Ultimate Energy Sources

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Farside, Feb 12, 2013.

  1. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day PS

    Always great to have your very wise input into matters such as these.

    Works for me, together with turning the compost heap. Unfortunately (or, fortunately), it's not just about 'me', hey?

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  2. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day All

    As much as I'd love to further this line of discourse with you all, I really should take my own advice and depart at this juncture. I hope that by providing just a few links throughout my posts this morning (afternoon, evening - whatever time it is where you wonderful people reside) that I have been able to convey, in some small way, that just as we can easily envision a dystopian future, so too can we see one that is utopian.

    I was moved to tears last night by watching the following (below) video, which once again reminded that people can move (albeit incrementally, perhaps by applying Principle 9) from one firmly held belief to another, and that all it takes is the support of true community - and a few tears/laughs. Out of great hardship comes great joy!

    Peace, Markos

    [video=youtube;KaBnmSyNxHE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaBnmSyNxHE[/video]
     
  3. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    As usual you have hit the nail on the head Markos. I have a belief we are sent the challenges we are required to face(often via other people) until we do, and I am thankful for the ability to experience others. the extremity of their views just shows passion.We are all in the same boat, some power it others steer, some fish,some just stare at the stars (but might be the only ones who know where we are going).If there is a hole in the boat I would choose to stick my finger in it.That is reminiscent of the role as i see it of permaculture at present .
     
  4. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    If Permaculture can make it in NYC, it can make it any where!

    https://www.homebiome.com/
     
  5. annette

    annette Junior Member

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    Beautifully said! (Although there may be more trying to be the captain of the ship!)

    Perhaps chopping wood and carrying water is utopia for some. I love this saying because it reminds me that things may not be good or bad, but simply are. To live in the present and not to wring hands over the past or fear the future, but to be mindful of the present and what we do everyday in everyway. Be present in all ways because that is really all that exists. The present. Our thoughts and actions now is what will manifest into the future, whatever that turns out to be. And how we conduct ourselves in the present, could, if done with the right intention, probably be the utlimate energy source.;)
     
  6. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    Thanks permascuptor, just reading your words relaxed me and bought me back to the present.
     
  7. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    This may sound cruel, shocking, hateful, offensive, etc., but...I think there are already too many people on this planet. I'm not sure how you expect someone to explain a method of saving humanity that everyone will gladly follow. It's not possible, especially since(apparently) people don't think permaculture can do it. On an individual/small community level then yes, but not for the entire planet. Nobody knows how they're going to feed everyone in to the future, let alone cloth, medicate, find jobs, etc.

    Governments will probably get it wrong, so we have to do it for ourselves and hopefully for our community too. Then there's urban versus suburban versus rural. Each one(even the rural) needs a different approach and since most people would rather watch TV than pick up a book, I doubt you could get many to take a PDC even if offered for nothing(I hope to prove myself wrong on that one, since I hope to do just that along with free designs/consultations..but that's a long term goal). So the problem is not just capacities, but it's also human nature. I'm willing to bang my head against human nature if I can help improve a single person's life(besides my own).

    So, unfortunately, if the worst comes to pass(oil, climate change, peak nutrients, water, etc.), many people will die either directly, or indirectly. Guns won't save you. Fencing yourself in won't save you. Helping to make YOUR community resilient will help you. If you've hung around these forums for any length of time, then you should have some understanding of how to do that. That means you have a responsibility to try to show others, but it's their choice if they want to listen. I just hope it's a slow decent and not an upheaval.

    Africa is an excellent example of what eventually will happen to the rest of the world if we proceed with business as usual, because Africa's problems are man made over many thousands of years.

    Having said all of that, I'm beginning to be a little sickened with all this negativity. We know the world is screwed. We know people and the environment are being destroyed/pillaged. We know there is a large amount of disparity. Personally, I couldn't care less what other people have, that's not my hang up. What I do care about is that something so simple can change so many peoples lives, yet we expect others to do all the work. That is a sad state of affairs and will only exacerbate the problems we will have to face as a species.
     
  8. permasculptor

    permasculptor Junior Member

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    Thank you Annette and yes too many wannabe captains is too true
    yes well said.
    Your welcome Grahame glad to have been of use.
     
  9. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    warm temperate - some frost - changing every year
    I believe you have said well the thing I wish to say "unmutual " thanks
     
  10. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    Who is the 'we' that expects others to do all the work?
     
  11. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    mm unmutual,

    i am not a book reader, i reckon on being a doer. for me that means with some medical difficulties right now there is way too much outside work to do, got jobs stacked. on fine days once there is good sun being outside is not what i can do any longer, so around here it is early morning work with lots of little breaks, by the afternoon fatigue has set in but like today i do smaller jobs, then pretty much one day can sap all energy for a couple days, neighbour down the road has CFS as well he reckons that energy is like money in the bank for us so if we draw it all out trying to get jobs down then a period is needed to build up the value. pretty much fitting really. around here people live on 1.2 to 5 acre blocks, there is a lot of dams that don't hold water, their soil is mostly useless scrub soil, and there are very few chook pens or food gardens.

    no! wouldn't do a PDC if i was paid, no need for it, Keep It Simple Stupid, if you don't have a natural flow form don't waste time building one, the rest is pretty much growing organically making use of berms and contours and the system works.

    so with general knowledge that PC exists those who push it should follow KISS.

    i bought molleson and co's paper back tome "introduction to permacuture" looked through the book everything in it is common sense, paid (inadvisedly money was short)to do a 2 day intro' to PC ialways mange to learn something ie.,. sheet mulching, swales and contours but 70% of the course i knew through my organic gardening. anyhow pushing to have courses done won't help. showed lots throuhg our place, donated heaps of loam and seedlings, but many not that interested because it gets too dry, and they then save water and let plants die.

    anyhow my sympathy is with the the poor and downtrodden many would rather they just fade away, empathy is for the stand offish. many of the lower socioeconomic families have no idea what the manipulators are dreaming up. dunno forget now but did i see a stat the other day saying 500+k children in australia are homeless??

    the future for those with no hope is hopeless.

    len
     
  12. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Len

    You will no doubt agree then that the following 'is common sense':

    The global village community has been developing over the last decade. It is the most remarkable revolution in thought, values and technology that has yet evolved. This book is intended to speed not the plough, but rather the philosophy of a new and diverse approach to land and living, and make the plough obsolete.

    For myself I see no other solution (political, economic) to the problems of mankind than the formation of small, responsible communities involved in permaculture and appropiate technology. I believe that the day of centralised power are numbered, and that a re-tribalisation of society is an inevitable, if sometimes painful, process.

    Unwilling as some of us are to act, we must find ways to do so for our own surival. Not all of us are, or need to be, farmers and gardeners. However, everyone has skills and strengths to offer and may form ecology parties of local action groups to change the politics of our local and state governments, to demand the use of public lands on behalf of landless people, and to join internationally to divert resources from waste and destruction to conservation and construction.

    I believe we must change out philosophy before anything else changes. Change the philosophy of competition (which now pervades our educational system) to that of cooperation in free associations, change our material insecurity for a secure humanity, change the individual for the tribe, petrol for calories, and money for products.

    But the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter. It sometimes seems that we are caught, all of us on earth, in a conscious or unconscious conspiracy to keep ourselves helpless. And yet it is people who produce all the needs of other people, and together we can survive. We ourselves can cure all the famine, all the injustice, and all the stupidity of the world. We can do it by understanding the way natural systems work, by careful forestry and gardening, by contemplation and by taking care of the earth.

    People who force nature force themselves. when we grow only wheat, we become dough. If we seek only money we become brass; and if we stay in the childhood of team sports, we become a stuffed leather ball. Beware the monoculturalist, in religion, health, farm or factory. He is driven mad by boredom, can can create war and try to assert power, beacuse he is in fact powerless.

    To become a complete person, we must travel many paths, and to truly own anything we must first of all give it away. This is not a riddle. Only those who share their multiple and varied skills, true friendships, and a sense of community and knowledge of the earth know they are safe wherever they go.

    There are plenty of fights and adventures to hand: the fight against cold, hunger, poverty, ignorance, overpopulation and greed; adventures in friendship, humanity, applied ecology, and sophisticated design - which would be a far better life than you may be living now, and would mean a life for our children.

    There is no other path for us than that of creative productivity and community responsibility. Take that path, and it will change your life in ways you cannot yet imagine.


    Source: Mollison (1991) Introduction to Permaculture. Tyalgum, NSW: Tagari Publications, pp. 169-170.

    Len, your holier than thou, self-rightous attitude is starting to wear a bit thin. Just exactly who are the 'many'?

    Says who? According to the Macquarie Dictionary, empathy means: 'mental entering into the feeling or spirit of a person or thing; appreciative perception or understanding'. Hardly what one could consider as being 'stand offish'.

    Who are the 'manipulators', Len, and just what exactly are they 'dreaming up'? Please enlighten us.

    More like 30,000. But even one homeless child, is one too many. The following is reasonably accurate graphic:

    [​IMG]

    Source: Homelessness Australia (2012) Fact Sheets

    Hope offers another minute, hour, or perhaps even a day. Whereas a free, secular, and universal education offers a whole new life.

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  13. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    Anyone that expects the government or other large organization to fix everything.
     
  14. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    Permaculture, as I understand it and as Mollison appears to have intended it, is a philosophy of positive, not negative, outlook. This doesn't mean pretending everything is great; we need to acknowledge the serious problems we face in order to work toward solving them. I don't see the usefulness of insisting that we're doomed, from a permacultural point of view, it makes no sense.

    There are messageboards dedicated to discussing how doomed we are and how hopeless things are, if people want to dwell on those subjects, maybe they would find a better community on those boards. I come here to avoid those kinds of discussions, personally, but this place can be very negative. I think it may drive people away from the board. Certainly it keeps me from wanting to participate.
     
  15. mouseinthehouse

    mouseinthehouse Junior Member

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    I get extremely frustrated that anyone who looks at things realistically (as they see it) and wants to discuss how that impacts on the ability or otherwise to practice permaculture is labelled negative when it should be the starting point for problem solving. I see no point in being positive for being positive sake to make us all feel good and I actually don't think it is constructive. That is what disappoints me. So I will shut up and leave everyone to their positivity and earnestness.
     
  16. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    We should already know what problems there are facing humanity, so what purpose does it serve to rehash them in every single thread? This thread was about energy sources, now what is it about?

     
  17. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    it's not a holier than though attitude from me like it is from others who choose what they see as best for the others, you again judge me by your own merits/fruits mark, but that is common from you that is why there is never any direction comes out of these discussions, it is do as i say not as i do stuff, yes i am wholeheartedly sorry for the poorer people if all they have to look to is your philosophies, which never worked in the past and except for a select few is no answer now, you sit there in your aloofness presiding over the bench of your inquisition, driven by those mythologies that supported those ideals and who didn't survive and now being resurrected by manipulators.

    molleson also said in front of a crowd at a permaculture show "our farmers need to be local like they are in asia, where on around 10 acres of ground they supply the staple needs of the community teh produce is in season and fresh and affordable and the farmer gets paid well, no middle men" so put your money where your mouth is get some compassion for humans going you and your supposed wise friends start influencing design of suburbs so theyi incorporate farmers so people can walk or peddle to the farm, like we did back in the 40's/50's and early 60's. so time to get off your clique supported high horse broaden you thinking come outside your boxes and comfort zones, starting with people i aus' need direction, and whilst you attack me for ego gain our society goes into decline. judgine my capacities by your own merits is that to accuse me and bring me before the inquisition judges?

    yes this thread was and still is about power, but as everyone can see you cannot keep it blinkered just on power and ugly windmills, we need affordable power then convert our society to sustainable living simple homes then just maybe again as molleson said solar may play a part but not a centralised system it needs to be a de-centralised system. forget the tried and failed nimbin commune idea, people want real answers.

    don't quote me out of context please that is a low way of doing things.

    we are being lied to by people hear, gov' wealthier rapers of the environment all the way this so called progressive state gives us bigger liers like farside said, so get real get humain

    again perma-c is failing, missing the point.

    len
     
  18. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Len

    Look around you. I mean, take a real good look. Then engage. First Principle of permaculture: Observe and Interact.

    Expand your reading material. Access some quality journal articles through your local library, and while you're there, grab a few of the latest works off the shelf from around the 300 dewey decimal mark.

    Expand your social circle. Join a Uni of the 3rd Age. Join a non-fiction reading/coffee/wine circle. Take on some WWOOFers - let the world come to you. Discuss, debate, but please, learn how to do anything other than just simply deny.

    Read back over my past threads/posts. Many include detailed analysis of intentional communities that have 'failed' and of others that have thrived, and continue to do so. Over the years I have provided links to thousands of lines of evidence to support every claim I make on here. That's what scientists do, we build a body of evidence. We share our findings, and we work with each other to further our knowledge so that we each can, in our own small way, make the world a better place. Not unlike permaculturists, yes?

    If along the way, Len, while you are doing all of the above, you feel like you might have something constructive to add to the process - such as you often to do from time to time with images of your raised garden beds, for example - by all means, add it. If however you get out of bed a bit grumpy and you feel you have nothing better to contribute to the world other than whinging and moaning based on half-assed anecdotal evidence: "Teh guy down the road told me", or "I did read somewhere [on some useless, conspiracy-theorist's website]" By all means, add that too. But please don't complain when you are called out on your baseless claims, and then go on the ignore the evidence that has been placed before you challenging said claims.

    Or... simply do what you want to do. Nothing. Do not change one bit. As I suspect will be the case. As the kids say, it's all good. Because regardless of the extremely narrow view of the world that some people cling onto for dear life, things are changing! Yes, that's right. Socio-ecological situations, in some sectors, in some parts of the world are getting better. While at the same time, socio-ecological situations, in other sectors, in other parts of the world are getting worse. Nothing stands still. The universe is in a constant state of flux.

    We, humanity, as individuals within our species, we can either sit back and let others be the change agents, for better or worse. Or, we individuals can get together, form communities, and eventually (if we have enough time), become the agents of change. It's not up to or about 'you', or 'me', it's all about 'us', 'we', all of 'us', doing it together.

    The ultimate source of energy is community. Jump on board, and feel the rush.

    Cheerio, Markos
     
  19. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    no mark i am not going to join your mythology set, reading untruths all based on ego' uni's the halls of mind manipulation and support the worst of multi national companies because of dories, sorry mate i have a life i am changing my reliant on others i am trying to influence but i don't do any promotion under the permaculture banner there is a friend of ours now who is tertiary into pc sort of design, what is he doing nothing, he had a good look at what and how we are setting up, but no i am not a good reader, got no time to sit and read and ponder we are actually doing something and no your ideal community will never be a redeeming factor, help all starts with individuals and then they come together and share, like i said won't happen here people don't share produce, they mow 1 acre lawns at bowling green standard in an area that is dry more than it is wet.

    you may be sitting back so again your own merits sued to form an opinion of me i guess, doesn't matter you are not helping at all.

    whinging and moaning there again your merits used in a judgement, i don't whinge and moan that is what you do to try and belittle my contributions, you simply do not want to think more laterally and will do all to protect your comfort zone and box.

    tertiary does not impress me either doers do.

    i'm not taking on wwoofers, get real new laws make you open to litigation and what would they eat and where to sleep and bath, get over it. like one bloke who attended a PC design course he said "you are nothing more than a paying wwoofer doing the course persons projects". so much for PC curriculum hey, he further said there was little class room time, instead they were told to read the books in the library, he could have done that free at a local library and put the money into his own projects, heck! i have mollesons intro to PC here anyone can read it anytime they like the pages are still brand new. dunno may book worm eaten now dunno?(shrug)

    i don't need PC ethics i got better ones. humanitarian ones.

    len
     
  20. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Len

    Take care up there, Markos
     

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