The Localization Reader, Adapting to the Coming Downshift

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Adam1
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Joined: 01 Sep 2006, 13:49

The Localization Reader, Adapting to the Coming Downshift

Post by Adam1 »

I imagine this book will be of interest to many of you. Sorry if people have already posted about this.
Energy supplies are tightening. Persistent pollutants are accumulating. Food security is declining. There is no going back to the days of reckless consumption, but there is a possibility—already being realized in communities across North America and around the world—of localizing, of living well as we learn to live well within immutable constraints. This book maps the transition to a more localized world.

Society is shifting from the centrifugal forces of globalization (cheap and abundant raw materials and energy, intensive commercialization, concentrated economic and political power) to the centripetal forces of localization: distributed authority and leadership, sustain-able use of nearby natural resources, community self-reliance and cohesion (with crucial regional, national, and international dimensions).

This collection, offering classic texts by such writers as Wendell Berry, M. King Hubbert, and Ernst F. Schumacher, as well as new work by authors including Karen Litfin and David Hess, shows how localization—a process of affirmative social change—can enable psychologically meaningful and fulfilling lives while promoting ecological and social sustainability. Topics range from energy dynamics to philosophies of limits, from the governance of place-based communities to the discovery of positive personal engagement. Together they point the way to a transition that can be peaceful, democratic, just, and environmentally resilient.

Raymond De Young and Thomas Princen are Professors at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. De Young is author of The Localization Papers at www-personal.umich.edu/~rdeyoung and Princen is author of The Logic of Sufficiency (2005) published by the MIT Press.
The authors have committed all royalties to two community organizations that exemplify localization. Growing Hope is an organization dedicated to helping people improve their lives and communities through gardening, healthy food access, and local food security (www.growinghope.net) and People's Food Co-op has long sought to feed a community with wholesome food and good work (www.peoplesfood.coop).
more here:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rdeyoung ... lyer_1.pdf


Available online here:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Localiz ... 0262516877


and here:

http://www.DODGY TAX AVOIDERS.co.uk/The-Localizatio ... 044&sr=8-1
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Potemkin Villager
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Post by Potemkin Villager »

I do get a wee bit underwhelmed by the written offerings
of the geat and the good of doomsville. I would be much more
interested in accounts of their actual practical activities rather than
endless theoretical ravings which are surposed to impres us the great unwashed.
Overconfidence, not just expert overconfidence but general overconfidence,
is one of the most common illusions we experience. Stan Robinson
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biffvernon
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Post by biffvernon »

E.F.Schumacher is in the list above - they just don't come any more practical.
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