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  • From: Jim <ashevillecurrencyproject@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] Peak Water/Where to ride out the coming collapse and which gun to buy
  • Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 13:20:30 -0500

Sorry.
Couldn't resist the apocalyptic title.

I've enjoyed reading some posts on this topic at
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com (John Michael Greer)
and
transitionculture.org (Rob Hopkins)

Basically, both of them shy away from the approach of exaggerating the Everyone For Themselves
mentality that got us into this situation, and instead suggest increasing cooperation, craft and creativity instead.

This has been my approach in the 25 months since I got my Permaculture Design Certificate,
and I've had some fairly good success with it (that includes reading this list, and trying to share something that folks might like, and refraining from babbling; but also forming a guild, and joining successfully with others to stop a proposed Wal-Mart and a proposed oil-burning power plan, staging an affordable Intro to Permaculture workshop, and supervising an college intern to research currency projects around the country, among other things).

Instead of searching for the magic, secret spot, and deluding yourself that you are the only one smart enough to suss it out; why not build community and resilience where you are?

If there is one critique I'd make of permaculture, I would say that it is too anti-political; that it doesn't think about how the things it wants need political change.

Case in point: composting toilets.
Most of us think we need more of them. Perhaps a majority of people reading this post live in places where they are against the law. Do we build one, poop in secret and hope no neighbors report us?
Or do we work to change the law, perhaps via a network of advocates living in the same country who can trade tips and tricks on how to work a city council/inspector, etc.

I actually took some action on this a few months ago. The city manager announced that he was searching for a new planning director after the old one "stepped down" [I hope an open letter of mine had some influence in encouraging the old planning director to seek work elsewhere].

I asked for a meeting with him on behalf of the permaculture guild, and encouraged the city manager to be open to innovative eco-technologies that might currently be illegal, and to find a director who would work with eco-innovators here to assess new technologies on their merits, and not just whether they were in yesterday's code. And that night, as it turns out, the New York Times had an article on Oakland's Greywater Guerrillas [which was essentially about the dilemma of changing the law, or just violating it], which I promptly emailed him. I also got to ask him what he'd heard about Peak Oil

What will come of this? I don't know.

I do know, however, that I'm not a big fan of the move-to-the-country and self-sufficiency-it with guns, however. At fifty, I'm getting a little old to learn some new tricks. And I'm not sure I'd want to teach my nephews and nieces target practice, so that they can shoot strangers onsite onsight, as described in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artimus_Pyle

That said, I'm not sure that Phoenix is the best place to be 30 years from now.

And if you are interested in encouraging your local (US and Canada) government to begin preparing for peak oil,
which is a conversation opener into other topics, check out
http://postcarboncities.net <http://postcarboncities.net>

If you'd like to encourage your local government to prepare/react to climate change along with the
700 cities in the world (300 in the US) that are part of ICLEI, visit
http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=394 (global site, with pages for each continent and country)
-- Jim






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