permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <hemenway@jeffnet.org>]

There have been many excellent ideas expressed in this thread; reducing our
ecological footprint and devising land-use techniques that share resources
with other species are imperative if humans are to survive. But I've been
wondering how we're going to implement any of this. I doubt if an
"eco-police" that reassigns land on a massive scale is ever going to work
(and that's a frightening idea anyway), and legislation that mandates
wilderness set-asides and other zoning changes is prone to being overturned
the moment any powerful group starts to feel the pinch. My thinking is more
along the lines of Georg's, who wrote " the only way to do this ethically .
. . is by collective enlightenment." Here the difficulty is that most
people simply aren't into voluntary simplicity. The high-consumption
lifestyle is incredibly seductive, and I can't believe that any but a tiny
minority of 'first-worlders" are ever going to voluntarily adopt the
essentially "third world" lifestyle that permaculture advocates. (My wife
says she can spot the permies on any block; it's the funkiest, most
overgrown-looking house with the piles of scrap wood and other "trash" in
the front yard. That's never going to win converts in urban/suburban
culture) So how do we get more people to adopt a "small footprint"
lifestyle? Some form of enlightenment must occur, but not a coercive "we
know better than you, you bad person" approach. And a pure "consciousness
raising" effort will be a slow one, though essential in the long run.
    One answer lies in the latest (Summer '99) Whole Earth Review. The lead
article is by sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling, called "The Manifesto of
January 3, 2000." Bruce says that we could seduce people into it. I've
often thought this: if we can create homes and gardens so lush and
beautiful that people line up in droves to live in them, we could lure a
lot of mainstream folks. But Sterling writes "The best chance . . . is to
convince the 21st century that the 20th century's industrial base was
crass, gauche, and filthy. . . . It's a severe breach of taste . . . to
boil and roast the entire physical world, just so you can pursue your cheap
addiction to carbon dioxide." He says we need "a form of Green high fashion
so appallingly seductive and glamorous that it can literally save people's
lives. We have to gratify peoples' desires much better than the current
system does. . . . Rather than marshalling themselves for inhuman effort
and grim sacrifice, people have to sink into our 21st century with a sigh
of profound relief."
   He recommends that "it should be considered a mark of stellar ignorance
to be unaware ot the source of one's electric power. . . .It should be
considered the stigma of the crass proletarian to foul the air every time
one turns on a light switch." He asks that we form an avant-garde to
"design a stable and sustainable physical economy in which the wealthy and
powerful will prefer to live."
  The whole text of this irreverent but provocative document is on the web
at <http://www.well.com/conf/mirrorshades/viridian.html>
    I agree that it's not exactly appealing to people's higher instincts to
ask them to embrace Green living as a status symbol, but if we can create a
model that is attractive, rather than trying to guilt people into
abandoning SUV's and giant houses, we'll be far more effective. I find that
an exciting dream.

Toby