[permaculture-oceania] Re:A Must See - An Inconenient Truth -More Ways Than One

Thu Sep 28 10:40:27 EST 2006

Thanks Mitra, Tom and others for this debate. It is important, I think, that
we continue to have this level of constructive controversy.  Prof Stuart
Hill, at APC8 in Eltham last year made very similar challenges.  I always
hope for a great upswell of permie-activity to address such calls, but I
think it is more in our collective nature to respond in slow steady and
perhaps less visible ways.

I appreciate Mitra's thought-provoking questions, and ask them of myself as
well.  I am not sure that we lack successful designs, farms or eco-villages.
Rather, I think we lack awareness of them.  This is partly due to us being
busy doing permaculture, and not having enough time to produce good
websites, books, etc; and partly because a lot of good "permaculture" work
is either virtually invisible, or not ever called permaculture.

For example, my support for my local food co-op, which in turn supports
local growers is an important part of my 're-localisation'.  *I* think of it
as permaculture, {part of my "permaculture lifestyle"} but no one else
credits it as such.

the same story goes for a dozen commercial farms and eco-village communities
that *I* know, let alone all the others that I don't know, which are
'hidden' success stories.

It is a universal problem that we hear the negatives.  My experience of
Crystal Waters is overwhelmingly positive.  My experience of Aldinga is a
bit less positive, but it is early days (I reckon every eco-village needs 20
years to settle). Given as long as Crystal Waters, Aldinga will be another
massively successful project.  Maybe it will be called permaculture, maybe
not.  and isn't an abandoned swale better than no swale at all?

Permaculture continues to be *one* of many ways that we address a rapidly
changing world.  What is important is that we are active in a way that we
can be.  Meanwhile, I'd like to help get together a "success stories" book
and/or web site...we might be surprised at how much is out there?

Ian Lillington

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-oceania-bounces at lists.cat.org.au
[mailto:permaculture-oceania-bounces at lists.cat.org.au]On Behalf Of Mitra
Ardron
Sent: Wednesday, 27 September 2006 6:58 AM
To: permaculture-oceania
Cc: Tom Duncan
Subject: [permaculture-oceania] Re:A Must See - An Inconenient Truth
-More Ways Than One

I agree with Tom that "Inconvenent Truth" and Peak Oil should be a
wake up call for Permies,

The question is whether permies can become a credible part of the solution.

Permaculture is great on design, and the systems (sometimes) work,
but permaculture hasn't really offered a viable solution in terms of
interfacing with the vast masses of people out there in the suburbs.

The challenge is NOT the systems, we know how to do this,  the
challenge is the human-systems, the training, the support, the
financials.

I had dinner with David Holmgren earlier this year, after his talk on
the suburbs. I have no doubt that his suggestions would work, I have
lots of doubt in the ability of getting the designs in place. As I
said to David I believe that the crash won't be as severe as he
thinks (so there is a risk of being treated like another Y2K
false-alarm), but more importantly that Permaculture does not - as
its currently working - have a solution.

Permaculture has NOT proved that it can provide designs, and
appropriate training that will actually attract enough people to have
any impact at all on either Global Warming or Peak Oil.  Permaculture
- as I 've said before on this list - is presented as an all or
nothing approach, rather than as something incremental.  Where are
the coaches and trainers that will help people convert their land,
where are those who will help people fix it when they break. Where
are the simpler easy to use guides that really help people put a toe
in.

On the bigger scale, where are the commercial successful permaculture
farms that can produce enough of a surplus to feed a substantial
quantity of their neighbors? (ReGenesis is one example, but I don't
know of any others).

On the Eco-Village scale, again we see more failures than successes.
I've heard more negativity than positivity about Aldinga and Crystal
Waters (from its residents as well as from outsiders). Do either of
these, or any others produce a food surplus, or an energy surplus?

Even here in the Northern Rivers, home of permaculture. I know of
more permaculture failures than successes.  I see more abandoned
swales than working ones, more cardboard messes than food forests.

Lets take this as a wake up call to get our own human systems in
place so that permaculture has a chance of offering an alternative.
Lets make sure that at least some of our models are viable and
copyable, and lets make sure we have some training methods that have
a chance of working if a substantial portion of the population wanted
to grow their own food.

- Mitra

At 1:35 AM +1000 21/9/06, Tom Duncan wrote:
>I agree that Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" movie is a must see.
>..................Serveral of my interlocking points being, that
>there are trillions of dollars floating around, to invest, but few
>people/organisations has the investment vehicle it seems to invest
>in, as permies seem afraid of the investment scene and lone
>permaculture designers are out there free lancing to design
>ecovillages in ways that I feel are generally inadequate re. energy
>descent and future shocks... etc.. and subject to client whims of
>cost cutting and oil/coal system reliance.  .................... I
>agree, but there is the intractable issue that we have a 10 year
>window of opportunity to revolutionise the way our energy is used
>and patterned, and if ecovillages are what they are today - with
>crappy solar systems that took more energy to build them than are
>ever recovered, with toxic materials in batteries - who is calling
>this green, completely reliant on oil/coal system? Is that what an
>ecovillage is meant to be? .....Well, I guess the Bega
>Eco-Neighbourhood is an example of the community coming together and
>getting ethical investment funds to move towards those ideals
>permaculture has been extolling for some time now. I was hopeful
>that the BEND model of community coming together and developing and
>ecovillage/ eco-neighbourhood could become a new model of community
>acting as developer, but what the process has revealed to me, is
>that most people like me are outpriced, for a tiny block 14 metres
>wide, selling for over $115,000. Then the solar installation at
>about $20,000 per block and hooking up to the gas mains another
>couple of grand per block.............My question is: what is the
>role of an investment vehicle that made up of and by permaculture
>designers, pumping out ecovillage developments like a rabbits.....
>that have true sustainble energy and technology at their mainframe
>design? and what would it look like? .....As the intellectual
>property of ecovillage design is collectively owned by permaculture
>designers, and therefore a body that represents that to the
>commercial world, will be i a good position to leverage capital to
>invest in permaculture ecovillages. It all takes money, to buy land,
>subdivide, put in infrastructure, as the Bega Eco-Neighbourhood
>Development has proven. And lengthy delays due to grey water council
>issues push up prices... what will be the next model?

  (note deleted a lot of this post (and in particular some stuff about
biodigesters)

--
Mitra Ardron:  Natural Innovation
home/office +61-2-6684-8096  mobile +61-414-648-722  mitra at mitra.biz
www.naturalinnovation.org and Blog: www.mitra.biz/blog
skype: mitra_earth

Life is a Mystery to be Lived, not a Problem to be Solved

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