On January 15, the Post Carbon Institute announced it was phasing out relocalize.net and partnering with Transition United States, the local version of the Transition Towns movement founded by Rob Hopkins in the UK.

See below, or read the entire press release at www.relocalize.net.

We are excited to announce that Post Carbon Institute has launched a partnership with Transition United States to continue to inspire and support communities as they shift quickly away from dependence on fossil fuels. The challenges we now face as a result of peak oil and climate change require all the collaboration and coordination we can muster. Rather than have two similar but distinct efforts to aid citizens as they prepare for a post carbon world, we are pleased to work together with the Transition movement, which has been hugely successful in establishing relocalization projects around the world.

Post Carbon Institute will be providing financial, operational, and strategic support to the newly formed Transition United States. As part of this partnership, we will be shifting our focus away from maintaining relocalize.net as an online community platform. We will be working directly with groups to identify their needs and transition content on relocalize.net to other web hosting platforms. More information about this process will be posted next week. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible.

Many members of the Relocalization Network have already been involved with the Transition Network and are familiar with the Transition model, which was founded by Rob Hopkins in the UK. If you have yet to explore the Transition movement, we encourage you to visit the links listed below. You can also download the Transition Primer (PDF).

While the partnership with Transition United States will focus on supporting communities within the US, Transition initiatives are growing by leaps and bounds in New Zealand and Australia and are just beginning in earnest in Canada. Browse the emerging list of official Transition Initiatives worldwide.

We wish to thank everyone for all their creativity, openness, patience, encouragement, and hard work in making the Relocalization Network into such a vibrant community over the past few years. It has been our huge pleasure to work with everyone and we hope to continue our relationships with members of the network through the development of this partnership.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at team @ relocalize.net.

Very best wishes,

Shelby and Asher

The Transition Primer is currently about 50 pages in length and can be found at http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Primer. Another copy is hosted at Boxborough Local: Transition Primer.

If you haven't run across the Post Carbon Institute, it's worth a look. Last week the group announced it was adopting the popular site EnergyBulletin.net as a core institute program. From the press release:

Said Bart Anderson of EnergyBulletin.net, "The last I looked, Energy Bulletin was getting about 370,000 visits per month (about 1,325,000 page views). With social changes coming faster than ever, we need a more robust organization so we can continue to support the community that's grown up around peak oil and sustainability. We've had a relationship with Post Carbon for years, so this next step feels natural. It's the right thing to do."

Added Adam Grubb, Founder of EnergyBulletin.net, "Post Carbon Institute is leading the charge towards real solutions to our energy crisis. I'm proud of what EnergyBulletin.net has become and am excited about its potential under the stewardship of PCI."