permaculture

[Sean Maley <semaley@yahoo.com>]

Yes, there is still an amazing amount of fossil energy still in the ground.  
However, this totally misses the point of "peak oil" or even "peak energy".

Maybe this will help:
  http://www.warsocialism.com/l1.html

Maybe this is more subtle than I thought, but it might also help to 
understand the concepts of "growth" and population dynamics a little better.

On growth:

Dr. Albert Bartlett: Arithmetic, Population, and Energy:
  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4364780292633368976
(transcript):
 http://globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/645

On population dynamics:
 http://www.dieoff.org/page80.htm
 http://www.ishmael.org/Education/Writings/kentstate.shtml

Don't fall for the thousands of years of energy still available fallacy.  I'm 
not saying we are facing an immediate die off as a result or that we can't 
get our population reduced in time.  Nevertheless, the problem is serious and 
we will see horrendous famine and war within most of our life times if we 
can't make a graceful transition into energy descent very soon.

To quote a Derrick Jensen book title, it's an "End Game" whether viewed from 
climate change or from energy descent or mass extinction or any number of 
permutations resulting from the current status quo.


-Sean.
--- On Tue, 1/13/09, nicholas@themediasociety.org 
<nicholas@themediasociety.org> wrote:
From: nicholas@themediasociety.org <nicholas@themediasociety.org>
Subject: [permaculture] oil and other facts of life
To: pil-pc-oceania@lists.permacultureinternational.org, "permaculture" 
<permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 8:35 PM

>Why is every one concerned with global warming when oil peak is the only
problem
Martin, peal oil actually wont be a problem. Synthetic fuel can be
made from natural gas *600 years worth* and coal *2000 years worth*..
ask any old car lover or engineer and you'll find synthetic fuel was
made from gas and coal during the Great Depression, WW2 etc.. the
Nazis powered their war effort, South Africa does it now, synthetic
diesel...
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html

the idea that climate change is not real... well...

Climate change is undoubtedly the greatest challenge the world has
ever faced. For many, just coming to terms with the scale and scope of
the problem, let alone acting upon it, can be a deeply confronting
experience.

Outright denial that climate change is happening, however, is
increasingly being swept to the political fringe. Public knowledge
about the science and the impacts of climate change has become too
widespread for the denialists to be taken seriously any longer.
http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=595

>followed by nuclear war
I agree, this is a huge problem... possibly the biggest. But how does
permaculture help this ? do you include peace activism or no-nuclear
activism into your permaculture designs and systems ? if so, I think
its a good idea. Considering Australia is a major source of nuclear
material, when the next nuke explodes, it may well be source from
Oz...

>Isn't it about time we got back to permaculture?
do you have your permaculture garden inside a nuclear bunker, your
climate change proof biosphere  ? if so, is it fortified so that when
your neighbors are starving you will be able to fight them off?
>and the roots of this planet?
if you mean, planetary level permaculture, than I totally agree


>http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=s8jw-ifqwkM&feature=related
>war is over John Lennon
sadly, again, the opposite is true... remember the Great Depression
didnt end with the New Deal, it ended with World War 2.. if you
adovocating broad based peace activism, I agree with you

>Do not think-ACT
like Nike's just do it ?

Every twenty-four hours, thirteen million tons toxic chemicals are
released across the globe; 200,000 acres of rain forest are destroyed;
more than one hundred plant or animal species go extinct; and 45,000
humans (mostly children) starve to death. Each day, 29,158 children
under the age of five die from mostly preventable causes
?
how will permaculture (as a gardening system, which seems to be the
convention) stop the above ? I think its pretty clear that
permaculture needs to scale-up... we are seeing this with the
Transition movement,... happening on a national scale now..
are you advocating permaculture link with the Global Justice Movement
by finding solutions with the GLobal South ? if so, I agree this is
the next step

indeed, the World Social Forum is happening in the Amazon later this month
http://www.fsm2009amazonia.org.br/wsf2009-amazon/action-goal
Ten goals guide the actions of the 9th WSF

The several activities self-managed of the WSF must be carried through
around one of the ten goals to follow, proposed by organization and
groups of organization during the process of registration for the
event.

The goals were defined after an extensive public consultation to
various organizations and entities participating in the WSF process.

1. For the construction of a world of peace, justice, ethics and
respect for different spiritualities, free of weapons, especially
nuclear ones;

2. For the release of the world domain by capital, multinationals
corporations, imperialist, patriarchal, colonial and neo-colonial
domination and unequal systems of commerce, by canceling the
impoverish countries debt;

3. For universal and sustainable access to the common property of
mankind and nature, for the preservation of our planet and its
resources, particularly water, forests and renewable energy sources;

4. For the democratization and independence of knowledge, culture and
communication and for the creation of a system of shared knowledge and
acquirement with the dismantling of Intellectual Property Rights;

5. For the dignity, diversity, ensuring the equality of gender, race,
ethnicity, generation, sexual orientation and elimination of all forms
of discrimination and caste (discrimination based on descent);

6.  For ensurance (during the lifetime use of all people) of the
economic, social, human, cultural and environmental rights,
particularly the rights to food, health, education, housing,
employment and decent work, communication and food security and
sovereignty;

7. For the construction of a world order based on sovereignty,
self-determination and on people's rights, including minorities and
migrants;

8. For the construction of a democratic emancipator, sustainable and
solidary economy, focused on every people and based on ethical and
fair trade;

9. For the construction and expansion of truly local, national and
global democratic political and economic structures and institutions,
with the participation of people in decisions and control of public
affairs and resources;

10. For the defense of the environment (amazonic and others
ecosystems) as source of life for the planet Earth and for the
originary peoples of the world (indigenous, afro-descendent, tribal
and riverine), that demand their territories, languages, cultures,
identities, environmental justice, spiritually and right to live.
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Subject: [permaculture] Spare Change by Steve Sprinkel
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http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0901&L=sanet-mg&T=0&O=D&PR907
SANET-MG Archives -- January 2009 (#75)
Subject: Spare Change
From:   Steve Sprinkel
Reply-To: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group, Steve Sprinkel
Date:   Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:57:18 -0500

A Prayer for More Thoughtful Action

Or

Spare Change


With all the concern-and furor-over Barak Obama's choice of Rick Warren to 
give the invocation
at the presidential inaugural, voices of the gay and lesbian wing of the 
Democratic left represented
the greatest grief over the peculiar selection. However, many straights on 
the left resent the
choice for reasons rarely explained.  Choosing Mr. Warren to lead the prayer 
seems as arrogant as
it is naïve, and it's folks on the far left who see the choice clearly as a 
mistake that should have
been avoided. That gnashing you may have heard faintly is merely our 
collective yearning for
sanity turning to dust.

Why not merely ask a middle-roading Methodist from Milwaukee to make the 
prayer? Why not
move gracefully towards power, instead of recklessly making a statement of 
doubtful value?
Nobody is offended, and the big story still remains the Speech of the Century 
soon to be given on
20 January. Instead, if anything becomes clear over this, its that confusion 
instead is the result.
Why stiff the hardcores? How can the platinum campaigner turn all to 
post-election dross?
Whatever may be said in the speech will be a lot less inspiring because this 
meager incompetence
begets an incipient hollowness. Its now a toss-up whether the inauguration 
will be must-see TV.
Personally, I am glad I will be on the road.

The Warren choice makes little sense to most of us, especially if you gave to 
and worked for the
campaign and no one worked more tirelessly than the gay/lesbian contingent. 
The Obama camp
suggests that selecting Warren was about inclusion.  This argument is nothing 
better than an
opening to satire. Except its not so laughable if you drove to Nevada last 
summer and spent a
weekend knocking on doors in 102 degree heat, making brave sweeps of the 
Walmart parking lot,
dodging periwinkle-clad security, and preaching the gospel of change in 
Spanish to cautious
devotees of Hilary Clinton. We only did this because we had expectations that 
intelligence,
foresight and intuition might be qualities we would enjoy in an Obama 
Administration. We used to
be that inspired. We wanted to be part of that sort of miracle, so we called 
strangers in New
Mexico at night for the change telethon.

Political theorists weakly thought that the Warren prayer might be an effort 
to open evangelicals
up to Mr. Obama's leadership and message, but so long as Sara Palin and Mike 
Huckaby draw
breath, that is a far-fetched belief. Those crackers are set in their ways. 
As one  learned more
about Mr. Warren, what you knew about Mr. Obama became suspect.

Apologists of the Obama center explain that its just prayer, not a cabinet 
post. Other than our
profound gratitude for having revealed this truth to us, we need to point out 
that we did not
elevate the invocation to such a high-profile. Mr. Obama did. The effect was 
to say to the
evangelical right that they would be heard. For the far left, it translated 
that we should expect
more surprises and to not take change.gov for granted, because the substance 
of the change,
which we have been denied, is generally not terribly exciting as it is 
revealed in the team
selections to the incoming administration.

Nearly fifty million people voted for a maverick, and it looks like they will 
get one even if their
candidate lost. If the war in Iraq is prolonged, we should not be 
surprised-but this has been
telegraphed or quite some time now, and we are so inured to the debacle that 
another few years
of quagmire and scandal will not move us.

  If labor is not as equally supported as capital in the ongoing economic 
collapse, it is because the
same people will serve the new administration who were in charge when the 
financial catastrophe
started, including congress as well as Timothy Geithner, the new Treasury 
Secretary. It does not
seem to matter much if the ship struck the reef during your watch when you 
enjoy the kind of
ruling class pedigree of Mr. Geithner, whose forefathers counseled Eisenhower 
and still work for
the Ford Foundation. Tim cut his teeth working for Kissinger in the "private" 
sector, and so on,
but who else can we expect to have been chosen to run the Treasury? Ralph 
Nader?

No. Joseph Eugene Stiglitz. Yes, Stiglitz, the anti-globalization Nobel Prize 
winner. But it appears
the same foxes who ate all our chickens are in charge of the henhouse again.  
Well, maybe not.
Seems like Geithner has a tax problem, so we can root for Stiglitz anew.

When Tom Vilsack, the centrist former governor of Iowa, was selected as 
Secretary of the
Department of Agriculture, it was a sign that nothing huge would change with 
regard to synthetic
chemical use, farm subsidies, probably immigrant labor. Change set in motion 
beforehand will be
neither aided much nor hobbled but merely tolerated. The only people who care 
about the food
and fiber industry anyway are the few who either produce or process the raw 
products, the parallel
universe of agricultural materials manufacturers and, of course, the modest 
number of loud food
activists who hate having been right so often, only to be ignored for too 
long. Now we get
Monsacko, voted by the biotech agriculture industry as their favorite 
politician.

It was those foodies who worked hardest to get Mr. Obama elected and whose 
hope burned
brightest for change. The Vilsack selection is therefore of the same nature 
as the Rick Warren
choice. Reluctant independent voters who have a major Round Up herbicide 
habit may have voted
Democratic, holding their noses, in November, but the Foodies are the base 
that is being ignored.
Monsanto didn't even need to have a Republican in the White house in order to 
have a defender in
regulatory government. Vilsack will promote policies that are generally in 
lock-step with
predecessors like Earl Butz, Ed Madigan and John Block, corn and soybean men 
all. We don't have
to go too far back in history to discover an Agriculture Secretary who was at 
least curious about
the results of spraying most of the Midwest with glyphosate. The least 
dogmatic USDA Secretary in
recent memory was Democrat Dan Glickman, a former Kansas congressman, who 
stepped in after
Bill Clinton's first choice, Mike Espy, resigned over a bribery scandal of 
which he was later
exonerated. Glickman did defend the status quo, but he created 
broad-stakeholder panels
empowered to review the technology and made a number of "go slow' comments 
about biotech-
ag  that gave Monsanto's  share price the shakes more than once. And, one of 
his Deputies was
the esteemed progressive Richard Romminger of California, whose son was a 
significant player in
the organic farming movement.

Traditionally the people who serve in this post mirror the agri-business 
constituencies of
international trade and manufacturing, which is why China is a problem for 
everyone, no matter if
your concern is public health or global competition. Vilsack, Warren, 
Geithner. We had other ideas,
frankly.