[Pil-pc-oceania] Relocalisation and Post Oil machines

[Robyn Williamson]

Thanks so much Petra for the link to ISEC, what a wonderful site and I 
hope to get through many of Helena's articles over the next days and 
weeks.  It continually amazes me how many of these non-profit 
organisations who have been doing wonderful work for decades just keep 
cropping up, in ISEC's case they have been operating for over thirty 
years offering sane solutions in this arena and yet this is the first 
I've heard of them.  Delighted to hear that Helena believes in 
permaculture as one of the solutions but I guess it's a media fact 
after all that good news is no news.

This week also I've just read a book that was published in 1962 when I 
was in high school.  Of course I have heard of it many times since I 
became interested in permaculture but hadn't made it a priority to 
track down a copy and it was finally put directly into my hands last 
week.  Silent Spring by Rachel Carson should be on the reading list for 
every high school student I reckon.  These "mistakes" must never again 
be made but this is a furphy of course, they are not mistakes as such 
and they are still being made as we speak.

Two quick questions:  1) how many people were in the audience at the 
event you attended?  and 2) how many believed that modern agriculture 
is more efficient at producing food than other systems?

If the answer to the second question is as I suspect, ie. none, can I 
ask:  what do we think we have achieved almost 50 years down the track 
from the DDT disaster documented in Silent Spring? and why are we still 
consuming food sprinkled with poisons?  Ever more toxic substances are 
being applied to our foodstuffs while insect pests, weeds and diseases 
develop resistance to chemicals previously used, where and when will 
this end?  If people think agricultural science or GM technology will 
solve more problems than it has created in the last century they are in 
fantasyland.  DDT and the chlorinated hydrocarbon family of chemicals, 
now known to be present in varying proportion in every living thing in 
every corner of the globe, act mainly on the liver.  The newer more 
deadly organo-phosphates however act on the nervous system and so it is 
easy to see why depression is predicted to be one of the pandemics of 
the 21st century.  My personal theory is that we must have altogether 
lost the plot already.  Do we have the same ability as the arthropods 
to develop resistance/immunity to being fed poison in small quantities 
requiring ever increasing toxicity in this ongoing attempt to 
exterminate ourselves?

With apologies for getting off topic to the max but it is all linked as 
you are no doubt aware and I had to get that off my chest.  Look 
forward to hearing other people's opinions.

Luv & peas,
Robyn

On Sunday, June 3, 2007, at 12:00 pm, 
pil-pc-oceania-request at lists.permacultureinternational.org/Petra Kahle 
wrote:

> Robin,
>
> HElena gave us pamphletes on The International Society for Ecology and
> Culture, they have an office in US and UK and their web site is
> WWW.isec.org.uk. Here you'll find a brief history and her ideas etc.
> She talked a lot about the fact that it is a myth that modern 
> agriculture
> is more efficient at producing food than other systems. She asked 
> everyone
> in the audience whether anyone didn't believe her and proceeded to tell
> them more about permaculture and subsistence farming and fairness.
> Hope this helps,
> Cheers, Petra.
>
> UK: FOxhole, Dartington, Devon TQ9 6EB, UK
> phone (01803) 868650 - email infoUK at isec.org.uk
> US: PO Box 9475, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA
> phone (510) 548 4915 - email infoUSA at isec.org.uk
>
>> Hi Petra
>>
>> I can't make to to Helena's presentation in Sydney on 16 June and 
>> would
> love to hear more from you.
>>
>> Robyn