Urban Design Patterns in Melbourne
Biological Cleaning, Land, Retrofitting, Society, Urban Projects, Water Harvesting — by Dan Palmer
by Dan Palmer, Very Edible Gardens
As more and more people become aware of the many reasons to provide for more of their needs at home, we are finding more and more demand for permaculture design consultancies. We are currently doing two or three in Melbourne each week, and in this article I wanted to share some of the general patterns that are emerging as we go along.
To paint a picture of the average design brief we’re faced with, though the client group is diverse, including younger couples, older couples, single house owners, and young families, almost all our clients ask for some combination of the following:
- Intensive vegie gardens for salad green and kitchen herbs
- Larger vegie gardens for tomatoes, potatoes, corn etc (or the option of adding this in future)
- Water tanks to catch, store and redistribute rain water
- Fruit trees
- Chickens
- An open area for socialising / pets / children
- Simple greywater reuse systems
- Some natives
Posted on: July 4, 2009
The Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3, 2009
Society — by Paul Hawken
When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there.
Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation… but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.
This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.
Comments (0)Posted on: June 30, 2009
Stop Building Tanks
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Let’s divert the money spent on arms to addressing the real strategic threat.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
What would we be doing now if we took climate change seriously? Last week the government released a report on the likely temperature changes in the United Kingdom(1). It shows that life at the end of this century will bear no relationship to life at the beginning. It should have dominated the news for days. But it was too far away, too remote from current problems, too big to see.
Over the past few months, Lord Giddens, one of the architects of New Labour, has been touting the hypothesis that people are reluctant to act on climate change until it becomes visible to them, by which time it will be too late(2). This thought, which has been common currency within the environment movement for at least 20 years, has been christened by this shrinking violet “Giddens’s Paradox”. It ranks among his other major discoveries, like the Giddens Postulate (people wear fewer clothes when temperatures rise) and the Giddens Effect (the earth goes round the Sun). But despite his outrageous expropriation, the point remains a valid one. We will resist taking radical action until we have no choice, whereupon it will have no effect.
Comments (0)Posted on: June 23, 2009
Home
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh
The following documentary, ‘Home‘, is almost perfect.
As a photographer, I was totally engrossed in the imagery – mostly shot from above, and almost entirely in the magic hours of morning and evening light – as this production gives us a vision of this world we call home that is hard to forget. It also leaves one feeling like part of the human fabric – part of the larger human family that, when you come right down to it, all depends on our planet and its immense (albeit dwindling) diversity to supply our universal, basic needs.
As a writer, that has covered the many converging issues we’re now facing – water, soil, biodiversity, deforestation, peak oil, climate change, etc. – the facts shared are also on target and up-to-date. And, again, beautifully and graphically presented.
Why I say ‘almost perfect’ is because it is only the last ten or fifteen minutes where the documentary turns about in a bid to leave the viewer feeling optimistic before it’s all over. Here it truly fails. Ultimately, it graphically and beautifully tells the tale of humankind’s misguided and unsustainable attempts at finding satisfaction – but delivers only a warm, fuzzy, nebulous feeling of how we’re to retreat from the cliff edge we’re teetering over. Despite its shortcomings, however, I give kudos to all who put it together and for their willingness to freely distribute it to as many people as possible. It’s definitely a must-watch.
‘Home’ trailer
Watch the full documentary here
Also available in Arabic, French, German, Russian and Spanish.
Comments (1)Posted on: June 21, 2009
Update on Shell Lawsuit
News, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton — by Craig Mackintosh
I know many of you will be wondering what happened in the Wiwa vs. Shell case I wrote about recently, as they were scheduled for a June 3 pre-trial conference, and that date has now long passed.
Well, Shell kept delaying and there were no reasons given. Now, however, we see what was going on behind the scenes – Shell was deliberating over an out of court settlement of 15.5 million dollars, which the plaintiffs ultimately accepted.
Comments (2)Posted on: June 16, 2009
Life at Zaytuna – Part I
Bird Life, Breeds, Community Projects, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh
Profuse apologies for the lack of posts over the last week. I’ve been organising and actioning travel to PRI’s headquarters – Zaytuna Farm in northern NSW – from where I live in Europe. Now that I’m here, I hope to give you better insights into the life and developments on the farm and with the training centre that makes its home here.
Zaytuna’s straw bale buildings at sun-up
Yesterday I felt like the walking dead, after 45 hours of travel from door to farm. As such, I went out like a light in the very early evening. My otherwise deep sleep was broken intermittently by sounds I’m not accustomed to hearing, like Blue (an Australian stumpy tailed cattle dog) keeping our farm animals and crops safe by chasing off foxes and/or kangaroos; kookaburras – the ‘laughing jackass’ – were seemingly mocking me as I tried to slumber, as were various other frogs, insects and birds that work the night shift in this neck of the woods. I’m sure I’ll soon be attuned to them, and won’t hear them at all after a while.
Comments (6)Posted on: June 14, 2009
A Better Way of Making a Living
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, People Systems, Society — by Chuck Burr
Making a living in our modern culture usually requires that you participate in the destruction of the world. We can’t go back to Homo hunter-gatherer. Is there another way forward?
There is an another way to make a living that enables you to do what you love and save the world at the same time. I call it the “middle way” of making a living between our modern industrial system and hunter gathering. This is a deep subject that deserves to have several books written about it.
Saving the World and Sustainability
What do we mean by saving the world? We mean humanity continuing in some fashion without taking tens of millions of species down with us. Today our culture is solely responsible for the greatest mass extinction since the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. I say, “our culture,” because humanity has lived in harmony with the earth for three or four million years. The problem is not humanity. The problem is our culture, our growth, and how we make a living.
Comments (9)Posted on: June 11, 2009
What You Need to Know
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton — by Craig Mackintosh
Duration: 1:27:31
Posted on: June 9, 2009
Melting Ice Could Lead to Massive Waves of Climate Refugees
Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
As the earth warms, the melting of the earth’s two massive ice sheets–Antarctica and Greenland–could raise sea level enormously. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt, it would raise sea level 7 meters (23 feet). Melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would raise sea level 5 meters (16 feet). But even just partial melting of these ice sheets will have a dramatic effect on sea level rise. Senior scientists are noting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projections of sea level rise during this century of 18 to 59 centimeters are already obsolete and that a rise of 2 meters during this time is within range.
Posted on: June 4, 2009
Oil and the Darfur Conflict
Consumerism, Economics, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh
In a bid to join the dots a little further after the previous post, here’s an additional clip. This one is shot a couple of countries east, in southern Sudan, where oil is lubricating and fueling one of the worst conflicts in modern history.
To learn more about the direct links between oil and the horrific atrocities in Sudan, head here.
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The Video Shell Doesn’t Want You to See
Consumerism, Economics, News, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh
Photo credit: Ed Kashi
The video below was originally displayed on wiwavshell.org – the website for the plaintiffs filing a law suit against the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell – but was removed by court order after legal motions were filed by the multinational. Thanks to YouTube, however, the video has a new lease of life and has at time of typing been viewed over 65,000 times since being uploaded two weeks ago. It’s a decent introduction to the atrocities committed by the corporation in collusion with the Nigerian government and its military, spotlighting their determined efforts to put down a peaceful and popular movement by the citizens of Nigeria against the violent, corporate control and destruction of their lives, land and resources.
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The Peasants Are Revolting
Aid Projects, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Education Centres, Food Shortages, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
What are governments to do when an economic crisis hits, causing an already disproportionate number of poverty-stricken people to massively enlarge their ranks – to the point where they take to the streets to protest over their lack of basic necessities? Well, they repress and kill them of course.
For a brief period yesterday, this article appeared on the main page of the BBC. It’s gone today, replaced with more important articles like ‘What the way you hold a glass says about your personality‘. After you’ve figured out who you are by the way you hold your cocktail, perhaps take a little time to read the former link – where you can read a BBC summary of the latest of Amnesty International’s annual reports (the 424 page document you can download below) on human rights abuses worldwide. It makes for sobering reading. The situation is being described as a ‘powder keg’ and ‘time bomb’ that threatens security worldwide.
Comments (4)Posted on: May 30, 2009
The Story of Stuff
Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
Did you know that the average house size in the United States is double what it was in the 1970s? I wonder if it isn’t partly because we need space for all of our stuff?- Did you know that in the U.S. national happiness peaked sometime in the1950s, even though we consume twice as much as we did fifty years ago? All of our stuff doesn’t seem to have helped here.
- Did you know that in the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed to make all of our stuff?
- Did you know that we each see more advertisements in one year than people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime?
- Did you know that for every garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb?
- Did you know that 40% of U.S. waterways are now undrinkable, and that to make all of our stuff we now have over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today — only a handful of which have even been tested for human health impacts and NONE have been tested for synergistic health impacts? (source)
Today I’d like to introduce you to the story of stuff….
Comments (1)Posted on: May 28, 2009
Why ‘Increased Energy Efficiency’ Won’t Save Us
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh
There’s a lot of talk in political circles on how technology and ‘increased efficiency’ will save us from our socioeconomic and ecological woes. The U.S., for example, is finally getting a little more serious about vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and we’re sharpening our pencils in many other areas as well.
Saving energy is course a good thing – indeed, it should be seen as an imperative moral duty. I mean, on a cold, windy winter’s day, would you wander around the house in your underwear with the heaters wound to max and curtains flailing wildly through wide open windows? Most would consider this obscene. In the same way, producing vehicles that unashamedly consume vast amounts of ancient forest just for a race between the lights is the ultimate in stupidity.
But, having said all that, too few understand that just making something more efficient doesn’t necessarily translate into an energy saving. On the contrary, it has been repeatedly shown that greater efficiency translates easily into greater consumption.
Comments (4)Posted on: May 27, 2009
The Corporation
Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
"If corporations are legally human – what kind of people are they?"
No green website should go without making a mention of the ‘The Corporation’ movie. We’ll go a step further, and make it easy for you to watch it. Many of you will have seen it – but if you haven’t, take some time to do so. Below you’ll find the complete, highly acclaimed and appropriately disturbing documentary.
If this topic is very new to you, read a little background info in the passages below, as I’ll share some text that may help demonstrate why we need to soberly consider The Corporation presentation. Large corporations, particularly trans-national corporations, have become a law unto themselves – the consequences being that this global corporate system is controlling world governments and labour, damaging the environment, destabilising society, escalating global warming, and more!
The Corporation – Duration: 3 hours
Click for more…
