permaculture

[Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>]

Loren Davidson wrote:
> I think there is room within Permaculture to do all of the above.
>
> By growing food for ourselves, we are cutting down on the amount of 
> fuel needed to transport our food to us. As petroleum use is one of 
> the big drivers of ecological issues, that's not an insignificant 
> thing.
>
> Also, Pc is about many elements serving each function, and many 
> functions served by each element. I don't think you'd suggest we 
> become a "monoculture" of political action. Besides, once we get 
> outside our own communities, our "leverage" to make changes goes down 
> in a hurry. Think globally and act locally, y'know.
>   
Thanks for responding.
I think member discouragement of political discussion on this list 
negates a lot of what Permaculture is about.
Of course what you say here is correct. 
My point is that discouraging the political discussion limits 
Permaculture to agricultural solutions.
> Pc ain't the only folks who need to step to the plate. And even if 
> the current ecology collapses, the planet and the biosphere will 
> survive in the long term. It survived the extinction of the 
> dinosaurs, with or without the addition of asteroid collisions. It 
> will survive the human race.
>
> The planet will be here another four billion years, until the Sun 
> either goes cold or goes red giant. If you sterilized every microbe 
> of life on Earth tomorrow, life would eventually arise here again.
>
> That doesn't mean we shouldn't work at being part of the solution 
> rather than part of the problem. Just that, in the Greater Scheme, we 
> need to keep in mind that there *is* a Greater Scheme. And in it, we 
> humans aren't really that important.
>   
I don't know of another conceptual tool that addresses the needs of 
human settlements like Permaculture.
I'm saying that humans have the capacity to save ourselves from extinction.
I believe we have been given that capacity in order to use it.
I believe Permaculture is the best tool by which to harness our capacities.
I've been arguing for two decades or more with Deep Ecology's 
misanthropy and I hope you aren't going there.
Humans can matter in nature's scheme.  Western cultures just haven't 
found large-scale ways to matter that suit nature since we killed our 
shamans and began trying to transcend nature.
I'm not saying humans are more important than the planet.  I'm saying 
they're indivisible, that only human abstraction can divide them, and 
that Deep Ecology makes that abstraction error.  Apprehending nature 
does not require abstraction, only paying attention.  Transcending 
nature is not humanly possible.  Transforming ourselves to fit nature's 
patterns is possible and is one path to surviving the 2030 spike.
I think.  But I'm fallible and I admit it.

Smiles.
Tommy Tolson
Austin, TX