permaculture

[sustain_ability@123mail.org]

Our personal relationship to divinity has often been confused with
material desires. Permaculture is also a modern attempt to
de-industrialize the manipulation of nature to meet man's need for
sustenance, i.e. industrial agriculture's desecration of earth's
resources to deliver "abundance".

In Canada presently, the federal government wants to promote both energy
conservation and building nuclear reactors* to process the tar sands of
Alberta (whose oil reserves equal that of Saudi Arabia). The
contradiction is painfully evident, and the moral and philosophical
questions set aside. Consumption is still promoted as the road to
prosperity.

Thus values that are essentially spiritual will determine your
relationship to nature, i.e. the physical world. If we took the long
view, I believe oil would be declared a precious resource. The long view
does not set aside moral and philosophical questions. I would suggest a
Christian approach, i.e. oil would be "reserved" for "hard to replace"
uses until a suitable replacement (if any) is discovered (the discovery
process likely requiring resources of its own). 

Too idealistic? In the light of existing but unused technology, any
resource war today is, by any measure, an evil thing. Conflict and
social unrest in some oil-rich areas (e.g. Nigeria, Angola, the Middle
East) is facilitated both by poorly managed wealth and the promise of
future riches, power and influence. Diversification would demystify if
not deflate those pipe dreams (no pun intended).

*I favour a low-energy lifestyle because it will become inevitable
anyway. Bacteria that thrive in the human-made radioactive wastes (of
nuclear reactors and such) do exist -
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.femsec.2004.02.017,
but will they toil to make the world safe for humans, again?

George
http://transitions.stumbleupon.com


  
On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 15:20:02 +0000, ""Gaian Life"" <eco@gaianlife.co.uk>
said:
> Shouldn't the society/religious/spiritual aspect be something that
> permaculture can be adapted to (or be relevant to) rather than inherent
> in
> permaculture itself?
> A society that was for example predominantly Christian, Hindu or Muslim
> or
> contained people who wished to express their spiritual beliefs....can
> easily
> incorporate that in permaculture terms. A spiritual glade or prayer area?
> A
> temple well placed to work with the rest of the productive permaculture
> community acting as a South facing wall or a layered crop system or a
> healing herb garden in hanging baskets?
> I would say that spirituality is the human 'need' and permaculture is a
> method employed when supplying that need. Permaculture principles may
> encompass certain spiritual beliefs and so may be confused with them but
> I
> think that may be more the overlap between the change in thinking
> required
> to respect and work in tune with nature and the change in thinking
> related
> to many religious and spiritual practices.
> I am Buddhist and I find that fits very well with permaculture, probably
> for
> exactly the same reasons as it does for Pagans & New Age groups.
> Although permaculture is a separate thing from religion/spirituality, it
> can
> encompass and encourage it and indeed could be a uniting/levelling factor
> in
> a world where religions are often at war, where we seem to have so little
> in
> common with other peoples that we fear them. A common base to work from?
> The
> human culture part of Permaculture?

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