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

[Mitra Ardron]

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