permaculture

["Robert Waldrop" <rmwj@soonernet.com>]

In my conversations with others here in Oklahoma City, and also in
cyberconversations in internet listservs, I have heard a lot of fears
expressed about things getting "out of control", and certainly this is
the way I feel.

While the voices for war are very loud and obnoxiously omnipresent,
there is a lot of antiwar sentiment at the grassroots, every Thursday
afternoon we're having a public vigil against the war at a busy
central Oklahoma City intersection (signs, flags, handing out
pamphlets), one sign is always "honk for peace" and as a result that
intersection is very noisy for the two hours or so we're there.  i was
surprised at our first event last week at how many people honked their
horns, and how few people cursed at us.   But this grassroots
sentiment is of course not to be found in our major media.

I've also noticed a class difference in the response.  Last Thursday I
was handing out pamphlets to people in cars at the stop lights.
Generally, the people driving new cars weren't interested, but people
driving old cars were very interested.  Also, most of the people in
the new cars were white, the drivers of the old cars taking our flyers
were a true "rainbow coalition" (this is a very ethnically mixed
neighborhood, whites, Hispanics, Vietnamese, African Americans
mostly).

So this is hardly any kind of scientific sample, but it's what I'm
experiencing.

I personally think this latest escalation in hostilities is proof
positive that world oil production is nearing its peak, getting ready
to enter a perpetual decline, and thus the US is moving to assert
military control over the major oil reserves of the Middle East.

WHICH, to bring us full circle, is a major reason for promoting
permaculture.

I spoke this afternoon about our developing local Oklahoma food system
at a sustainable living conference at a local church, and one of the
points I made was that everybody should endeavor to grow some of their
own food, and that permaculture was one way to do this.  If "we are
what we eat," then most Americans are petroleum, due to the high
fossil fuel content of our food.  If something happened overnight to
shut down all oil production, within a year there would be mass
starvation throughout the world.

Since it is obvious that permaculture gardens do not develop
overnight, the time to plant the garden is several years before the
crisis hits.  I sometimes wonder how much time we have for concepts
like permaculture to make the jump from being known and utilized by
the "early adopters", to more mainstream (and thus more widespread)
impact.  Events like the present buildup in the Middle East generally
make me think that we have less rather than more time, but what the
heck, I've been fighting terrorism this summer by planting more trees
and bushes and vines and etc and encouraging others to do the same.
Hopefully, when all the shouting dies down, and the captains and the
kings depart, the hobbits and the peasants will in fact inherit the
Earth.

Robert Waldrop,Oklahoma City
http://www.oklahomafood.org

-----Original Message-----
From: PacificEdge <pacedge@magna.com.au>
>In a number of postings from the US I have seen the word 'fear'.
Maybe
>some of you in that country can confirm whether fear, or its
>fellow-traveller, anxiety, is something being experienced by any
>reasonably-sized percentage of the US population.