[permaculture] Peak Water/Where to ride out the coming collapse and which gun to buy

Jim ashevillecurrencyproject at gmail.com
Sun Dec 2 13:20:30 EST 2007


Sorry.
Couldn't resist the apocalyptic title.

I've enjoyed reading some posts on this topic at
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com   (John Michael Greer)
and
transitionculture.org    (Rob Hopkins)

Basically, both of them shy away from the approach of exaggerating the 
Everyone For Themselves
mentality that got us into this situation, and instead suggest 
increasing cooperation, craft and creativity instead.

This has been my approach in the 25 months since I got my Permaculture 
Design Certificate,
and I've had some fairly good success with it (that includes reading 
this list, and trying to share something that folks might like, and 
refraining from babbling; but also forming a guild, and joining 
successfully with others to stop a proposed Wal-Mart and a proposed 
oil-burning power plan, staging an affordable Intro to Permaculture 
workshop, and supervising an college intern to research currency 
projects around the country, among other things).

Instead of searching for the magic, secret spot, and deluding yourself 
that you are the only one smart enough to suss it out; why not build 
community and resilience where you are?

If there is one critique I'd make of permaculture, I would say that it 
is too anti-political; that it doesn't think about how the things it 
wants need political change.

Case in point: composting toilets.
Most of us think we need more of them. Perhaps a majority of people 
reading this post live in places where they are against the law. Do we 
build one, poop in secret and hope no neighbors report us?
Or do we work to change the law, perhaps via a network of advocates 
living in the same country who can trade tips and tricks on how to work 
a city council/inspector, etc.

I actually took some action on this a few months ago. The city manager 
announced that he was searching for a new planning director after the 
old one "stepped down" [I hope an open letter of mine had some influence 
in encouraging the old planning director to seek work elsewhere].

I asked for a meeting with him on behalf of the permaculture guild, and 
encouraged the city manager to be open to innovative eco-technologies 
that might currently be illegal, and to find a director who would work 
with eco-innovators here to assess new technologies on their merits, and 
not just whether they were in yesterday's code. And that night, as it 
turns out, the New York Times had an article on Oakland's Greywater 
Guerrillas [which was essentially about the dilemma of changing the law, 
or just violating it], which I promptly emailed him. I also got to ask 
him what he'd heard about Peak Oil

What will come of this? I don't know.

I do know, however, that I'm not a big fan of the move-to-the-country 
and self-sufficiency-it with guns, however. At fifty, I'm getting a 
little old to learn some new tricks. And I'm not sure I'd want to teach 
my nephews and nieces target practice, so that they can shoot strangers 
onsite onsight, as described in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artimus_Pyle

That said, I'm not sure that Phoenix is the best place to be 30 years 
from now.

And if you are interested in encouraging your local (US and Canada) 
government to begin preparing for peak oil,
which is a conversation opener into other topics, check out
http://postcarboncities.net <http://postcarboncities.net>

If you'd like to encourage your local government to prepare/react to 
climate change along with the
700 cities in the world (300 in the US) that are part of ICLEI, visit
http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=394           (global site, with pages 
for each continent and country)
-- Jim





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