Local Economies for a Global Future: Yes, We Need to Relocalize - But That Doesn’t Mean We're Headed for Provincialism. Anticipating Our Near-Heavy, Far-Light Future

                                Image via Wikipediaby Jason F. McLennan, Yes! magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org

This article is about a simple, singular idea, yet the significance of the idea to modern society is profound and far-reaching.

Here it is: In the near future anything heavy will become intensely local while at the same time the limits to things that are ‘light’, ideas, philosophies, information will travel even further than today - literally and figuratively. This is a new paradigm for humanity and it has huge implications for the complete reordering of society.

Environmentalists, economists, and sociologists agree: we are in an incredible state of flux, and this is simply the beginning. The planet is undergoing massive change and critical resources are diminishing, conditions to which the human race must respond. Population growth, resource scarcity and climate change will propel us, whether we like it or not, toward a new energy, food and resource paradigm.

The world’s economies, based on cheap plentiful energy and the exploitation of people and the environment are starting to crumble. We are beginning an era in which the cozy assumptions of the last half-century are turned upside down, a time when the institutions and technologies that run our civilization are re-engineered.

To understand how radical this new paradigm will be, let’s explore similar re-orderings in the past.

To read further, go to: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/local-economies-for-a-global-future?utm_source=wkly20120120&utm_medium=yesemail&utm_campaign=titleMcLennan