permaculture

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson <lakinroe@silcom.com>]

Culture Change Letter #157

Albert Bates, guide for our post-petroleum, globally warmed future

by Jan Lundberg

The April issue of Vanity Fair-online features The Farm, an intentional
community in Tennessee.  Albert Bates gets a lot of ink in that article,
as he has spent most of his life on The Farm making his mark in both
publishing and education.  There, his original skill set as a lawyer and
horseman in 1972 was expanded to include Permaculture design, and he
became an author (Climate in Crisis with an introduction by Al Gore,
1990).  He became a global authority on ecovillages, founding the Global
Village Institute for Appropriate Technology.  He directs the Ecovillage
Training Center at The Farm, where he has instructed students from over 50
nations since 1994.

More recently he has been warning people about petrocollapse and sudden
sea-level rise.  His latest book The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and
Cookbook came out last fall from New Society Publishers. He has spoken at
Culture Change's Petrocollapse Conferences in New York City and
Washington, DC, and has just returned from a series of California
appearances.  Rare is there a fortuitous blend of knowledge, wisdom and
patience in one public figure for the task at hand, so let us see what
such a person, Albert Bates, has to tell Culture Change readers.

Albert K. Bates is a very busy man, but well-rounded and generous enough
to keep abreast of many efforts begging his attention.  So when I asked
him to comment on a reader's reaction to Alice Friedemann's "Peak Soil"
new tour de force on biofuels, I was rewarded with these inspiring words:

"Once we recognize that the fate of all life on Earth is now in the
balance and what we do right now matters in that outcome, we can dispense
with arguments for cutting, coppicing, pollarding, energy crops or other
ways of shortchanging net sequestration.  We have to consistently choose
maximum sequestration.  Everywhere.  At once. The tipping points are
falling like dominoes and we are in a race now.  We are losing.  We need
to sprint.  Now."

He elaborated: "Diverse, multi-species boreal forests supply twice as
much, and also sequester twice the greenhouse gases, and  diverse,
multi-species rainforests twice that.  The diminishment comes when you
slice and dice them for energy, food, or human habitat instead of growing
them out and up for maximum carbon uptake."

One vital aspect of Albert Bates' set of knowledge on climate change and
energy is that he has delved into net energy -- perhaps the major concern
over renewable fuels.  In keeping with his long practice of tracking
Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI), he told Culture Change "EROEI
calcs have to recognize that nothing breaks even; entropy always has a
finger on the scale."

The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: recipes for changing
times, 237 pages, has a foreword by Richard Heinberg, author of The
Party's Over.  People knowledgeable about peak oil have to agree with
Heinberg: "There is a profound and growing need for a Peak Oil Survival
Guide."  But why a cookbook too?  Heinberg says, "There is nothing more
basic to human life than eating, and Peak Oil will require some serious
adjustments in how we feed ourselves."  Heinberg concludes his foreword
eloquently with a message Culture Change readers (and predecessor
Auto-Free Times readers) have heard for over a decade: "Start living a
post-petroleum lifestyle now and avoid the rush."

I daresay that Albert's book is essential for the clueless, if they can
get a hold of a copy.  If they spend just a few minutes perusing it they
may start to see the real world opening up to them.  And for the clued in,
there are countless tips and facts that can bolster our skill-sets and
resolve to keep plodding along.  The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and
Cookbook is useful for a generation, the way the Whole Earth Catalogue
was, as a handy reference guide (first aid, substitutions, recipes, and
more).

Albert's experience on The Farm has prepared him for this historic task to
educate us gently yet honestly, while urging us on toward community and
simplicity.  He cites Dmitry Orlov, who has passed along his knowledge of
Russian farming villages and the Soviet Union's collapse to Americans
wondering about the effects of peak oil.  Albert has taken in much insight
and experience for our benefit, to conclude in his Afterword: "Peak oil is
a horrible predicament.  It is also a wonderful opportunity to do a lot
better. Let's not squander this moment.  This will be the Great Change."

    After Petroleum, After Warming, After Population: Earth, a place for
hippie respect

JL: Albert, your book The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook seems
to be the only light-hearted -- while very practical -- book on peak oil
and the ominous changes to come from society's losing cheap energy and the
ability to consume endlessly.  Can your book remain eminently relevant
even when events get out of hand?  To what extent -- recipes and how-to
living tips?  Or are there major changes possible that could make you want
to write a sequel, or, alternatively, give up on publishing?

AB: I am not ready to give up publishing yet, but I am certainly aware of
the sudden collapse scenario and in that event all bets are off.  A year
from now, or a month from now, we could be using books to keep warm and
cook our food, not for the advice contained in them. In my lectures of
late I have been giving people mind-mapping tools to allow them to plan
contingencies in uncertain times.  You have to plan for several scenarios
simultaneously, and people will weight them by whatever credence they
place in reports of where we are and what we are about to experience, now
and ten years from now.

I think we have an individual preparedness to be concerned with, and that
involves securing a supply of food, water, shelter and other basic needs
for yourself and your immediate community.  And then we have a larger
social preparedness, without which there is no hope for the individual to
survive.  This second area involves threats that can only be addressed by
better public policy and general mobilization of the whole macro society
-- threats like world population, climate change, nuclear hazards,
biogenetics, toxic time bombs.

Few recognize how close we are to human extinction, or even that we may
have passed an irreversible line that could lead to that and worse --
extinction of all life on Earth.  History becomes nearly irrelevant in
those circumstances, as do most of the plans we have laid for ourselves
and our descendants.   We will not be colonizing Mars.  In the centuries
to come, we can speak of success if there are still human colonies on
Earth.

I believe we can and should make our own luck.  We won't survive unless we
stop consuming our seed corn.  When you are running out, it isn't enough
to slow down.  You have to stop.  Much as you think you can make it just
fine in a cave, saving the whole planet involves getting engaged with
public policy, not digging a bunker in Idaho, or sitting on a zafu and
chanting om.

Don't get me wrong on chanting om, though.  We need to begin from a clear,
quiet, peaceful and respectful center.  Get there how you will.

JL: You are essentially an activist who knows how to write, speak and
educate.  Is activism going to come back big-time, or are people waiting
for leaders and gurus?  [ - To read the rest of this article and see
pictures of Albert Bates, go to:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=2#cont
- make sure all the address is pasted into browser.]

* * * * *

In Eugene, Oregon, April 27-28, is the Lane County Relocalization
Conference.  The theme of the Post Carbon Institute-affiliated event is
"Global challenges demand local integrated solutions!"  Suburban Renewal
is just one of the exciting topics to be addressed (by Jan Spencer).
"Depaver" Jan Lundberg will play a couple of his eco-songs on Saturday
April 28.  Telephone 541-344-1529 or visit
http://www.relocalize.net/lane_county_relocalization_conference

* * * * *

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