permaculture

["Michael Kramer" <MKramer@hawaii.rr.com>]

The issue of bringing permaculture onto American television is certainly
compelling, and while there have been occasional local public television
broadcasts, there has been little national exposure. Liiving on Earth, the
national PBS radio program, has featured permaculture a few times, but I
think (and part of me hates that this is so) we need to find a celebrity to
bring permaculture to the national stage. This gives it credibility in the
eyes of the mainstream media. Ted Danson drives a hybrid, Woody Harrelson is
a hemp and eco-building advocate, Robert Redford had a permaculture site
assessment conducted for Sundance Institute - but these folks haven't been
enlisted for their support of permaculture, and think this goes back to the
issue I've raised before about our general lack of organization. Without a
national permaculture organization, or a national conference like Bioneers,
there's no magnet to attract well-known advocates. Permaculture has been
featured at Sol Fest, Green Fest, Bioneers, Sustainable Resources, and other
events, but it is seen as a piece of a larger whole rather than the whole
itself. This is because we have been content to fit within any context that
would have us; we have avoided doing the organizing ourselves to articulate
our own purpose as a movement. But to bring permaculture national, we need
to be clear about our message, and we need to find a well-known advocate,
unless we are content to live in public television (which may be fine for
many).

So when considering how to present permaculture to America, it's important
to think strategically here, because permaculture will be pidgeon-holed into
whatever format it takes, and there are many possibilities. I can imagine a
food forestry show on the Home and Garden channel. I can imagine a show on
passive energy systems on Discovery.  I can even imagine an eco-building
episode on any of the numerous home refurbishing shows; those shows are very
popular but don't address anything ecological, so that certainly would be a
twist.

But you can see the inherent dilemma; permaculture would be presented and
interpreted by its audience primarily as the strategies presented; lacking
would be the holistic nature of pc design, the relationships between those
systems and the numerous other ones in which it exists. A show on
permaculture design doesn't fit neatly into any existing television format
outside of public television because it is too large a topic. That doesn't
mean it shouldn't be attempted, it just means that finding the right way to
share the message will be challenging.

If you are really serious about this, one of my former teacher training
students, Stefan McGuire, works with Tree Media Group in Santa Monica, and
they are very interested in this topic. They're involved with Bioneers,
produced a Global Warming video with Leonardo DiCaprio, work with Woody
Harrelson on his environmental campaigns, and much more. Check them out at
www.treemedia.com


-----
Michael Kramer, Accredited Investment Fiduciary
Natural Investment Services
P.O. Box 390595
Keauhou, HI 96739

Michael@NaturalInvesting.com
www.NaturalInvesting.com
808-331-0910
Toll-free: 888-779-1500

Socially Conscious Portfolio Management & Hourly Consulting
Sustainability Strategic Planning and Education

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <permaculture-request@lists.ibiblio.org>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 7:01 AM
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] permaculture Digest, Vol 22, Issue 31


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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. taking permaculture to national television (The Stamblers)
>    2. permaculture to national television (Claude William Genest)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:29:42 -0500
> From: "The Stamblers" <stambler_k_d@lycos.com>
> Subject: [permaculture] taking permaculture to national television
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Message-ID: <20041128042942.AF71C3384B@ws7-3.us4.outblaze.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> hi:
>
> i'm new to this list, and i'm interested in getting the word out about
permaculture to a nationwide television audience on cable.  i'll be a
masters student at the new college of california in santa rosa this january,
and ready to start from scratch.
>
> what do you folks think about that idea?  is anyone doing that already?
>
> thanks.
>
> In Christ,
> douglas stambler
> (murphys, california)