Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

This is a copy of a reply I made to another list
paul tradingpost@lobo.net
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When Holmgren and Mollison first wrote their works on permaculture it was 
recognized as a great ecological breakthrough. The principles were woven 
together from multidisciplinary threads. Differences arose between them and 
the US lecturers. All that was before the multiple threats appeared to our 
consumption society. We know more about these limits to growth now: peak 
energy, resource depletion in general, global warming, species dieoff, 
economic contraction.

What we face in the near term has been called a Perfect Storm as all of these 
limits are impassible barriers  to a civilization that requires endless 
resources for economic growth just to maintain stability. Growth and 
stability are ending. Industrial nations are gripped in financial disaster, 
social safety nets are being shredded in a dozen nations, and one sixth of 
the world's population is hungry or starving. shadowstats.com shows real 
unemployment is closer to 20% and climbing. And so on.

The resources to create enough alternative energy to keep up our way of life 
just aren't there anymore, and changing light bulbs is rearranging deck 
chairs on the Titanic. When it costs more for the energy to produce a barrel 
of oil (or its BTU equivalent) than you can charge for it, the pumps will 
stop pumping. Same for gas, tar sands, and all. Oil production has plateaued 
for five years, not rising. IEA says conventional oil peaked in 2006. Look up 
EROEI. Look up Exponential Function. Does anyone still believe Congress has a 
few trillion to invest for enough solar panels, wind turbines and grid 
upgrade to maintain our way of living? Many of us would argue that the Ed 
Begleys out there are full of good intentions but are still in denial about 
the problems that cannot be solved by trendy seminars. We want to be good 
environmentalists but facing up to the full reality seems to be unbearable. 
It's all too easy to be shallow green.

These are not problems that can be solved but forced changes requiring us to 
adapt. Bioregionalism can help us focus on local food security and 
permaculture can help too, but the day isn't far off when the need for 
growing and distributing enough food locally in a hurry overtakes every other 
concern. And that's without affordable fossil fuels.

andrew wrote:
> The solutions to our economic and environmental problems aren't
> complex or out of reach. Quite the contrary! Our food, fuel and
> fiber needs can be met in abundant ways that strengthen community
> economies by reconnecting people with their local ecologies. By
> cooperating regionally and designing ecologically we create and
> insure healthy and secure economies, landscapes and communities that
> benefit and enrich generations to come!

I hate to say it but that's just not true. We'd like to think everything will 
be OK. Instead of such imaginary hype, permaculture needs to update and deal 
with current realities and promote doable, practical and ecological ways of 
adapting to what's coming in the original spirit of permaculture. Millions of 
us right now need to start learning to grow as much food as we can in 
whatever space we have available, and need all the help we can get doing it. 
Food stamps (or EBT) as it is won't survive the next Congress. We survived 
the Depression because half the country was rural and had food gardens and 
root cellars, etc. Not today. And we don't have years to develop permaculture 
gardens.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   “We need to launch an Organic Green Revolution that fundamentally changes 
the way we grow our food to maximize yield while mitigating climate change, 
restoring clean water, building soils, and protecting agricultural production 
during times of drought.”
   ~ Tim LaSalle, Rodale Institute CEO
Ripe for Revolution event, New York City

   "Clearly, our present ways of agriculture are not sustainable, and so our 
food supply is not sustainable. We must restore ecological health to our 
agricultural landscapes, as well as economic and cultural stability to our 
rural communities."
   -- Wendell Berry & Wes Jackson

   “All of the debts for society’s century-long industrial fiesta are coming 
due at the same time. We have no choice but to transition to a world no 
longer dependent on fossil fuels, a world made up of communities and 
economies that function within ecological bounds. How we manage this 
transition is the most important question of our time.”
   -- Richard Heinberg

   "Many types of jobs will cease to exist: public relations executive, 
marketing directors, et cetera. I think work will be very hands-on, and a lot 
of it will revolve around food production."
    -- James Howard Kunstler, 2003

   "How do you move from a system which has built in destruction of the 
planet and built in devastation for local communities and local economies and 
transition back to systems which formerly worked and new environmentally 
sustainable systems? That’s the project of our time."
 - Jerry Mander