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Amazing Speech by War Veteran
Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh December 27, 2009
I see a world ripe and ready, even braced, for change. This gem of a speech by a soldier confessing his shame for his occupation, the occupation, and the system that finances it all for profit is a very fine example of this. In similar fashion to yesterday’s clip, the thoughts are appropriate for this time of year – when we contemplate the meaning of our little lives and the direction they’re heading in.
A world based on privatised competition and profit will always destroy itself. It creates ‘health systems’ that incentivise and feed on illness, it creates prisons that depend on crime for their survival, it creates bombs that must be detonated to keep the armament industry afloat and private armies that need war to remain profitable.
The question is, will the massively powerful and centralised profit-based systems – that we’re bankrolling with our labour and consumer involvement – fortify their positions as modern-day feudal lords while society teeters on the edge of the abyss? Or, will we find the way, challenging though it may be, to dismantle them wholesale through a broadscale shift to relocalised self-sufficiency?
Comments (5)The Price of ‘Development’ in China
Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh December 26, 2009
Christmas is supposed to be a time where we give some thought to people less fortunate. It is also a time of major consumeristic excess. The incongruity of these two thoughts is starkly demonstrated by the clip below. This is China, factory for the world. Here, to make room for industries and infrastructure that China needs to supply the world with barbies, bicycles and toy berettas, the common people are forcibly evicted from their homes before seeing them demolished.
It’s sobering to think, as we stand at the checkout – with our trolley overflowing with crap for little Tommy and Britney – that we are financing a tyrannical allegiance between governments and Big Industry.
Further Reading:
- Food Miles, or Fair Miles?
- The Peasants are Revolting
- Rich Nations Buying Up Land in Poor Countries at Escalating Rate
Ice Melting Faster Everywhere
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Earth Policy Institute December 24, 2009
By Alexandra Giese, Earth Policy Institute
From the Arctic sea ice to the Antarctic interior and the mountainous peaks of Peru, Alaska, and Tibet, ice is melting at an alarming rate. The accelerating loss of ice sheets, sea ice, and glaciers is one of the most powerful and striking indicators of a warming climate.
The most notable ice loss in recent years has been the shrinking of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. From the beginning of the satellite record in 1979 through 1996, ice area decreased at a steady rate of 3 percent per decade in response to rising temperature. In the following decade, ice area decreased by 11 percent, reaching a dramatic minimum in 2007. In September of that year, sea ice occupied only 3.6 million square kilometers, an area 27 percent smaller than the previous record low (in 2005) and 38 percent smaller than the 1979–2007 average. Summer sea ice coverage has increased slightly in the last two years, but it is still far below the long-term average.
Laying the Groundwork for a New Intentional Community in New Zealand
Development & Property Trusts, Eco-Villages, People Systems, Village Development — by Bob Corker December 22, 2009
Shifts and Closures
The Koanga Institute originally developed out of a mission to save heritage seeds in New Zealand. Over a period of 20 years it has built up a national collection of over 700 varieties, which are regularly grown out, distributed and maintained. For most of the last 20 years this was done just outside of a Kaiwaka, a small village about 100 kms north of Auckland, NZ’s largest city. Increasingly over the last 5 years the Institute has focussed on how we learn to live sustainable lives, believing that we can’t save the seeds if we don’t save the gardeners, and we don’t save the gardeners unless we build communities that honour and support gardeners. Then completely out of the blue, three years ago, Kay Baxter and Bob Corker, the founders of the Institute decided to leave Kaiwaka and have taken the Institute on a nomadic journey.
The main reasons for leaving Kaiwaka, were a sense of impending suburbanisation of our once rural district (one lifestyle block at a time), and the sense that the eco-village we had designed had some major limitations in its economic and governance structure, and that these combined limitations were unlikely to change. We had a dream of taking what we have learned from our years of observation, study and experimentation and do something more bold, with more potential to engage our personal visions and those of others. The dream hasn’t got a home just yet, but our nomadic ways are about to end. Over those last few years we’ve continued to shape our vision and we’ve had some major shifts along the way
Comments (2)Pinky’s Scary School Nightmare – and Deschooling Society
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh
From looking at site stats, I see that significant numbers of people have read my recent ‘Carbon Trading – and What Should Be on the Negotiating Table at Copenhagen‘ post. The climate talks are over now, and appear to have achieved little more than add to a global atmosphere of discouragement, and so it’s left to us, the average guy on the street, to do what they should have done – that being to deeply consider what the world we want to develop should look like and to then consider how we can get from where we are now to that destination.
One of the key points I raised in the aforesaid article is the need to educate, educate, educate. The kind of education I’m referring to is not your contemporary, institutionalised, factory-type schooling that churns out faithful drones of consumption – but rather more practical-based education that enables individuals to take on the very real social, ecologic, resource challenges we now face.
The clip below, I think, is a good way to get one thinking about the topic in an outside-the-box fashion:
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Introducing the Wondrous CO2 Knob
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marcin Gerwin
 Upsala Glacier: William L. Stefanov, NASA-JSC |
It may seem that the Earth has always looked like it does now. It didn’t change much over the last centuries. How can one tell what the climate was like on Earth thousands and millions years ago? Was it hotter or cooler than now? What do the ice cores tell us? Was carbon dioxide involved in any way in shaping the climates of the past? Or, are the emissions of greenhouse gases changing the climate only now? What was driving climate change since humans were not burning fossil fuels? Where did the CO2 come from at that time?
Comments (4)From Annuals to Perennials
Conservation, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Soil Conservation, Structure — by Craig Mackintosh December 20, 2009
Permaculture is all about mimicking natural systems – patterning our agriculture and other critical human needs on the symbiotic processes we observe all around us. If you compare nature’s methods we see that stable natural plant systems are polycultures, and perennial, whereas our modern industrial agriculture is the exact opposite – largely being monocultures and annuals.
But, imagine if the annual crops we rely on the most, grains and pulses, could be made to grow perennially instead. No end/beginning of year ploughing, no annual replanting, etc. It would save enormous amounts of time and energy on cultivation and planting, and allow soils to remain undisturbed for longer, with immense benefits to soil life, structure, organic matter and carbon content.
The video below highlights this out-of-the-box permaculture thinking. The Land Institute in Kansas has been working solidly on engineering annuals into perennials (by way of natural plant breeding – not by gene gun). They take ancient wild, perennial varieties of grains, and cross them with their modern annual counterparts, and repeat, and repeat, until they end up with a harvestable product from a plant that doesn’t have to be resown every year. Or at least that’s the aim. This is still a work in progress, but their purpose is "to develop an agricultural system with the ecological stability of the prairie and a grain yield comparable to that from annual crops".
Comments (10)Yeomans’ Pioneer Demonstration Site to Be Turned into Housing Estate
Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Irrigation, Land, News, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Conservation, Structure, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh December 19, 2009
One of the most influential people in sustainable agricultural systems development is the late P.A. Yeomans. Yeomans went against the contemporary fertility-in-a-bottle school of thought to develop ‘keyline’ concepts of land management that work in harmony with natural land features (working with contours), to maximise water harvesting in the landscape, minimise soil erosion and build lasting soil fertility. His observations and practice led him to design and develop the keyline plow, a deep chisel plow that maximises water infiltration and soil aeration – setting up conditions that soil macro and microorganisms can flourish in – but that doesn’t overturn the soil, with its associated destruction of soil structure and life, as other plows do.
The ABC just ran an interesting spotlight (video – or transcript here if you prefer) where we learn that one of Yeomans’ properties, ‘Yobarnie’, in Richmond, north of Sydney, is facing ‘development’ that would turn this important historical demonstration site into a housing estate. In the 1950s and ’60s the site attracted busloads of people on weekend tours where observers could see the transformation his methods effected and learn about their implementation.
Comments (1)The Tricks of the Human Mind
General, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Thomas Fischbacher
Editor’s Note: Thomas Fischbacher has been a valued commenter on this site for a while now. Today Thomas makes his PRI post debut, with a great piece on why sometimes logic and facts are neither logical nor factual in the context of our cherished beliefs. Others that would like to contribute articles are very welcome to do so.
When studying the human mind, one of the most fascinating – and at times startling – insights is that there is sometimes a serious discrepancy between the tale the human mind spins to itself, and actual reality.
One especially striking demonstration of the extent of the distortions introduced by the brain’s data pre-processing was given by Edward Adelson, MIT professor of vision science, with the "checkershadow illusion":
The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray
Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
This innocent illusion is so extremely appealing because it conveys its profound message in the most direct, most immediate, most rapid way possible: Your eyes lie, and much more than you actually might ever have imagined.
Comments (5)The Art of Scything
General — by Trish Allen December 18, 2009
by Trish Allen of Rainbow Valley Farm
A modern take on an ancient farming method is becoming a new movement sweeping the lush pastures of New Zealand.
The art of scything has seen a recent resurgence with permaculturalists and Ecoshow directors Joanna Pearsall and Bryan Innes holding a series of workshops around the country starting at Rainbow Valley Farm under the expert eye of visiting Austrian scything teacher Christoff Schneider.
A scythe can be used for many things: mowing the lawn, cutting long grass, harvesting grain or cutting scrub, tasks normally done using a mower, brushcutter or weedeater. New and lighter ergonomically designed tools with specialist razor-sharp blades are able to be wielded with an almost effortless effectiveness that would put the average weedeater to shame.
Comments (4)Rainbow Valley Farm PDCs for Summer 2010
Courses/Workshops — by Trish Allen
Two Permaculture Design Courses will be held on Rainbow Valley Farm in New Zealand this summer. This is the original 72-hour design course – graduates will be awarded a certificate from Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Institute in Australia.
This is an intensive 14-day course where students have the chance to get fully immersed in the permaculture way of thinking and acting while studying on a working permaculture farm. The course covers sustainable living systems for a wide variety of landscapes and climates. It includes the application of permaculture principles to food production, home design, construction, energy conservation and alternative economic structures. Students are invited to bring details of their own sites or potential sites.
Comments (0)December Emissions Peak Addressed
Comedy Break, Consumerism — by Marc Roberts
Courtesy: Throbgoblins
Letters from Sri Lanka – Sarvodaya Builds Community and National Resilience
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Community Projects, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh
Part IV of a series – If you haven’t already, please read Part I, Part II and Part III before continuing. This series is part of my work for the Sustainable (R)evolution book project.
The 2300 year old sacred fig of Anuradhapura in north central Sri Lanka
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh
It was kind of humbling, and strangely reassuring, standing next to one of the oldest living trees in the world. It is, in fact, the oldest known human-planted tree. Its limbs are aided by vertical supports now, lest they tumble, but despite being 2300 years old, its wide spreading branches were still flush with green leaves.
Comments (3)Frank’s Shovel, and Day 8 at Copenhagen Update
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts December 16, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is a repost from Marc Roberts at Throbgoblins. Be sure to comment and encourage our Frank in his permaculture ambitions. We’d certainly love to see him taking regular breaks from his passionate activist endeavours to recharge in nature and build some resiliency for himself against these troubled times. (But please, please, no making fun of his thirty five year old singlet….)
Click for larger view
Courtesy: Throbgoblins
This cartoon was a response to a suggestion by Craig Mackintosh of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia – who has been a valued supporter of Frank over the years. Craig points out that what should be on the negotiating table at Copenhagen is:
Comments (2)PRI at the Markets
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Village Development — by Jay Kimber December 15, 2009
Jay Kimber at the stall
Recently Zaytuna Farm, home base for the Permaculture Research Institute, took their surplus produce and information to the (very) local craft and produce market in the Channon, situated less than 2 km from the farm.
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