council adopted the world's first Energy Descent Action Plan. Harvey talks about the food, transport and waste initiatives underway, and TTK's relocalization plans for the future.

Tim Flannery, one of Australia's top scientists and author of The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change talks to Andi Hazelwood of Global Public Media about his suggested mitigations for climate change on the heels of the alarming new report from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Flannery also discusses Australia's drought and food crises, relocalization and Bjorn Lomborg's skeptical new book on global warming.