Communities

the world we've built

Our local communities provide us with some of our most important needs: access to basic materials like food and water; essential services like public safety, transportation infrastructure, and education for our children; and, not least, the social and cultural contexts through which we make sense of the world. We organize in communities to provide for the common good — especially in the face of problems larger than what one person or one family can face.

The complex and interconnected challenges of the 21st century were largely created by what we humans have accomplished by working together for economic and technological progress. We'll need to work together to solve these challenges, and build resilient communities will thrive in this new world of economic, energy and environmental uncertainty.

videos

Michael Shuman - TEDxUVM

length: 15:53   credit: TedxTalks

In this talk, Post Carbon Fellow Michael Shuman presents the idea of a stimulus package in local stock exchange. The key goals are to transform local businesses in small-stock companies and to create modest, intrastate electronic exchanges. With these simple and sensible legal reforms it could correct this market failure and bring literally trillions of new investment dollars into our communities.

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associated fellows

latest related publications

Reflections From Alongside The Threshing Machine

Rob Hopkins    Sep 07, 2010   1 comments

Last weekend I was at Embercombe, about 20 minutes drive from Totnes, for the West Country Storytelling Festival. Embercombe is a fascinating evolving project, describing itself as “a … >>

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On Earth Day, the environmental movement needs repairs

Bill McKibben    Apr 23, 2010   2 comments

[Excerpt] Forty years in, we're losing. This weekend, when speakers at Earth Day gatherings across the country hearken back to the first celebration in 1970, they'll recall great victories: above … >>

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FOOD: Growing Community Food Systems

Erika Allen

EXCERPT: Food systems can be a very powerful tool for resilience.  In a revolutionary way, you can completely transform things without people realizing what's happening--they are … >>

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Down to the Wire

David Orr

"The real fault line in American politics is not between liberals and conservatives.... It is, rather, in how we orient ourselves to the generations to come who will bear the consequences, … >>

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