[permaculture-oceania] population challenges - Adelaide as one big community garden?

[Russ Grayson]

On 11/6/06 10:24 PM, "davidarnold at iinet.net.au" <davidarnold at iinet.net.au>
wrote:

> Hi Russ, 
 On 8/6/06 7:34 PM, "brookman" <brookman at bigpond.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thanks Jedd
>>> Whether Lovelock or Evans are correct we would need, in theory, to
>>> shed at least half the world's current population
>> 
>> Glad this is in theory. The reality is that it won't happen, so we
>> have to devise ways to live with the predicted 10 billion by 2050.

> Don't you think it might happen, by tragic circumstance in which, as access to
> fossil fuel resources contracts, the world fails to produce and distribute
enough food?
> 
> I hope it does not happen, but I cannot declare that it won't.

I don't "think" this will happen but I recognise that it could... I
recognise it as a possibility.

As I wrote earlier today, I suspect that the regional production of food
might go some way to feeding us, though grains would probably have to come
from further away - from over the Great Divide in the case of Sydney. Not
that wheat will not grow on the Cumberland Plain to the city's west, just
that the plain is undergoing urban expansion due to a short-sighted state
government that bumbles from chaos to chaos - not that the opposition would
be any different. 

The Food Fairness Alliance, in Sydney, is to advocate the preservation of
urban fringe farmland and I encourage any Permaculture people in the region
to join the Alliance and participate with health workers, local government
people and nutritionists - that form the majority of participants - (which
includes a grand total of three Permaculture people) in the activities of
the Alliance. It's a convenient way to enact your Permaculture principles in
the form of educational and advocacy activities.

>  A pitfall of talk about how we "have to" shed so many billions of people
>> starts to sound too much like accepting social Darwinism. It would
>> mean, of course, a fortress Australia in which the doors on the world
>> are closed as conditions over there deteoriate sharply and the
>> deterring of a plague of boat peeople that would make the boat people
>> exodus from Vietnam in the 1980s and the Siex X and children overboard
>> episodes look totally insignificant.
> 
> All of that could happen.  It is a grim prospect, but I feel that if we do not
face up to such possibilities we risk not applying sufficient rigour to our own
actions.

Yes, it might not be a probable scenario but it is one that should be
considered when thinking of the future, with others. The question for
Permaculture is how do we intervene in the growing public debate about
global warming, energy supplies and the not-too-distan future?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
RUSS GRAYSON
journalism, online content production, photojournalism, instructional
manuals, media services for overseas aid

PO Box 1045, Manly, NSW 1655 AUSTRALIA
info at pacific-edge.info
P: 0414 065 203
www.pacific-edge.info

TerraCircle international development team, Oceania
www.terracircle.org.au

Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network
www.communitygarden.org.au
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^