Permaculture as a growing revolution

Michaelangelica · Sep 11, 2009

Interesting feature article on permaculture
Permaculture as a growing revolution

https://www.digitaljournal.com/article/278481

The term permaculture was coined in the mid-1970s by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Permaculture is a contraction of permanent and agriculture and reflects concerns the co-foudners shared about the impacts of industrial agriculture. Since then, permaculture has spread around the world.
What are present day permaculture designers doing?
I interviewed Douglas JE Barnes to find out. Barnes is a permaculture designer who is creating sustainable solutions to supply line needs for everywhere from India and China to his own backyard.
. . .
To give an example of what I mean by that, consider designing and installing a vegetable garden. I see many gardens tucked away at the far end of people’s backyards. In the spring they go out and run a rototiller over the ground and transplant a bunch of seedlings or plant seeds. Then they regularly go out to the back end of their yards to water and weed the garden (or at least until weeding is so hard that they let the weeds go).
There is little or no concern for energy use in this method. The creation of the rototiller takes a tremendous amount of energy. Its operation requires fossil fuel inputs. And in the end, its effect is to reduce populations of beneficial mycorrhizal fungi, bacteria, and earthworms, while creating a niche for weeds. If the rototiller were only used once, the calories provided by the produce of the garden would, after a few decades, pay off the energy that went into the creation and operation of the rototiller. But we would still have the energy expenditures from weeding, extra watering, and the extra energy needed to walk all the way out to the end of the backyard where the garden is located.
A permaculture approach would be to locate the garden as close as practically possible to where the food is needed, which is the kitchen
. . .
BE: Why is permaculture relevant today?
DB: I think more and more people today are realizing that the current industrialist-consumerist game is up. It is obvious to anyone who stops to look that we are burning through the earth’s capital in a way that will end in a very ugly manner in the not-too-distant future. We are currently in what is a serious economic crisis under our current economic model.
World leaders are struggling to try to get us back to 2% growth, or thereabouts. Well, that means an economic doubling in 35 years. Now, doubling the economy requires the consumption of all of the resources used throughout history up until the time of the moment you are doubling from (i.e. all the resources used throughout history until now). Anyone who doesn’t recognize that this is a catastrophic disaster in the waiting is someone who is not willing to face the facts – and that is of very dangerous thing to do because reality always gets the last punch.
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purplepear · Sep 26, 2009

Re: Permaculture as a growing revolution

does any one know douglas barnes? he speaks well on a familiar subject. It is scary stuff - lucky I'm too time poor to worry. If this wind persists I will have plenty of time to get frightened witless. :?

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