Post Carbon Institute

Founded	2003 (2003)
Founder	Julian Darley and Celine Rich
Tax ID no.	65-1208462
Location	Corvallis, Oregon, United States
Key people	Asher Miller, Executive Director; Jason Bradford, Board President;Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow
Revenue	$1,051,861[1] (2017)
Expenses	$712,871[1] (2017)
Website	www.postcarbon.org

Post Carbon Institute (PCI) is athink tank which provides information and analysis onclimate change,energy scarcity, and other issues related tosustainability and long term communityresilience. Its Fellows specialize in various fields related to the organization's mission, such asfossil fuels,renewable energy, food, water, and population. Post Carbon is incorporated as a501(c)(3)non-profit organization and is based inCorvallis, Oregon, United States.

Post Carbon Institute largely publishes and promotes the work of its Fellows and allies. It maintains two major websites,postcarbon.org for material from its staff and Fellows, andresilience.org for material from allies. Since 2009 it has focused on: publishing articles, reports, and books; running issue-oriented promotional campaigns; and serving as a speakers' bureau for some of its Fellows.

Post Carbon Institute was founded byJulian Darley (President) and Celine Rich (Executive Director) in 2003. (Although not explicitly recognized as a founder, Dave Room helped build the Institute from months of its inception into a funded organization.) Its initial purpose was to implement programs to educate the public on issues surrounding global fossil fuel depletion (seepeak oil,peak coal,peak gas) andclimate change, as well as on possible responses to these challenges. A key tool for this was a film called "The End of Suburbia", which featuredRichard Heinberg andJames Howard Kunstler among others. Post Carbon promoted the concept ofRelocalization, a strategy to build community resilience based on the local production of food, energy, and goods, and the development of more localized governance, economy, and culture.^[2]

Post Carbon Institute was one of the few organizations in this period actively promoting the concept ofpeak oil, along with groups such as theAssociation for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, theInternational Forum on Globalization, and theTransition Towns movement, and websites such as EnergyBulletin.net andThe Oil Drum. It ran the predominant online social network focused on community responses to peak oil and climate change, theRelocalization Network.Richard Heinberg^[3] joined as a Senior Fellow-in-Residence in 2008. Major activities included:

• Global Public Media, streaming long format audio and video interviews about the issues surrounding fossil fuel depletion.
• The Relocalization Network,^[4][5] 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.
• The Energy Farms Network, a demonstration and partnership program to explore production of feedstocks, fuels and electricity by local farmers for local users.
• The Oil Depletion Protocol (aka theRimini or Uppsala Protocol), a blueprint for an international agreement to avoid price and supply volatility problems associated with global oil production.

Asher Miller became Executive Director in 2009, and Post Carbon restructured to concentrate its program activities on research and publishing. It broadened its topical focus to includenatural resource depletion,climate change, the limits toeconomic growth,human overpopulation, food, and other issues - partly in response to the changed U.S. political landscape following the2008 oil crisis, thefinancial crisis of 2007–2008, and the election of PresidentBarack Obama (seePost Carbon Institute Manifesto). Most of its earlier programs were consolidated or discontinued. It entered into partnerships withTransition US^[6] and Energy Bulletin.net, a clearinghouse website on issues surrounding global energy resource depletion. Its roster ofFellows was significantly expanded to include notable figures such asBill McKibben,Wes Jackson,David Orr, andMajora Carter.

Resilience.org is a resource platform for communities building local self-reliance, emphasizing community-based responses to the rapidly emerging fallout from the end of cheap fossil fuels. It was launched in 2012 as the successor to the popular peak oil website EnergyBulletin.net.^[7]

Think Resilience is an online course on "how to make sense of the complex challenges society now faces" and "how to build community resilience."^[8]

Since 2012, publications have focused primarily on energy and/or community resilience:

• Report:Shale Reality Check 2019, by J. David Hughes (2019)
• Report:How Long Will the Shale Revolution Last?: Technology versus Geology and the Lifecycle of Shale Plays, by J. David Hughes (2019)
• Book:Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History, by Matthieu Auzanneau, foreword by Richard Heinberg, published by Chelsea Green (2018); English translation ofOr noir: la grande histoire du pétrole, published by Éditions La Découverte (2015)
• Report:Shale Reality Check, by J. David Hughes (2018)
• Report:2016 Tight Oil Reality Check, by J. David Hughes (2016)
• Report:2016 Shale Gas Reality Check, by J. David Hughes (2016)
• Book:Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path for One Hundred Percent Clean Energy, by Richard Heinberg and David Fridley, published by Island Press (2016)
• Report:Renewable Energy After COP21, by Richard Heinberg (2015)
• Report:Tight Oil Reality Check, by J. David Hughes (2015)
• Report:Shale Gas Reality Check, by J. David Hughes (2015)
• Book:Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels, by Richard Heinberg, published by New Society (2015)
• Report:Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom, by J. David Hughes (2014)^[9]
• Report:Drilling California: A Reality Check on the Monterey Shale, by J. David Hughes, withPhysicians Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (2013)^[10]
• Book:Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future, byRichard Heinberg (2013)^[11]
• Report:Drill Baby Drill: Can Unconventional Fuels Usher in a New Era of Energy Abundance, by J. David Hughes (2013)^[12][13]
• Campaign: TheEnergy Reality Campaign, with various allies
• Book:ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerthner, published byWatershed Media with theFoundation for Deep Ecology (2013). With essays byLester Brown,Amory Lovins,Bill McKibben and others.^[14]
• Book:The ENERGY Reader, edited by Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner, published byWatershed Media with theFoundation for Deep Ecology (2013). With essays byWinona LaDuke,Vandana Shiva, and others.
• Report:Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?, by J. David Hughes (2011)^[15]
• Video:300 years of fossil fuels in 300 seconds, Winner of aYouTubeDoGooder best non-profit video award (2011)
• Report:Searching for a Miracle: 'Net Energy' Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society, byRichard Heinberg, with theInternational Forum on Globalization (2010)
• Report:Preparing for Peak Oil: Local Authorities and the Energy Crisis^[16] 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)

• 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)^[17]
• Book:Rebuilding the Foodshed: How to Create Local, Sustainable, and Secure Food Systems, byPhilip Ackerman-Leist, published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2013)^[18]
• Book:Power from the People: How to Organize, Finance, and Launch Local Energy Projects, byGreg Pahl, published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2012)^[19]
• Book:Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity, byMichael Shuman, published by Chelsea Green Publishing (2012)^[20]
• Book:The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises, edited by Richard Heinberg & Daniel Lerch with authors includingPeter C. Whybrow,David W. Orr, andSandra Postel, published byWatershed Media (2010), winner of the Independent Publisher Book AwardGold Medal (Environment/Ecology/Nature)^[21]

• Report:The Future is Rural: Food System Adaptations to the Great Simplification by Jason Bradford (2019)
• Report:There's No App for That: Technology and Morality in the Age of Climate Change, Overpopulation, and Biodiversity Loss, by Richard Heinberg (2017)
• Report:Climate After Growth: Why Environmentalists Must Embrace Post-Growth Economics and Community Resilience, by Asher Miller andRob Hopkins (2013)^[22]
• Book:The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality by Richard Heinberg, published by New Society Publishers (2011)^[23]
• Report:The Real New Deal: Energy Scarcity and the Path to Energy, Economic, and Environmental Recovery byRichard Heinberg, Daniel Lerch, Asher Miller (2009)
• Report:The Food and Farming Transition byRichard Heinberg and Michael Bomford (2009)

• Community Resilience
• Peak oil
• Resource depletion
• Transition Towns
• Climate change mitigation

• 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