This thread has been rolling around in my head. Finally it struck me that like religion, permaculture will have different factions, like the split in religions.You can follow the spilts in Christianity and Islam down the years. They believe basically the same thing but have variants. It seems that when an idea/belief/philosophy etc gets a critical mass of followers, splits appear espousing emphasis on different aspects of the manual with different interpretations(bible/planning scheme/design principles). Maybe it is the nature of the beast. Reminds me a bit of that scene in "Life of Brian" (not of the worm variety), follow the sandal, no follow the sacred gourd...........In the end, you know what is right and wrong according to your own conscience. If you deliberately hurt others you are only hurting yourself. All is one.
It only stresses out the top 1% in America, and the idiots that believe everything they see on TV, or what they hear from shock jock idiots like Bill O'Rielly. America actually has an entire group of idiots that believe what tv and radio tell them without thinking. I.E. - Drones. It is because of this that we infer distress when it comes to wealth redistribution. Same thing is occurring WORLD WIDE right now regarding Next Generation energy. We don't need to go exploring for it, it is all right here, right now, useable by anyone that can work a computer. All one has to do is travel to places like: www.instructables.com/ or https://makezine.com/ And follow a little tutorial along to make something, anything that helps a person out. Problem is we are too used to hopping in a vehicle, using petrol, and going to buy something we THINK we need, as opposed to actually needing. That's the crux of "setting limits on consumption."
Yes it almost seems as if some people think a permaculture government is going to arise which will take their stuff and give it to some other (lazy poor) people. At least that is a strong impression I get from the comments. :think:
IF people read anything about permaculture, they'd realize from the start that it is about taking personal responsibility. It's not that big of a leap to imagine that any redistribution will be done by the person who grew the excess food, has the excess time or whatever resource. I think that is a fundamental flaw in today's society where people are told to do volunteer work instead of wanting to do volunteer work with excess time. Just like in church, where they almost shame people into putting money in the donation tray that is passed around instead of just having a donation box by the door. That's what's so great about Permaculture...it makes you think and question the day to day crap that has been handed down from generations passed. It can replace,or augment, religion or any other philosophy. But the basic ethics and principles really have to remain untouched and disambiguous. Each principle and ethic has to also be read in the context of the rest. I don't think separating each one and scrutinizing it by itself does it justice. Permaculture is, after all, holistic.
I wonder if the people concerned about "redistribution" fear other permaculturists will try to shame them into sharing. To me, the phrase "Fair share" as the 3rd ethic is extremely ambiguous.
I think Bill and David had over-abundance in mind when they wrote the third ethic. Easier gardening on rich soils producing more with relatively little investment of time,therefore with your abundance of time you can go out and help others. Another point of view on redistribution of surplus could be taken from Ghandi's Swadeshi movement, creating autonomous villages consistent with the law of humility and love. https://web.uvic.ca/~stucraw/Lethbridge/MyArticles/Swadeshi.htm There are many ways to skin a cat.
That's what drew me to permaculture in the first place, the idea of this land overflowing with abundance. Maybe eventually............!
Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies the boundaries and dynamics of the concepts of right or wrong. Not to complicate the matter but , strictly speaking, "reduce population and control consumption" is not an ethical statement per say because it can be right (or wrong) only if we have already asserted that doing so (or not) will affect our survival (survival being generally recognized as good). So this definition of the third ethics is based on a previous assumption that we can't operate sustainably at our current population level let alone if population increases. Which to be honest, we don't know for sure... At least I don't know for sure... I can envision a world where we're not spending half our resources on destructive behaviors (war, toxic medicines, toxic industry and toxic agriculture etc) and the other half competing among ourselves (capitalism of greed in general, planned obsolescence comes to mind), thus freeing most of our current energetic and labor capital for more efficient uses; and who knows then if twenty billions permaculturists could not live in abundance in a planet sized food forest ? I don't know that... Now, "fair share" or "redistribution of surplus" (or even "keep it all for yourself") are ethical statements because they do not require a previous assumption to be studied as good or bad. I mean that you don't need to be in a situation of shortage or surplus to think that sharing is right or wrong. It's a stand-alone position... it is a pure ethical question... Only if we knew for a fact that our population level is unsustainable in itself and that no other factors can mitigate the situation (like cutting down on destructive behaviors and competition), "reduce pop and consumption" (or not) would become a matter of ethics.
Thanks for that clarity 8) For me, the population and consumption is an ethical issue. Our perpetual increasing of our species and use of resources damages the planet fullstop.
Yes a perpetual increase is clearly not possible. I am just wondering if it's not the way we use the resources (constructive/destructive), and of what type (renewable/fossil, natural/synthetic) rather than the amount of it that is causing the damages we see today in all aspects of nature and human's life. Agreed, as long as we can leave a sustainable footprint better not increase our numbers.
Yep population increase is perhaps the greatest threat to the earth. How to approach that is fraught with difficulty.
Last time I quoted this I got temp banned and moderated. Luckily it wasn't here!!! Source: Permaculture Designers Reference section 1.2, page 2. #3 is the "Fair Share," it doesn't mean we need a flat screen tv in every room of a house, or a need to make $100,000US a year. It means scale down, turn off the tv & radio commercials and think about things you really need VS your wants, or the wants shoved down your throat & into your brain by mass media.
Exactly. I somehow don't feel that reducing population so we can all have a giant flat screen tv to be very ethical... The "By governing our own needs, we can set resources aside to further the above principles" bit precedes the population reduction IMHO. Also, these "wants shoved down your throat & into your brain by mass media" represent an awfully large part of the world's population that we have to feed and cater for while their only yield seem to be lies... I would rather cut down on professional liars than on babies if given the choice... Again I really feel that in our present situation, how we use the resources is more critical than how much of it.
I realized like a pimp smacking me in the face how much I reduced this past November. I went to the East Coast of the US for a funeral, and one of the homes I was in had a flat screen tv in every room, including the bathroom to play video games on the toilet or to watch tv in the spa bathtub. One of the flat screen tv's was even a 72" HD monitor and while it was amazing to watch a tv show or a ball game for a few moments I suddenly realized that there must of been a huge surge of buying a few years ago when the US switched over to HD broadcast signals. We don't NEED new flat screen tv's.... ...but just how many people bought one, 2, 4 even? Meanwhile I am not in debt for them, and that makes me happy... ..I can use that money for much better things. Need vs Want, hell of a concept in a capitalistic society.
Somehow I don't imagine permaculturists running out to buy a bunch of flat screens. And that's who the ethics are about, in my opinion, permaculturists. Not a bunch of other people who aren't permaculturists. They are the ethics of permaculture, for people who practice permaculture.
The thread so far has barely touched the issue of population, which is really a flashpoint between permaculture and many of the wider social justice movements. Saying anything about population control will, in many of these circles, get you branded a racist, classist, sexist, fascist....and who knows what else. In every PDC I help teach, I always try to lead the class through a simple online "ecological footprint" survey to start some thinking about this and related "big questions". Is the human race in resource overshoot or not? Where? Worldwide, including the Third World, or not? What happens to footprint if one reduces the level of consumption worldwide to say, the level of Bangladesh? Realistically, will the First World reduce consumption until it is forced to, one way or another?
There have been a couple of threads touching on the issues of overpopulation. I think it is perhaps one of the most pressing issues that face the world. But you're right, it is a touchy subject. Who has the right to tell you you cannot reproduce? In some countries having lots of children is aligned to our western superannuation. You need to be looked after in old age. In nature, overpopulation sorts itself out with food shortages and drought etc. Maybe GM foods, toxic pollution, chemicals in the water and a myriad of things will do nature's job. Sustainable development doesn't go close. Here's how I would teach it. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/the-parable-of-the-wise-ones/3115890
https://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/ https://www.populationconnection.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_defendingwomensrts
I'm finding this thread interesting, and its encouraging to see it progress and remain polite. I quite like "Fair share". I teach it as the third ethic. I think it works well: "set limits..." doesn't translate to sharing for everyone. People set limits like they budget: if I can afford it or fit it in, I can have it. Their limits are physical constraints. And they don't think about passing the even left-overs on, let alone sharing before the left-over stage. On the other hand, "fair share" challenges their thinking, which is often a better catalyst to change. There is an outstanding book that covers this ethic; Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel. www.radicalsimplicity.org Merkel tackles consumption and population, and uses two other tools: the book Your Money or Your Life, and ecological footprinting. The over-arching idea is that the planet is finite, there is only so much to go around and your choices affect everyone else. Through a series of calculations, based on your choices about how many children you have, what you eat, etc, you end up with a calculation of how much of the planet you can have to live off. I found it confronting. It was really the first time the blinkers came off and I realised my comfy life (and I'm a frugal permie) is possible because I am stealing from someone else, either now or in the future. Merkel uses the analogy of a buffet: if everyone who is at the front of the queue takes more than their fair share, the people at the end miss out. Sharon Astyk's book, Depletion and Abundance, contains a very good discussion about population. I'm pretty ambivalent about abundance, but that's probably something for another post (or a visit to the psych) Danielle
