permaculture

["Anne Schwarz" <thegrayhat@hotmail.com>]

Hello~

Amanda said:

> How quickly does sustainable culture need to move away from
> fossil fuel usage?  Should committed permaculturists be giving up
> private fossil fuel burning cars as quickly as possible, and moving to
> sustainable forms of transport (including community vehicles running
> on alternative fuels)?  How important are communal sustainable car
> washing facilities in comparison to these reductions in fossil fuel
> burning?

In terms of air polution, modern cars are actually not as responsible as 
many people think.  The main culprits are those horrible engines in lawn 
mowers, leaf blowers, etc. and diesle engines.

Also, something I think will interest everybody... There is now a way to 
turn compost garbage (and most other types of garbage) into oil, gassoline 
and minerals.  Check out:  http://www.discover.com/may_03/featoil.html

If this takes off, it seems that the fossil fuel shortage has reached an 
end...  As well as foreign fuel dependency and so many other problems.

I would also like to warn anybody thinking about owning hybrid or electric 
cars...  Sure, the gas efficiency is wonderful, but the batteries that 
compensate for it are some of the most toxic things I've ever heard of.  A 
car crash involves evacuating 6 city bocks for ehalth reasons, not to 
mention that they eventually lose their charge and you have to throw them 
out...


On the topic of permaculture appartment dwellings:
I think the main thing to think about is how to organize the community in 
the building.  How is the community garden being maintained and by who?  We 
can all hope that the owner of the building would jump on the band wagon of 
permaculture and do it for us, but chances are, it's the tennants who have 
to do all of the maintanace and financing.

This problem reminded me of my neighborhood's "road association."  Since we 
have about a half mile of privately owned dirt roads before we hit the main 
road, maintenance is up to whoever lives next to any particular section.  
However, my road (and many others) have chosen to group together and split 
the costs of maintainance as evenly as possible so we don't constantly have 
patches of upkept road interspliced with potholes you could hide your 
vehicle in. (I would like to note that not having a car would be near 
suicide since the 9 miles winding road to town has no shoulder to speak of, 
which means bikes have to compete with cars on blind turns...  Very scary, 
never doing it again.)  However, my point is that the same type of action 
could be used to make a "rooftop association."  The only problem with this 
system si that it is totally dependant on volunteers.  It can work very 
well, like in the case of my road, or it can go very very badly, when two or 
three people fund and maintain everything out of necesity and everybody else 
piggy-backs on their efforts (especially in a situation where people are 
constantly moving in and out of their residency).  I suppose you could deny 
roof access to anybody who didn't pitch in, but I think that creates a whole 
new set of problems...
Any other ideas on how to make sure a building with a high population turn 
over can sustain a communal garden?

Anne

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