permaculture

[georg <georg@2012.org>]

>In rereading this it sounded a little offensive.  It is not intended.  I
>would like to try to understand your (Georg) point of view.  I am not sure
>how your different ideas connect together, so I'd appreciate some more
>discussion.  I get the feeling that either a basic premiss or word use
>difference is underneath this.

thank you, eric, for your interest in my idea. obviously i have been very
clumsy in phrasing my thoughts, so let me give it a second go:

i have never felt offended in reading your response, but i am offended by
the idea of people - and be it the bestwilling permacultural
environmentalists on earth - sitting down to 'design the world', thus
superimposing their private valuesystem onto the rest of the world.

i am not saying that we do not have any environmental problems, but only
people have problems, the environment doesn't. so this game is not about
the environment, but about saving our own ass.

and yes, one of my points is that humans are a part of the natural systems
of the Earth and are subject to the laws of Nature, therefore everything
humans do is "natural".  and i do trust nature/life/evolution (different
words for one thing in my view) a whole lot. nature/life/evolution is
constantly experimenting and blindly stumbling towards a goal of higher
complexity and harmonious organisation. and in the long rung (geologically
speaking) all 'mistakes' are corrected, as only the successful models are
successful, obviously.

so here we are, billions of beings, a lot of them humans, with apparently
very different and opposing agendas. if this degree of intelligence and
ability to excert power has been a mistake and blind alley in itself, it is
certainly going to correct itself - ave nature, the fey salute you. but -
and this is what i apply myself for -  if there is potential and future in
this model 'human', it takes a braoder vision than the *my idea is better
than your's* crap that strives for dominance rather than *higher complexity
and harmonious organisation*.

we are in this together. nature/life/evolution works on a lot of differnt
levels stimultaneously, and bets on a lot of horses - to expect a single
human person to grasp nature/life/evolution's plans is like asking a single
braincell of a pc-designer to grasp the complete and open score design the
pc-designer is in the middle of implementing. all this braincell can do is
function the way it feels best (good feelings are always nature's reward
for the individual if it follows a bigger plan), and at the same time trust
that all the other cells will do their part too - even tho the braincell
would feel horrible in doing what they do.

now in our june 1999 scenario this would mean to 1. do what you feel good
about, dig your garden, plant trees along the roadside, educate your
neighbour's kids, get this local seedexchange going, give perennial
spinachplants to whomever wants them, and what the heck, if you feel
killing all those exxon-executives would make you truly feel better - go
ahaed, maybe you are a white bloodcell. and 2. don't think that all those
people with apparently different agendas, those that still pollute and
destroy are 'wrong'  - trust that they have other functions in this - and
be it only to realize their power before they do their next job.

we are going to succeed together or fail together - and by fighting each
other and making each other wrong we are increasing the chances for the
latter. apparently, if all that gaia is up to is about peaceful intelligent
monkey sitting in their beautiful forests and tending their gardens for the
bnext 3 million years until the next huge comet wipes them out, this whole
exercise of 'modern life' was futile - but maybe there are goals to be met
that are way beyond your and my comprehension - higher states of complexity
than earth has seen so far, higer degrees of organisation in deeper harmony
than any beeing has yet experienced - obviously this needs transient stages.

so i see us as work in progress, and while yes, survival is the key, it is
only the bottom drum, with quite different melodies played beyond it, or
else evolution resigned.


>If this is the only way, we are in for some pretty tough times ahead.  (In
>this case "we" refers to the entire planet system.)  Although I agree this
>would eventually happen, I see it as ethically inexcusable, given that we
>humans are aware of the needless damage and harm we humans are causing.

each and every one is only responsible for our own actions or neglects - to
try to continue the dominance game is adding more damage. but i think i
start repeating myself *s*

sure there is alot more to be said about this, but let's take it bite by bite

all the best
georg


>Georg wrote:
>
>> >*Taking other species into account, how much of the Earth's total land
>> >      can humans ethically alter from a natural state?
>>
>> there is no such thing as a 'natural state'
>> my opinion: natural and unnatural are mental concepts, nature doesn't know
>> these, All life on this planet is coming from nature and ruled by nature's
>> laws.
>
>Georg, I have some trouble with this.  It sounds like a word game (If that
>is all you mean then most of what I am about to write may be irrelevant).
>What's wrong with mental concepts?  Is it not a meaningful distinction, at
>least to us, if not Nature?  Are you saying that to Nature there is no
>qualitative difference between a virgin forest, an area of desert inhabited
>by hunter gatherers, a Permaculture food forest, a field of mono crop
>agriculture, a suburban subdivision and a metropolis city block?  This is
>hard for me to grasp.
>
>I can look at it two ways.
>One (perhaps your point), humans are a part of the natural systems of the
>Earth and are subject to the laws of Nature, therefore everything humans do
>is "natural".  While I can see this point, I find it  not useful (simply
>requiring a different set of words, like harmful/helpful etc.), or
>incongruous with my current ideas (I am not willing to say that there are
>no environmental problems).  Yes, other creatures alter or have impact on
>Nature, but it is a matter of scale and consciousness that makes the
>difference.  While I agree that at some point natural forces will bring
>about balance, I don't think it is ethical for us to go about our business
>and wait for that to happen.
>
>Two, humans have side stepped the natural laws (or perhaps more accurately,
>postponed the effects of them) by things like tapping into fossil fuels,
>creating synthetic substances and transporting materials over large
>distances.  In this sense everything we do to avoid the natural
>consequences is "unnatural".  By doing so, we harm the environment in
>inexcusable acts of selfishness and arrogance.  Again it is the scale of
>the impact and the consciousness of the  actions that makes the difference.
>
>> 'everything gardens' is one
>> of bill's key statements, evry tree 'alters the natural state' by improving
>> the soil, every animyl poos and thus 'alters...' - what is natural as
>> opposed to 'unnatural' - is it 'unnatural' to control animals? but many
>> ants do exactly that. is it unnatural to export plant species into
>> different ecosystems? but birds, winds and sae-currents do axactly that,
>> that is exactly the way daisies and dandelions came to europe and
>> biscuitroot to the americas. is it unnatural to pave the land and destroy
>> habitats? but many volcanoes do exactly that. so please, what is unnatural?
>
>Is this meant to say that current human activities are acceptable and that
>there is no need to try to do anything about "environmental problems"?  Or
>are you suggesting that we use different words to describe the situation?
>Or some other point I am missing completely.
>
>
>> >*Are there just too many people now, and if so how do we ethically
>> >      reduce our numbers?  And what do we do in the meantime?
>>
>> we will reduce it by our very own laws of balance, just
>> like foxes and rabbits keep their dynamic balance, or aerobic and anaerobic
>> bacteria in a given substrate
>
>If this is the only way, we are in for some pretty tough times ahead.  (In
>this case "we" refers to the entire planet system.)  Although I agree this
>would eventually happen, I see it as ethically inexcusable, given that we
>humans are aware of the needless damage and harm we humans are causing.
>
>
>> - the only way to do this 'ethically'
>> (=without putting loads of leople to quite painful and possibly slow death
>> prior to the end of their biological lifespan) i can perceive of is by
>> collective enlightenment - in which case humans could simply stop
>> regenerating themselves for the most part - numbers could be down to a
>> fraction within two generations. while i certainly would love this
>> opportunity i would rather count on more physical means of re-balancing
>> gaia...
>
>I don't know that we need to do it as a collective thing.  Every bit helps,
>and some form of collective effort would probably be beneficial, if
>possible.  What physical means are you referring to?  The "laws of balance"
>you mentioned above?  If so, I'm sure you can count on them, but do we
>really want to wait until that happens?  The "side stepping" I mentioned
>had allowed the scale of the problems to grow to a scale quite unlike most
>other cases of other species over population and its related environmental
>stresses.
>
>
>> a viable question along the line of the stated questions would be for me:
>>
>> * how much land may i dominate and still feel good about it (=be in harmony
>> with my inherent godliness/ethics) ?
>
>If whatever humans do is natural (=okay), then how much land would cause
>you not feel good about it?  Can you dominate any amount of land and be in
>harmony with your ethics?   I find it hard to put "dominate" and "harmony"
>together.  Perhaps it is your shift from "alter" to "dominate" that is the
>key to my misunderstanding of your ideas.
>
>
>> (i am the son of a geologist, i grew up looking at the world development in
>> spans of hundreds of millions of years. my father used to call mankind
>> a'marker fossil' - a few hundred millions of years in the future some
>> geologers will be greatly aided by determining the age of certain mineral
>> layers by cocacola cans and other similar remnants of human dominance, just
>> like todays geologists are aided by the leftovers from ammonites... )
>
>Perhaps you are speaking from this perspective, saying that hundreds
>millions of years from now humans may not exist but life in some form will
>still be around, or if it's not then that's okay too.  Can't really argue
>with that, but that's mainly because it's all on a time scale irrelevant to
>humans.  Thinking on this scale doesn't seem to lead to much of anything
>for humans; I guess I'm not ready to give up thinking ; )
>
>
>Eric Storm
>
>
>
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*



georg


********
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