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permaculture - Re: Growth of Pc

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: warning@norex.com.au (David de Vries)
  • To: permaculture@listserv.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Growth of Pc
  • Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 09:37:31 +1100

My post encouraged a wealth of permaphilosophising. Noone appeared to
share my initial premise that Pc was still drastically understaffed.
Before touching on some of the excellent points made, I would like to try
and establish the premise that we are too thin on the ground and rapid
growth is a priority. Maybe not _the_ priority - but still a priority.

~~Sherry Levi stated:
"..The thought system has to become fairly well articulated in a process of
intensive development by a few pioneers before it develops sufficient
explanatory power to become appealing as a better representation of reality to
be widespread. It is tested for functionality by use-- which is what all of
us permacultivating our living spaces are doing-- and in the more varied
circumstances, the better."

How many pioneers in how many circumstances are required?

Jack Rowe stated:
"We can operate to sow as many seed nuclei on as many levels as we can,
trusting them to grow if they are viable and placed in fertile ground (if
all the seeds grow like magic beans, great -- but remember to sow even the
little ones because the growing medium and conditions are changing, and
there is strength in diversity)."

How many diverse levels with how many seeds?

Pick an average size continent, say North America. How many regions need
to be researched for each to become sustainable? How many different
combinations of local cultures (indigenous/imported), climate, catastrophe
susceptibility, soils, unique biodiversity, degradation etc need to be
characterised and sustainable solutions identified. 100? 1000?

How many people need to be in each region to effectively characterise it.
10? 100?

I suggest that without 100,000 NA enthusiasts spread very evenly, we are
set to lose a significant proportion of NA's diversity (cultural and
biological). This would be a rotten shame. The question I am interested
in is, how does Pc get to sufficient numbers (100's of thousands in each
continent)?

I thought everyones' comments about adopting paradigm shifts and critical
mass were spot on. I wasn't looking that far in the future. Within the
research phase of identifying solutions there is still a lot of territory
without any researchers.


David






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