| Who we are
The Pioneer Valley Relocalization Project (PVRP) is a team of committed citizens in Amherst and neighboring towns who are working to combat the worst effects of global warming and peak oil by informing people about relocalization -- a guiding framework for making important individual and collective decisions in the new age of global warming and peak oil that we are in. PVRP encourages collaboration between itself and municipal officers, the public, and area sustainability groups. Formed in 2007, PVRP is a project of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities (MCHC).
PVRP's Current Projects
PVRP is working with RideBuzz.org and town governments to encourage residents to adopt carpooling for work and weekly errands via inserts in regular town mailings. We are developing a proposal for a diesel minibus service in Amherst and neighboring towns to supplement the inefficient 55-passenger PVTA buses at off-peak times. We are also engaged with people about establishing more town acreage under cultivation for local sustainable food production. And we work with area groups to spread information about peak oil, global warming, and community solutions to both.
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Relocalization: for healthy local communities
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Relocalization is the transformation of overly built, haphazardly and inefficiently designed, energy wasteful communities into community-designed, healthy local communities that provide secure jobs while protecting the environment, and revitalizing local democracy and citizen participation in the community in all its forms. Besides these benefits of economic health, sovereignty, and community spirit, relocalization plays a vital part in the crucially important reduction in oil consumption (CO2 creating) in order to address global warming and declining world oil production (peak oil). Starting in the next ten years, peak oil is going to cause a dramatic and huge increase in the price of oil and oil-derived products: gasoline, plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, etc.
Relocalization reorients a town's economy towards greater self-sufficiency, putting more wealth from local labor, resources, and local business towards enriching the town instead of sending some 20% of its wealth to corporate centers -- the result of residents doing business with big stores, utilities, and oil companies.
Relocalization allows the critical decisions regarding a community's future to be made through democratic processes rather than profit maximization boards and unresponsive, distant state agencies.
Relocalization is a stabilizing antidote to the exploitation of globalization and the ravages of unstable financial markets.
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We'd like you to join PVRP
By joining PVRP you support our region's economic and cultural future.
Make an annual donation of $10 or more, and we'll publish your name as a supporter (if you like your name published, which we'd prefer).
Mail a check made out to "MCHC" with "PVRP-contribution" on the note line to: PVRP, PO Box 1059, Amherst, MA 01004-1059.
To contribute online, click here and put "PVRP" in the designation box.
And be sure to tell us your name, address, phone, email, interests, organizations, profession, and anything else you'd like us to know about you.
Passionate about Relocalization? To join our steering committee contact: Larry Ely, PVRP chair, 256-6044 or email tetrahedrons@crocker.com.
Relocalization CDs & DVDs
For a $5 donation for each media disk, we'll mail you:
- CD on relocalization - Bill McKibben talk in Boulder, CO 3-26-07 (available here as an mp3 file)
- DVD on global warming - Bill McKibben's 350.org talk at the E. F. Schumacher Society, 10-17-09, professionally shot by Amherst's videographer and film producer, Ernie Urvater (available online here.)
- DVD on peak oil - our taping of Richard Heinberg at Hampshire College 4-27-08
Send your mailing address and check to "MCHC" with "PVRP-media" on the note line. Mail to:
PVRP, PO Box 1059, Amherst, MA 01004-1059
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What you can do to help:
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Donate to the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Project. Make an annual donation of $10 or more, and we'll publish your name as a supporter and keep you updated on our progress. Mail a check made out to "MCHC" with "PVRP-contribution" on the note line to: PVRP, PO Box 1059, Amherst, MA 01004-1059. Tell us your name, address, phone, email, and work. To contribute online, click here and put "PVRP" in the designation box.
- Write a letter to the editor: Submit an 850 - 950 word entry to the Green Perspective column that we helped establish in the Hampshire Gazette. Write about any aspect of greening our society in general, but a piece with a particular reference to the Pioneer Valley region is especially wanted. piece can be in body of email or as a Word attachment; provide your name, address, and telephone (address and phone will not be published). Submit to opinion@gazettenet.com and put Green Perspective column in subject line.
- Join our steering committee: If you are passionate about Relocalization and would like to help organize in the Pioneer Valley, contact: Larry Ely, PVRP chair, 256-6044 or email tetrahedrons@crocker.com.
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