Regeneration – an Earth Saving Evolution
Compost, Conservation, DVDs/Books, Food Shortages, Fungi, Irrigation, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Structure, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor May 8, 2010
 Regeneration – an Earth Saving Evolution How biological farming builds healthier soils, healthier plants, healthier animals and certain hope in an uncertain world. |
In a kind of army style ‘about-face’, society is increasingly turning away from the reductionist, extractive agriculture that rushed onto the world after WWII. Today people are, thankfully, realising that you cannot convert biodiverse natural systems into monocultures – into a factory floor environment – and expect success. With the soils that support all life on this planet getting rapidly eroded and diminished in critical organic matter, people are realising that farming is far more about biology than it is about chemistry, more about feeding the soil than feeding the plant, and are realising that our futures, our very survival, depends on our coming to grips with biological processes and learning to harness them.
I’ve just uploaded the new Regeneration – an Earth Saving Revolution DVD to our online store. This DVD examines the thoughts and work of some of the many individuals who are now leading the way forward in farming techniques that are simultaneously highly productive and entirely sustainable. It’s an inspiration-packed DVD that’s worth circulating to all.
Our survival now truly depends on how fast this kind of information can be made to pervade society at all levels, and how rapidly we can rebuild society to accommodate, integrate and harmonise with it.
Trailer to follow:
Very Edible Gardens’ Urban Kindergarten Installation
Community Projects, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Education Centres, Food Shortages, Land, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Patrick Blampied May 7, 2010
In this video I caught up with Dan and Adam from Very Edible Gardens in Melbourne.
They were doing a Permaculture installation at a kindergarten that will be maintained by the children daily, teaching them all about where food comes from. The garden will also supply their commercial kitchen which feeds over 100 children from the 3 kindergartens in the region.
The beds are built with sustainably harvested timber and watered with a drip irrigation system, which is fed by an underground storage tank that collects rainwater from the roof. The same tank also supplies an outdoor wash up sink in the garden and the toilets inside the kindergarten.
It was great to see the staff and children so enthused about a Permaculture garden!
Letters from Chile – Doris Speaks
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Potable Water, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
To follow is a short video clip I’ve just added into Part I of the Chile series, after the fact. I’ll embed it here as well, for those who’ve already read that post and may miss this otherwise. Be sure to read Part I if you haven’t already, else you won’t understand the context for this video.
Meet Doris. Prior to the quake, before the little El Manzano community decided it was pertinent to seriously consider things they could do to build resiliency into their village, Doris was already paying attention. She took the advice of the Eco Escuela El Manzano team and got herself a hand pump, so if the lights went out, it didn’t have to mean she and her family would be without water as well. Hence her describing the fact that the community had TWO hand pumps to supply water after the quake hit.
Now the whole village wants to get a hand pump. Imagine that.
I’m uploading this after 15 hours without power. Some mischievous people nearby cut cables during the ‘wee hours of the night’ – taking a good length of them so they could sell the copper wire they contain. Quakes, cable theft, energy crisis – whatever. Low tech hand pumps are saviours here where all water must otherwise come via powered pumps.
Comments (0)A Slick Future?
Consumerism, Economics, Society, peak oil — by Marc Roberts May 6, 2010
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
The black stuff engulfs the gulf and Greenwash fails to make it go away.
Or, another alternative:
Comments (4)APC10 – Permaculture Convergence, Far North Queensland, September 2010
Community Projects, Conferences, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Shortages, Society, peak oil — by Kym Kruse April 27, 2010
Permaculture Cairns is still a young group having formed in August 2007, but there’s no limit to our ambition and determination to contribute to strengthening the Permaculture movement in our region of the world and beyond.
This year the Australasian Permaculture Convergence (APC10) will be hosted in the beautiful Wet Tropics township of Kuranda, 30 km west of Cairns.
The website www.apc10.org contains the latest updates on speakers and events to be held during our 4 – 5 day gathering. The theme: Getting Australasia Ready; Permaculture Solutions for a Changing World, reminds us that this an opportunity to gear the movement up in preparedness for both the extremities in natural perturbations in climate as well as peak oil and other rapid and dramatic declines in resources.
Comments (4)An Eruption of Reality
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by George Monbiot April 22, 2010
Has our society become too complex to sustain?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Man proposes; nature disposes. We are seldom more vulnerable than when we feel insulated.
The miracle of modern flight protected us from gravity, atmosphere, culture, geography. It made everywhere feel local, interchangeable. Nature interjects, and we encounter – tragically for many – the reality of thousands of miles of separation. We discover that we have not escaped from the physical world after all.
Comments (9)Mullumbimby Community Gardens Moves Ahead Apace
Community Projects, Consumerism, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Developments, Eco-Villages, Economics, Education Centres, Food Shortages, Land, Networking Sites, People Systems, Social Gatherings, Society, Surveying, Swales, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Jeannette Martin April 12, 2010
Editor’s Note: For background on the excellent work going on at the Mullumbimby Community Gardens, an update for which is found below, see here, here and here.
Mullumbimby’s community garden is blossoming into a hive of activity with people from all walks of life building, creating and gardening together. Our communal gardens and new allotments are now brimming with organic fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers while 18 "Pods" (special interest groups) develop programs and projects that are launching MCG into a sustainable living education centre.
Comments (2)Our Environmental Status and Future Events
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Matt Whittley April 8, 2010
Editor’s Note: Geoff Lawton spoke at Geelong, Victoria last year. Matt Whittley shares some snippets from his talks.
If we are being honest with ourselves, most people would admit that the next 50 years is going to be a lot different than the past 50 years. Future generations are going to need to cope with overwhelming conditions that they had nothing to do with creating.
I believe that we need regular reminders and need fresh perspectives to assess what is going to happen tomorrow and how our actions today have an affect.
We are entering into critical times as we reach tipping points on economy, climate, energy, food, water, soil, and social elements. This video is a great call to action; Permaculture Design is the action!
Comments (2)Things That Can’t Go On Forever, and Things That Can: A Few Thoughts
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Financial Management, People Systems, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Rhamis Kent April 3, 2010
Properly defining and orienting permaculture is of prime importance in its being appropriately applied. I’ve found it to be a very useful personal exercise. Doing so prevents me from straying too far from its practical origins and helps to keep it from being transformed into some kind of Utopian, escapist ideal.
Comments (12)The Edible Urban
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Milkwood Permaculture April 1, 2010
When I lived in the city, I always loved the idea of a microfarm. In my head, a microfarm was a plot of land with a footprint the size of a city terrace which was simultaneously blooming with flowers and vegetables, honking with geese, clucking with chickens and covered in trailing greenery and mulch, with someone driving a wheelbarrow through the plot, delivering hay to some minature cows while a small but sturdy windmill creaks overhead.
Comments (2)Towards Local Democracy
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Community Projects, Developments, Eco-Villages, Economics, Networking Sites, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Marcin Gerwin March 23, 2010
It’s been more than a year since we’ve started our initiative in Sopot, Poland. It has the same aim as the Transition initiatives, however we have decided to focus on local democracy first. Democracy helps to eliminate the struggles of political parties and it weakens vested interests. What we have also quickly realized is that even if you come up with a great plan for improving public transport or installing a biogas digester in your city, there’s this little, tiny issue: how can you make it all happen? Where will the money come from? Who will give all permits and change the city plans? The city council may be supportive and help you with that, but what if your city council is not interested in preparing for peak oil and doesn’t care about climate change? Certainly, citizens can exchange the city council in the next elections, nevertheless, at least in Poland, members of the council don’t have to keep their promises. Their commitments are not guaranteed by law. With participatory democracy citizens are involved in decision making directly. Citizens don’t need to worry about political campaigns, they can think long-term. If most of the citizens share the vision of a sustainable city, and if they have a direct influence on budget spending, than realizing this vision becomes possible. And, what’s also important, all projects are not imposed on people by the mayor, but they are agreed upon by the majority of the population.
Permaculture & Detroit’s Urban Agriculture Movement: What is Done, Not What is Said
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Food Shortages, News, Society, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Rhamis Kent March 20, 2010
A million thoughts are racing through my head as I prepare for my upcoming trip to Detroit to teach a PDC next month. I’m hoping to develop relationships with those leading the urban agriculture movement in what many call "America’s first post-industrial city". This undertaking is hugely significant for the global permaculture movement, in general – and America, in particular.
Well over 80% of Detroit’s population is African American – the demographic most severely impacted by the economic disruptions seen most recently. With the collapse of the automotive industry, the city’s unemployment rate is officially 30% – although many say real unemployment is easily in the 50% range. The burgeoning urban agriculture movement that has emerged in its wake has been a revelation. However, it hasn’t been without its problems.
Comments (2)Letters from Slovakia – Kings, Conquerors, Capitalism and Resilience Lost
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 11, 2010
The former east bloc: We look at a life that was, a life that is, and meet some interesting characters along the way.
Orava Castle, north central Slovakia
All photographs copyright © Craig Mackintosh
Contrast and Change
I count it quite a privilege to be one of very few ‘Westerners’ to have been able to visit and observe the transition of former communist-controlled countries – from shortly after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., through successive visits until today. It is now eighteen years since my first visit, and, in some places more than others, much has changed.
Looking back, I remember my initial trip to central Europe back in 1992 (then called the ‘East Bloc’). Entering Czechoslovakia from Germany was, to me, like leaving the earth and landing on the moon – except without the space travel in between to get one accustomed to the idea of where one was heading! The difference between the Europe I was familiar with, and the land I discovered immediately beyond the Czech border control, was like day and night. There was no gradual blending of the two civilisations – it was pure contrast.
Comments (10)Wave Power
Energy Systems, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 23, 2010
Way back in the 1970s, in the oil crisis era, and around about the time I was experiencing carless days in the South Pacific, a Professor Stephen Salter of the University of Scotland, was trying to find a way to harness the exhaustless power of the sea – and convert it to electricity.
In September 1973 I caught ‘flu. My wife said to me, with callous indifference to my misery, “Stop lying there looking sorry for yourself. Why don’t you solve the energy crisis?” – Professor Salter, in the University of Edinburgh Bulletin, Volume 11, Number 2, 1974
Some, including Professor Salter, believe he just may have – although, the eventual outcome of his research and experimentation was somewhat shrouded in mystery….
Comments (4)Zero Carbon Australia?
Energy Systems, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 17, 2010
A new study attempts to flesh out a blueprint for a rapid energy descent for Australia
It’s clear that the world is heading into an extremely interesting new decade. While the world’s insatiable demand for energy shows no sign of slowing in its exponential curve upwards, it’s clear that in the not-too-distant future supply issues are going to become acute. These two clashing parameters promise to take us into an economic ride of almost biblical proportions. If we think the energy price spikes of 2008 and the subsequent recession of 2009 have been a tough time, brace yourselves – there’s much more to come yet….
