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Solar Cookers
Energy Systems, Processing & Food Preservation — by Ecofilms June 11, 2010
While we were shooting the Permaculture Soils video with Geoff Lawton, we noticed an array of shiny solar cookers being assembled on the jetty at Zaytuna Farm. Barb Ford from Brisbane was cooking the afternoon lunch for the woofers and students on the farm.
Taking a break from our filming, we asked Barb to give us a run down on the various cookers she had on display and explain their uses. Not all Solar Cookers are the same. Some act as ovens whilst others act as direct burners.
Comments (7)Madder and Madder
Global Warming/Climate Change — by George Monbiot
Lord Monckton’s increasingly extravagant claims threaten to destroy the movement he champions
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
The longer this goes on, the better it will be for all those who take science seriously. Lord Monckton is digging his hole ever deeper, and dragging down into it everyone stupid enough to follow him. Those of us who do battle with climate change deniers can’t inflict one tenth as much damage to their cause that Monckton wreaks every time he opens his mouth.
He has now answered the devastating debunking of his claims published by the professor of mechanical engineering John Abraham(1) with a characteristically bonkers article(2). It conforms to the cast iron rules of climate change denial, which are as follows:
Comments (4)Permaculture Soils DVD Trailer
Compost, DVDs/Books, Fungi, Rehabilitation, Salination, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor June 9, 2010
It’s a wonderful thing to behold when permaculture passion and top-notch multimedia skills intersect in world-changing ways. Frank and Jane Gapinski of Ecofilms have spent countless hours working up highly educational and highly watchable productions for the PRI for a few years now. It all began with the initial Greening the Desert clip that took the world by storm; then followed the Water Harvesting DVD, the Food Forest DVD, and very recently the Introduction to Permaculture Design DVD. The incredible uptake of these films is living, encouraging proof that there is a new generation emerging who understand what needs to be done, and want to know how to do it!
But wait, there’s more! We’re now awaiting the soon-to-be-released Permaculture Soils DVD! This DVD gets to the very heart of what’s needed for a permanent culture, examining that magical muck that is the foundation of all the aforementioned productions. This work shares insights from Geoff Lawton’s two and a half decade’s worth of worldwide experience in soil creation – an experience gained in some of the world’s most inhospitable environments – helping to make the impossibly complex come to life in wondrously understandable ways. I personally think that holistic studies in soil science should be compulsory, foundational elements for every school syllabus – and that if they had been we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today – and we hope this DVD will go some distance in making up for this major shortfall in mainstream education.
Check out the trailer, and then stay tuned for future updates on release.
Comments (11)The soil is the great connector of our lives, the source and destination of all. – Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America, 1977
The Money Gusher
Biodiversity, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by George Monbiot
The oil industry’s decommissioning costs will dwarf those of nuclear power. The money being made now should be put aside to meet them.
First published in November 2007, by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Has BP ever made a profit? The question looks daft. The oil company posted profits of $26bn last year(1). There’s no doubt that BP has been pumping money into the pockets of its shareholders. The question is whether this money is what the company says it is. BP calls it profit. I call it the provision the firm should be making against future liabilities.
Despite an angry letter from two US senators(2) and a warning from Barack Obama about spending big money on their shareholders while nickeling and diming coastal people(3), despite the fact that it has no idea what its total liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico will be, BP seems to be planning to pay a dividend this year. It’s likely to amount to more than $10bn. As the two senators noted, by moving money “off the company’s books and into investors’ pockets”, BP “will make it much more difficult to repay the US government and American communities”.
Pollution has been defined as a resource in the wrong place. That’s also a pretty good description of the company’s profits. The great plumes of money that have been bursting out of the company’s accounts every year are not BP’s to give away. They consist, in part or in whole, of the externalised costs the company has failed to pay, and which the rest of society must carry.
Comments (5)PRI Permaculture News Update – 7 June 2010
News, Podcasts — by Patrick Blampied June 7, 2010
The PRI Permaculture News Update is a weekly radio style news bulletin that gets you up to date with the world of Permaculture in just 5 minutes.
Subscribe to the feed on your i-Something/MP3 player and even if you can’t always make it to permaculturenews.org you’ll never miss what’s been happening and always know where to find the nitty gritty details of a story.
Each week we cover the posts from the last 7 days plus a selection of stories from other Permaculture projects worldwide.
You might even know someone that is kind of into Permaculture but not sure what the go is – this podcast might be for them. Subscribe and pass it on!
Also if you have a Permaculture story you think might be suitable for the update, let us know at media (at) permaculturenews.org. We can only report on it if we know about it.
Click play to hear the update:
PRI Permaculture News Update, 7 June 2010 Comments OffBook Review: Resilience Thinking – Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World
DVDs/Books — by Owen Hablutzel June 4, 2010
Book by Brian Walker and David Salt
Island Press – 2006
174 pages
Reviewed by Owen Hablutzel
When is the last time you were surprised? It might have been a brand new volunteer plant in the garden, bizarre and beautiful fungi in the pasture, an incredible storm on the horizon, or a blessed windfall on the balance sheets! Given the inherent unpredictable nature of wholes – complex adaptive systems from cells, to bodies, to farms, societies and all of nature – we can be sure that surprise and unexpected change will happen quite frequently. If this is true at the home, farm or business scale it is all the more so at the regional, national, and global scales in today’s always changing and increasingly interconnected world.
Comments OffPermablitz Gold Coast Hits Burleigh Heads State School
Community Projects, Education Centres, Land, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Leah Galvin
photograph © copyright Craig Mackintosh
This Sunday, on June 6, 2010, Permablitz Gold Coast and Burleigh Heads State School are joining together to hold a working bee day full of vegetable gardening activities and odd jobs around the school. Come along for a great opportunity to learn skills in growing food yourself while making connections with your school and wider community.
On the day we will be putting in a 10 metre long mullet fish shaped vegetable garden from scratch. It will be a no-dig style garden straight on top of the existing lawn beside the school’s admin building. This will be the beginning of more vegetable gardens going in at the school.
Learn about where to start your vegetable garden using Permaculture principles with the support of friendly people from your local community. There will be free workshops on the day including worm farming and chemical free gardening. Lets show the kids how to make the connections between fresh, organic food and health! There will also be kids activities and BBQ on the day.
Comments (1)Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 4: Heading to Vietnam
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Podcasts, Village Development — by Patrick Blampied
Indigenous minority Vietnamese worship the sacred, big old trees of the forest
Photograph © copyright Craig Mackintosh
‘Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker’ is a weekly podcast from PRI Australia aimed at documenting the experiences of people out in the field and making more information available about what’s happening in the Permaculture world.
In Episode 4 I’m speaking to Dave and Johnny who are preparing for a trip to Vietnam. It’s the first time they’ve attempted aid work but as discussed they’re feeling good about the trip.
Click play to listen:
Confessions of a Permaculture Aid Worker, Episode 4: Heading to VietnamFurther Reading:
- Letters from Vietnam – Arriving to HEPA
- Letters from Vietnam series – reporting from indigenous minority villages:
– The Road to Na Sai
– Ke Village
– The Hmong People – Claiming Back Lost Skills - Hooray for the Water Buffalo!
Grazing and Browsing? Forage Trees and Shrubs for Horses
Animal Forage, Livestock, Working Animals — by Mariette van den Berg
By Mariette van den Berg B.(Hons), MSc. (Equine Nutrition)
This photograph © copyright Craig Mackintosh
Introduction
Within the Equine industry there is next to no research based on alternate feeding sources such as forage trees and shrubs for horses. Adding trees in and around pastures can be beneficial for a number of reasons; it not only plays a major role in the hydration of the land and the control of erosion, but it can also provide shade, shelter and fodder. Many of you may be familiar with feeding tree and shrub forage to livestock but not a lot of horse owners know about the use of fodder tree and shrub for horses. In this article I will describe the benefits of trees and scrubs as a fodder and will give a small selection of potential forage trees and shrubs for horses.
Comments (15)An Agricultural Crime Against Humanity
Consumerism, Energy Systems, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by George Monbiot June 2, 2010
Biofuels could kill more people than the Iraq war.
First published in November 2007, by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
 Jatropha plantation |
It doesn’t get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava(1). The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the county of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought(2). It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.
This is one of many examples of a trade described last month by Jean Ziegler, the UN’s special rapporteur, as “a crime against humanity”(3). Ziegler took up the call first made by this column for a five-year moratorium on all government targets and incentives for biofuel(4): the trade should be frozen until second-generation fuels – made from wood or straw or waste – become commercially available. Otherwise the superior purchasing power of drivers in the rich world means that they will snatch food from people’s mouths. Run your car on virgin biofuel and other people will starve.
Comments (13)Biofuels and Confirmation Bias
Energy Systems, Fermenting, Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by Tim Auld
by Tim Auld
Several years ago I learned about peak oil and decided that industrial civilisation was going to collapse. From then on I viewed many responses to this with scepticism. They would at best prolong business as usual for a short period. Use of cars and trucks would collapse with the supply of oil, along with plastics, rubber and pharmaceuticals. I thought that this would ultimately be a good outcome considering the damage our civilisation does.
Is this our future?
When you draw a conclusion on information like this the mind can trick you. You become invested. You might say that you’re keeping an open mind, but you actually discount information that contradicts your chosen outcome and you don’t search for information or solutions that might change your mind. It’s called confirmation bias.
Comments (17)Cars and People Compete for Grain
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, peak oil — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
At a time when excessive pressures on the earth’s land and water resources are of growing concern, there is a massive new demand emerging for cropland to produce fuel for cars—one that threatens world food security. Although this situation had been developing for a few decades, it was not until Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel and U.S. gasoline prices climbed to $3 a gallon, that the situation came into focus. Suddenly investments in U.S. corn-based ethanol distilleries became hugely profitable, unleashing an investment frenzy that will convert one fourth of the 2009 U.S. grain harvest into fuel for cars.
Comments (3)Carbon Trading Under Scrutiny
Alternatives to Political Systems, DVDs/Books, Economics, Ethical Investment, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor June 1, 2010
People for or against carbon trading would do well to download and read these two excellent new publications
There are a great many Joe Publics out there naively hand-wringing and even taking to the streets to protest over their government’s inability to implement carbon trading. But I’d propose they take a good look at the documents featured here, and consider the old proverb: "Be careful what you wish for, because you may get it."
I’ve personally been watching the carbon trading shenanigans for several years now, and from the earliest days it was clearly a case of obfuscation, delays and trying to get out of a mess using the same thinking that got us there in the first place. Rather than the systemic economic rethink we require, carbon trading is an attempt to patch the gaping holes in neo-liberal capitalism, to keep it afloat a little longer, whilst allowing those causing the greatest destruction to continue reaping the greatest rewards. Carbon offsetting concepts are based on the assumption that perpetual growth, consumer-based capitalism is our only option and must be preserved at any cost. It’s an attempt to bypass reality.
Comments (1)PRI Permaculture News Update
Podcasts — by Patrick Blampied May 31, 2010
The PRI Permaculture News Update is a weekly radio style news bulletin that gets you up to date with the world of Permaculture in just 5 minutes.
Subscribe to the feed on your i-Something/MP3 player and even if you can’t always make it to permaculturenews.org you’ll never miss what’s been happening and always know where to find the nitty gritty details of a story.
Each week we cover the posts from the last 7 days plus a selection of stories from other Permaculture projects worldwide.
You might even know someone that is kind of into Permaculture but not sure what the go is – this podcast might be for them. Subscribe and pass it on!
Also if you have a Permaculture story you think might be suitable for the update, let us know at media (at) permaculturenews.org. We can only report on it if we know about it.
Click play to hear the update:
Permaculture World News Update, 31 May 2010 Comments (6)Discovering Permaculture in Jordan
Aid Projects, Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Irrigation, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor May 30, 2010
This great little clip by Emma Piper-Burket takes an early 2009 look at a couple of permaculture projects in Jordan. These are projects shown at greater length and at a later date (October 2009) in the Greening the Desert II video many of you will have already watched. I’m not sure what exactly what month Emma visited the project, but as our Eric Seider (one of the directors of PRI USA) was filmed there at the Jordan Valley Permaculture Project (aka Greening the Desert, The Sequel), it’d have to be January or February. Eric was key in the initial establishment of the site, which is now coming along nicely 18 months later. Expect some updates from this site in the next few weeks as yours truly will be heading there again.
Enjoy.
