Permaculture Australia Survey – A Chance to Have Your Say
Developments, People Systems — by John Champagne March 15, 2011
Warm Greetings to all members of the Permaculture community,
The idea of unifying the many components that make up the Permaculture movement in Australia is not a new one, but after a rich 30-year history, it is an idea whose time has come. This survey initiative enables all of you that have completed a Permaculture Design Certificate course in that 30 years or are currently active within your local Permaculture group to provide input toward progressing this concept to the next stage.
Comments (4)O-Farm Community Gardens, Hong Kong
Community Projects, Food Shortages, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Geoff Lawton March 10, 2011
O-Farm Hong Kong is championed by PDC graduate Yip Tsz Shing. It is a wonderful community garden where very small spaces, just a few metres (8 square metres on average), are rented by Hong Kong residents.
Some may travel up to an hour and a half each way to come and garden fresh organic food and have social interaction with other community gardeners.
Comments (3)The Ancient Taberna in a Future World
Biodiversity, Building, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Economics, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Oyvind Holmstad March 4, 2011
Ladakh, India
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh
A taberna (plural tabernae) was a single room shop covered by a barrel vault within great indoor markets of ancient Rome. Each taberna had a window above it to let light into a wooden attic for storage and had a wide doorway. A famous example is the Markets of Trajan in Rome, Italy built in the early 1st century by Apollodorus of Damascus.
According to the Cambridge Ancient History, a taberna was a “retail unit" within the Roman Empire and furthermore was where many economic activities and many service industries were provided, including the sale of cooked food, wine and bread. – Wikipedia
Some people claim that the Markets of Trajan was the world’s first shopping mall. But there is a difference to today’s malls. Trajan’s Market was beautiful and it offered ingenious personal services and variety, something which is rare today. I’ve yet to see a beautiful shopping mall built in the era of consumerism. Those few nice examples are all reused train stations and so on, from a lost time. No, the Trajan Market was not at all like today’s ’supermarkets’ — it was a superb market!
Comments (2)Help Us Give You What You Want
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Education Centres, Ethical Investment, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 3, 2011
Do you really understand what the Worldwide Permaculture Network is all about?
The WPN represents many months of work. Now is your chance to pitch in a little, and directly benefit with improved functionality and more capabilities. |
In a world seemingly gone mad, permaculture is reinvigorating countless individuals worldwide – giving them hope by giving them tools (knowledge) to equip them to live free, secure, healthy and happy. The Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) is an outgrowth of this trend. Indeed, the WPN itself becomes a giant toolbox, where all the members’ knowledge can be shared amongst each other!!
Scenario(s): Imagine if you’re living in, say, a residential urban home, and are looking at ways to increase your resiliency and sustainability. Then, imagine if you could search a database of thousands of like-minded souls, filtering the results to constrain them to just people in similar circumstances as your own – i.e. ‘urban’, ‘residential’.
Then, why not drop in a climate zone filter to get even more relevant results?
Comments (1)Community Gardens Visited and Observed: Veggie Village in Peregian Beach
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Food Shortages, Land, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Geoff Lawton February 18, 2011
Community gardens are a very valuable demonstration of how a community can grow its own food, provide its own power, harvest its own water from roofs and build appropriate buildings and infrastructure. They are a wonderful element in the community and permaculture people all over the world should support community gardens in all their forms.
An interesting observation is that often a community has already used all of the most valuable land by the time the population has grown to a stage where it requires or requests that a community garden be installed. Therefore often a community garden is given land that is not valuable for the local real estate market but can be surrounded by local real estate development. It has become a regularly repeated phenomenon that land given for the installation and development of community gardens is flood prone and generally a poor landscape. There is therefore quite an emphasis on raised garden beds, this is something we have observed as we visited different community gardens around the world and in Australia.
Comments (9)Cognitive Dissonance and Non-adaptive Architecture: Seven Tactics for Denying the Truth
Consumerism, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Nikos A. Salingaros February 9, 2011
by Nikos A. Salingaros, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Abstract: Human physiology can lead people who have acquired false beliefs to stubbornly persist in holding them. Intelligent persons conform to irrational groupthink, employing a stock of tools to fight against any idea that conflicts with those already held. There is in fact a built-in resistance to new ideas that do not conform to accepted practices, even when such practices are demonstrated to be failures. We can understand this resistance to change within the framework of social learning and evolutionary adaptation. “Cognitive dissonance” is a state of physical anxiety to which we instinctively react in a defensive manner. We are programmed to counteract its occurrence. Studies in political science and psychology reveal strong innate mechanisms for preserving misinformation so as to avoid cognitive dissonance. Methods of handling contradictory information within settings requiring urgent action — while obviously appropriate at the evolutionary level of early humans — wreak havoc with our present-day rationality.
Introduction
Is today’s consumerist society headed for collapse because of its exponentially growing, hence unsustainable needs? For some years now we have been aware of the damaging affect that the material pursuits of both industrial and developing countries have on the earth and its biosphere. Yet, despite numerous well-made rational arguments that urge us to change the catastrophic global waste of natural resources and energy, expanding agricultural regions at the risk of losing the diversity of the biosphere, etc., it is frustrating to find that human inertia overrides sound logic and reason (Max-Neef, 2010; Wilson, 2006).
Comments (10)Sacred is Our Inherent Right to Live Free and Gloriously – Interview with Craig Mackintosh
Aid Projects, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Willi Paul February 8, 2011
Interview with Craig Mackintosh by Willi Paul about the new Worldwide Permaculture Network
Willi Paul: Is there a global permaculture revolution rising now?
Craig Mackintosh: Well, there had better be. The other kinds of revolution aren’t pretty. Revolution, I believe, is going to become an increasingly popular word. But often revolutions merely pull things down, without offering meaningful replacements.
Over the last few years the level of interest in permaculture has skyrocketed. People are increasingly realizing the world is running out of options, but many are also realizing that this is exactly what permaculture gives to the world – options.
WP: What are the pros and cons of a world-wide database?
Comments (49)The Live Launch of the Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) is Now Underway!!
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Eco-Villages, Education Centres, Networking Sites, News, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 3, 2011
Dear People
After months and months of work, we’re now launching a new system — the Worldwide Permaculture Network (WPN) — which will enable permaculturists everywhere to:
- Put themselves on a clickable map, where people (permaculturists and non-permaculturists) can see at a glance the scope of the spread of permaculture worldwide
- Showcase their work as individuals, and the work of any projects they are administrating
- Be searchable according to many variables (climate zone, project type, and more)
- Network with other permaculturists everywhere
- Advertise their consultancy services
- Advertise their courses (for educational projects)
- Share knowledge, experiences, challenges, successes, and inspiration
- Help inspire non-permaculturists with the potential for positive, systemic change that permaculture design systems can bring
- And more…
Forest Chumps
Alternatives to Political Systems, Deforestation, Economics, People Systems, Village Development — by George Monbiot February 2, 2011
The sale of England’s state forests is a chance to do something interesting. It’s being squandered.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It took the previous Conservative government 13 years to propose a sell-off as unpopular as this one. The privatisation of the railways was opposed by 85% of British voters(1), and helped to derail John Major’s administration in 1997. Cameron’s plan to flog the public forest estate, presented to the nation after eight months in office, is opposed by 84% of the public(2). So much for his brilliant political instincts. And yet, stupid and destructive as this sell-off promises to be, it’s just a stone’s throw from something really interesting.
Tiny House Movement, Small House = Big Life
Building, Consumerism, Ethical Investment, People Systems, Society — by Peter Greg January 22, 2011
In the face of growing problems with climate change, and the unpredictable rumblings of the economy and housing challenges of the USA, there seems to be a wonderfully positive and exciting revolution/movement happening in the United States and in other places of the world: the Tiny House movement.
Comments (2)One Million People in Sri Lanka Need Your Help
Community Projects, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Society, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Shisir Khanal
Dear Friends
"The disaster we are facing is second only to the tsunami," says Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, General Secretary of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka. A torrential monsoon rain has flooded Eastern Sri Lanka.
Comments (0)Village Towns
Building, Community Projects, Eco-Villages, People Systems, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Oyvind Holmstad January 21, 2011
Vandana Shiva, an internationally recognized Indian activist and philosopher, explains that planning for the human being rather than the automobile can liberate space and create community within a city. In her opinion, a sustainable city should operate as a self-reliant and self-sufficient cluster of villages.
Comments (2)Respecting Ourselves, Part III: Needs Met Ineffectively or at Great Cost
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, People Systems, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Kyle Chamberlain January 18, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part III of a three-part series. If you haven’t already, please read Part I and Part II before continuing.
Those of us who live in the ‘developed world’ frequently see their higher needs compromised. But, unlike much of the world’s population, we rarely find ourselves destitute of our most basic requirements, like shelter, water, and food. Our housing may not be particularly secure, our water may not be too clean, and our food may be low on nutrition, but we have, at least, some semblance of the basics.
Our piecemeal life support system works well enough that many of us become fat. The tragedy of this system is not just the substandard services it provides, but also the extreme wastefulness and inefficiency.
Recalling that these basic services were once provided freely by the environment, it’s clear that they’ve become remarkably expensive today. Studies of some hunter/gatherer groups found that their members typically labored just three or four hours daily for their sustenance. Today, the nine hour work day is the norm, with an astonishing proportion of our incomes going to basics, like housing and food.
Comments (7)Gerald Celente on 2011 – Internet Revolution and Lawn Liberation
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 13, 2011
A reader of my recent ‘crystal ball‘ post supplied the following video via comment. I thought I’d put it up front and centre, as it’ll likely get missed by most otherwise, and Gerald Celente’s thoughts are quite interesting, as we embark on another year’s journey in an increasingly interesting life.
Most of us are realistic enough to balance what we want to see happen in the world (and our efforts to bring it about) with what we actually see going on. As it happens, sometimes they both merge, even if not quite as seemlessly as we might hope.
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Respecting Ourselves, Part II: Needs Not Met
Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Kyle Chamberlain January 12, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series. If you haven’t already, please read Part I first.
In the noise and confusion of the modern world, it can be an uphill battle just to learn the truth about what we need. But this is only the beginning of the journey toward self respect. Actually meeting those needs is tougher still.
I’ve come to think of our civilization as one of scarcity. The scarcity I see goes beyond the poverty and starvation overseas which I’ve only read about. This destitution is visible everywhere, even here in the privileged ‘developed world’.
In times of scarcity, people and other life forms prioritize, focusing on their most basic needs first. For instance, during a famine, a person generally ignores their need to play, focusing instead on meeting their need for food. Thus, when we see people ‘cheating’ their higher needs for the sake of their lower needs, we can infer a condition of scarcity.
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