permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

Evan Schoepke wrote:

> If the principals of permaculture can not evolve to accomadate the needs of
> people *willing to learn* from various backgrounds and income levels in a
> very substantial way then permaculture *will not* avert a vast ecological
> and social collapse.  To be clear I have *never* stolen anything from Bill
> Mollison and have in fact have given as much time and *money* and I can to
> the permie cause. I didn't even scan the Permaculture Designers Manual
> myself but merely promoted a link I found to a free copy.  The reason I did
> this is because I do know that there are people from all over the world with
> less resources who would put it to good use (*see christophe's comment*).  I
> expect to get support and criticism but most importantly I expect that
> permaculturalist of all people will at the very least *begin to
> question*the "business as usual" logic that is destroying our planet.

This is "business as usual"
(an excerpt from Lisa Mollison's letter to you):

"We try to keep the costs of all our books to a minimum but there are 
costs associated with printing, publishing and distributing our titles, 
and if the books don’t generate any income I’m sure you could foresee 
the outcome for Tagari Publications and the Permaculture Institute.

Bill Mollison is now 82 years old, he still writes, teaches and supports 
many organisations. Bill has dedicated much of his life to this cause 
and is a valuable entity to all involved, but without finances Bill 
would not be able to continue with his teaching, writing and community 
assistance."

Do you have a problem with that?

> If the principals of permaculture can not evolve to accomadate the
> needs of people *willing to learn* from various backgrounds and 
income > levels in a very substantial way then permaculture *will not* 
avert a > vast ecological and social collapse.

If the principals of permaculture can not evolve to support guerrila 
publishing in its effort to distribute for free the copyrighted works of
dedicated writers doing their best to survive personally and educate the 
permaculture community while at the same time encouraging personal 
fiscal responsibility by saving money to purchase their own copies of 
their works and starting their own lending libraries so others in their 
community can benefit from their books then permaculture will not avert 
a vast ecological and societal collapse.

Anything wrong with that picture?

> P.S. I invite anyone on this list serve (even folks who wish someone sued my
> pants off) to write and contribute to www.punkrockpermaculture.com.  Thank
> you, and keep up the great work.

That's a good thing, Evan. Keep it going. www.punkrockpermaculture.com 
is a fascinating, worthwhile site, a breath of fresh air. I found many 
new and interesting things there including Scribd (did they ask the 
permission of the author of the Roman Cooking book to publish it for 
free online? and the book by Rain?). How about starting a publishing 
collective there; encourage your readers to contribute to new books on 
permaculture and publish them online for free or for profit (use PayPal
to recieve payments); if they get pirated then you will see how sales fare.

LL