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  • From: Paul Cereghino <paul.cereghino@comcast.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] horticulture isn't the answer either [a climate spinoff]
  • Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:50:39 -0800

Some more hearsay.. sorry for the lack of citations... this thread just triggered some memories.
A colleague recently reported a study to me that looked at native tree establishment in the W. Washington climate (from naturally dispersed seed). Tree regeneration (and the tricky establishment period with our dry summers) was correlated with short term climate cycles (north pacific decadal oscillation?). Another piece... in pre-Columbian times there were huge areas of Douglas-fir forest in W. Washington, and based on investigation of the remnant patches, in many stands the oldest cohort were similarly aged 500 year-old giants. The 500 year timing corresponds with a mediveal warming period, and some researchers are looking for other evidence indicating a period when the climate got a little hotter and drier, and the landscape was swept with catastrophic, stand-replacing fires, resulting in large swaths of land covered by relatively even ages stands of pioneering Douglas-fir. Standing biomass can also look like a lot like fuel when the climate changes.
Paul Cereghino

Toby Hemenway wrote:

The Anasazi, including those at Chaco, are firmly considered by
anthropologists to be agriculturists. They farmed corn for their mainstay
and had large irrigated fields. Farming in a desert is very risky. No
horticultural society generates the surplus necessary to build a settlement
the size of Chaco; it's way over Dunbar's number. And, sure, every society
is vulnerable to climate change, or any number of dangers. I'm not sure that
horticulture is sustainable, but it's more sustainable than plow
agriculture. We only got about 10,000 years out of agriculture before we
trashed a planet. We might get 100,000 from horticulture, which might be
enough time for us (all of us, I mean) to figure out how to live here.

I'm reading a great book right now called "The First Farmers" by Peter
Bellwood. He cites data showing that from about 90,000 years ago until
11,500 YA climate was incredibly unpredictable, cold, dry, and volatile
(picture a really jagged graph of temp and rainfall, with generally cold
temps). Then, boom, 11,500 years ago the graph smooths out, things get
stably warm and moist. And that's when farming started. There's evidence
that several grains were domesticated and farmed about 14,000 years ago, but
climate was too unstable for those cultures to make it work. They reverted
to gathering. It's possible that farming was simply impossible until the
climate allowed it. So if we lose both a stable climate and a massive fossil
fuel subsidy that lets us ride out drought and low fertility, farming isn't
going to be viable. Plant your trees now.

Toby
__________________
Learn permaculture in at a tropical food forest in Belize this February.
Details at http://patternliteracy.com
__________________


On 1/19/07 7:14 PM, "Rain Tenaqiya" <raincascadia@yahoo.com> wrote:


While I agree with Toby's promotion of horticulture, and appreciate his
sociological distinction between it and agriculture, most horticulural
socities are (mostly were) not inherently sustainable, either. A classic and
extreme example is in the US Southwest, where most of the areas inhabited by
pre-Columbian Native Americans were deforested and turned to bare desert after
a few generations of farming (the Anasazi and the people that built at Chaco
Canyon are the most famous). It appears that the only people that survived as
horticulturists are those that were lucky enough to occupy ideal sites, with
dependable water sources and a forgiving ecology.

Small-scale integrated farming dependent mostly on humun labor and no major
inputs (off-site energy, biomass, nutrients, poisons, or water) is definitely
part of the solution, I believe, but only along with ecologically informed
decisions based on long-term monitoring and self-restraint, especially with
regard to population reduction and control. The scientific method, and the
technology we now have to implement it, is relatively new and is crucial if we
are to properly understand and manage the ecosystems of which we are a part.
Past societies generally couldn't perceive the creeping changes that took
place over generations, though warnings from prophets such as Plato and
Mencius (who saw massive deforestation turning the hills into eroded rocks in
Greece and China, respectively) didn't seem to have any more effect than
modern scientists warning about global warming, today. Without
self-restraint, there is no hope. I guess we need a new religion (which will
probably
create more problems).

Rain



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Today's Topics:

1. Re: VABF Conference (Keith Johnson)
2. Re: "How to Save the World" - Biodynamics in India (Steve Diver)
3. Keeping up with the Colemans (Toby Hemenway)
4. Re: "green" affiliates (Martin Naylor)
5. Ode to Indian Farmers Whose Land Was Confiscated For
Industrialization (sustain_ability@123mail.org)
6. Re: Ode to Indian Farmers Whose Land Was Confiscated For
Industrialization (Lawrence F. London, Jr.)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 12:57:09 -0500
From: Keith Johnson
Subject: Re: [permaculture] VABF Conference
To: permaculture
Message-ID: <45AE6375.9010805@mindspring.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Peter Bane attended this event last year and said it was very good. This
year he will be a keynote speaker (and book / mag seller).
Keith

Steve Diver wrote:

The VABF conference is excellent, so if you're within
3-5 hours it can be worth the trip.

Often the biggest thing you get from these bio-regional,
sustainable ag, and organic ag conferences is the opportunity
to meet kindred spirits and fellow land managers, as well as
to share stories that range from living on the land to raising
little kids and nanny goats, onwards to organic farming methods
including tools and equipment and composting and keeping
chickens on pasture.
VABF
http://www.vabf.org



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