permaculture

["Paul and Sandra" <crows@tkc.att.ne.jp>]

There appears an interesting subtext to the stucco/manure thread.  This has to do with the qualities of industrialization and Permacultures love of low technology. 

 

Love it or not, industrialization has caused a massive decline in death by infectious disease, accomplished largely through drinking water purification with chlorine, fecal and waste isolation/concentration, immunization, anti-biotics, generous ammounts of DDT, and many other hazardous activities. 

 

Permaculture in industrialized countries is growing in a human cluture that is currently pleased and benefiting from these industrial activities, while these activities strip the life of the earth. (a true shakespearean tragedy?!).  To me the human urge to reduce suffering and death among our elders and children is not just another industrial vanity.  If permaculture is to offer a replacement to industrial processes, and i think it can, It will need to address issues like regionally specific disease vectors.  The pre-industrial building techniques we venerate were full of taboos, some of which solved problems, some of which didn't.  The modern permaculturalist may need to be just as temperate.  A statement like cow dung is good for stucco seems to be a simplification unless we understand our specific regional ecology of cow dung, which apparently can serve as a vector for human disease, along with most mammal shit, including out own.  Fortunately we have the medical industry to back us up if we are wrong. (maybe a true shakespearean irony..)

 

Paul Cereghino - crows@tkc.att.ne.jp - Tokyo