Frequently Asked Questions

In a nutshell, we are a megaphone for some of the world's best thinking on the 21st century's global sustainability crisis. We've assembled a team of experts and leaders who recognize the complexity of the interconnected challenges facing the world today, and we organize and promote their work through our various publications and our Speakers Bureau. We also make connections and build relationships among them and the many people and organizations doing like-minded work. Our programs page tells more.

When recruiting our team of Fellows, we looked for original thinkers who understood that their own area of expertise was part of a larger picture increasingly defined by the challenges of climate change, peak fossil fuels, and the limits of economic growth. We sought Fellows who had a piece of the puzzle we didn't yet have, and who could speak to the specific challenges facing the United States. We also aimed for diversity in sex, ethnicity, age, sector (for example, academia, business, government, community), and geographic location. We're very proud of our Fellows, and continue to work on bringing in more women and those of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds to contribute to the Institute's knowledge-base and voice.

We've been fans of the Transition Towns movement and its founder Rob Hopkins (now a Fellow of Post Carbon Institute) since the beginning. In 2009 we provided seed funding to Transition US to help maintain the momentum of the work being done by the steadily growing number of Transition and Relocalization groups in this country. Our Executive Director Asher Miller and our Senior Fellow-in-Residence Richard Heinberg are on the Transition US board, but we otherwise do not formally collaborate with Transition Network on activities in other countries.

Post Carbon Institute works closely with Transition US to bring to the Transition movement our Fellows' knowledge and ideas, and to provide our Fellows with insights about emerging models and on-the-ground challenges and opportunities.

After providing technical support for a couple of years, we formally adopted Energy Bulletin in 2009. Energy Bulletin is a tremendous resource for people looking to gain deeper insight into our energy dilemma and related sustainability issues. We've also found it to be a great forum for new voices and new ideas. Special thanks go to Bart Anderson (US), who has managed EB as a full-time volunteer; Simone and Kristen (UK), who continue to keep the site running; Adam and Liam (Australia), who founded the site in 2004; and all of the volunteers who have helped over the years.

Subscribe to our newsletter to get monthly email updates full of news, analysis, and great ideas from our Fellows, staff, and friends. If once a month is not enough for you, follow us on Facebook and Twitter. You can also sign up for our RSS feed.

You are welcome to repost material which appears on postcarbon.org and spread the word as long as you follow these guidelines:

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- a small amount of material is published on postcarbon.org with specific permission from the author, but without blanket permission to repost. Where this is the case it will be stated clearly at the end of the article.

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Nope. We endorse ideas, not people. As an independent think tank, we are not affiliated with any government, corporate interest, religion, ideology, or political party.

None of the above and all of the above. Individual Fellows, Advisers, staff, and Board members may align themselves with differing political views, but the Institute's collaborative output is intended for the broadest possible audience. To side with a particular political viewpoint would not only alienate us from many of the people we serve, it would limit our scope of possibilities. Our best hope is to transcend the narrow confines of ideology and include the most useful ideas for achieving our highest aims and collective needs. As Fellow Bill McKibben has said about political bickering over climate change, "physics and chemistry don't negotiate, and they don't care which party we belong to."

Let us count the ways. You can donate electronically, by mail, by monthly pledge, by stock gift, by bequest, or by some other means you devise (unfortunately, we cannot accept barter). Please be sure to check if your employer provides matching gifts—you can double your impact!

We used to be focused largely on peak oil and re-localization. Then came the turning point of 2008: energy prices hit all-time highs, the global economy teetered on collapse, and the shift in U.S. political power opened up new possibilities for action on climate change. We saw an opportunity to talk more deeply about the fundamental, interconnected limits to growth, and so expanded our mission to include all of the major environmental, social, and economic issues facing the world in this new century. Click here for a full list and description of the Issues we're working on right now.

Life on earth as we know it would not exist without carbon, this is true. We also use hydrocarbon fuels (that is, petroleum, coal, and natural gas) as the primary energy source for just about everything we do. We are now so utterly dependent on hydrocarbon fuels that we increasingly risk major economic and social upheaval as the easy-to-get supplies are used up, and no comparable alternative energy sources are emerging to take their place.

Even more worrisome, over 150 years of burning more and more hydrocarbon fuels has released massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — more than the planet's plants and oceans can absorb without changing the global climate. We increasingly face major economic, social, and environmental upheaval as sea levels rise, droughts and floods increase, and agricultural zones shift.

So at Post Carbon Institute, we aid the transition to a world in which we are no longer dependent on hydrocarbon fuels, and no longer emitting climate-changing levels of carbon into the atmosphere.

The scale of intervention required to have a significant effect on atmospheric carbon and/or the effects of climate change makes climate geo-engineering a poor response choice for many reasons.

It would require enormous investments in a very new technology for unknown benefit; instead, those funds could go toward proven solutions like energy conservation measures (including redesigning cities and food systems to use far less energy) and the development of renewable energy sources.

It would risk worrying economic, environmental and social consequences, as the effects of manipulating weather and climate patterns at large scales over large periods of time (e.g., forcing rain for a drought-stricken area may well cause drought elsewhere) are very much unknown -- with obvious potential for political abuse.

Finally, spending untold multiple billions of dollars on technological efforts to reduce atmospheric carbon contributed by the burning of fossil fuels makes little sense if those fuels are becoming scarce anyway. Coal, oil, and natural gas are dead ends from both economic and environmental perspectives. All of our scarce energy investment capital should be going toward transitioning to a post-carbon world -- independent of hydrocarbon fuels, and resilient to the economic, social and environmental challenges of climate change and peak fossil fuels that are already unavoidable.

Most certainly. Post Carbon Institute is the "dba" name of Metafoundation, which is incorporated as a non-profit organzation in the state of Oregon. We have federal 501(c)3 tax-exempt status, so your donation is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. We're an independent think tank, not affiliated with any government, corporate interest, religion, ideology, or political party.

Donations can be made to either "Metafoundation" or "Post Carbon Institute." Our Federal Tax ID number is 65-1208462.

A recent article by Post Carbon Fellow Bill Rees pretty much sums up our position:

First, climate change, particularly global warming, is an undisputed fact. The mean global temperature has increased by .8 Centigrade degrees over the last century, glaciers are melting, the Arctic sea ice is disappearing, deserts are expanding and sea levels are rising-all ahead of climate model projections.

Second, while it is true that Earth's climate is primarily determined by various non-human factors, including solar output and shifting ocean currents, there have been no changes in these sufficient enough to explain ongoing temperature increases.

Third, by contrast, human activities have significantly increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Carbon dioxide is up 38 per cent from a preindustrial 280 parts per million to 388 ppm today. Other GHGs have climbed proportionately even more -- but the CO2 increases alone are more than sufficient to account for the observed warming.

Fourth, increasingly severe weather events are already displacing or killing tens of thousands of people annually and this trend is likely to worsen.

End of story. Details are arguable, but the big picture could hardly be clearer.

Our position is simple: Serious debate about climate change has been over since 1990.

The scientific work since then has consistently painted a more and more worrying picture. The controversy that exists is largely political. While some scientists disagree over things like the contribution of solar activity and other natural phenomena, these are very minor points that do not contradict the international scientific consensus that climate change is real, is caused by humans, and is a major threat to both human civilization and countless plant and animal species around the world.

Everyone in the modern industrial world needs to live a more sustainable&—or "green"—lifestyle if for no other reason than basic social equity. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "live simply so that others may simply live" (see: ecological footprint).

Fortunately, living more sustainably turns out to be one of the best things you can do for both economic security and personal well-being. Spending less on fossil fuels decreases your vulnerability to rising energy prices and leaves more money in your pocket to spend locally, which supports your community's economy. Getting more of your food from local sources means you'll eat healthier and support local farmers, which helps protect your area's agricultural land. These and other "green" lifestyle changes actually build resilience against the increasing uncertainties created by peak oil and climate change.

The "post carbon future" will have more uncertainties and less sheer material abundance than we've become accustomed to, but there's no reason it can't actually be better and happier than what we have now. Countless studies (not to mention most of the world's religions) tell us that material wealth, past a fairly basic level, has almost nothing to do with happiness. The international Transition Towns movement is one example of how we and our communities can respond to the challenges ahead with hope, planning, and even humor.