permaculture

[jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>]

My coldest winter in Alasak saw forty days in which the temperature never 
rose above minus ten degrees fahrenheit, and I hand-cut all my firewood for 
heating and cooking. A person doesn't have to be of the pre-euro-conquest 
indigenous group for an area in order to survive in harmony with Nature, just 
willing to learn from Nature and our ancestors (geographical or otherwise) 
and be content with simple entertainments, and willing to spend a lot of 
contemplative time. Eat what is local, use what is local, all in moderation. 
If you find that you have more neighbors than a local ecosystem can sustain, 
then either move or get some of them to move, in order to lower everyone's 
demands on that area's resources. 

> From: fdnokes@hotmail.com
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 09:45:05 -0700
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overstep the bounds? was: From TruthOut
> 
> two comments:
> *the question does not suggest that the pop. excess is in the 3rd world
> *the way of life you describe is, unfortunately, become less available 
> within the 3rd world.
> 
> ALL these comments are very interesting to read, and glean references from.
> For sake of clarity wish to reveal where the question came from.
> I used to live in Winnipeg, affectionately known as Winterpeg.
> One fall, I suddenly became shockingly conscious of how dependent on fuel 
> we 
> were to survive. The winter temps are extremely cold.  It just suddenly hit 
> me how short our time line was without the fuel to heat our homes. There 
> are 
> many days when frostbite occurs within minutes and less of exposure to the 
> windchill.
> As it happened, that was the year that the ice storms occurred, thrusting 
> Quebec and other neighbouring regions into crisis.
> So, the question could also be approached from this angle.
> Yes, the Inuit have developed an amazing lifestyle to cope with the Arctic, 
> and yes, that way of life is fast fading, bringing with its fade, huge 
> addiction issues...
> I am the creature that I am. Brought up amidst the culture I was brought up 
> in.
> 
> So, my question was not coming from a need to discuss consumption, which 
> has 
> been 'done' quite a bit lately everywhere we look. But, to introduce a 
> different topic: that of suitability of varying geographies for different 
> human life forms.
> Where I come from, people did not used to stay in one place. When the 
> weather changed, they moved.
> 
> hope this helps,
> frances
> 
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Tripp Tibbetts" <slowfoodguy@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 9:33 AM
> To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overstep the bounds? was: From TruthOut
> 
> > I'm going to add my name to this bandwagon.  Not that I specifically 
> > disagree with Toby's numbers, but I do agree that the real rhino in the 
> > playpen is first world consumption, not third world population.  A 
> > wealthy 
> > elite on a yacht in the Med burns more energy in an hour than whole 
> > villages do in a year.  Besides, "third world" numbers have only grown as 
> > a response to "first world" subsidies.  A woman in Lesotho could probably 
> > turn an extra pound of rice and a chicken per week into another child. 
> > Her counterpart in Portland, OR, would scrape it off her plate into the 
> > garbage, or feed it to a Schnauzer we probably don't need to be 
> > supporting 
> > either.
> >
> > I foraged half a peck of mulberries this morning around town, which is 
> > obviously more sustainable than buying them from a grocer, but I did it 
> > in 
> > my Camry, then washed them in a nice cast-iron enamel sink with 
> > pressurized city water with an electric fan blowing cool air through my 
> > 1000 s.f. house.  The same woman in Lesotho would just walk to the tree 
> > and eat the berries, and bring some home to her mud and thatch house in a 
> > cloth for her children.
> >
> > It's really not the same thing at all, is it?
> >
> > Tripp
> >
> >
> > The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow.
> > -Chinese proverb
> >
> >
> > --- On Fri, 5/7/10, jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overstep the bounds? was: From TruthOut
> > To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Date: Friday, May 7, 2010, 4:07 PM
> >
> >
> >
> > Is it that there are too many, or that those in "developed" countries 
> > take 
> > such a huge portion of the resources per capita. Until recently, third 
> > worlders, where population is so often cited (by privileged people of 
> > european descent) as a problem, were content and effective at feeding 
> > themselves with simple tools and technologies. The real change came when 
> > the privileged classes colonized (enslaved) the third world to use their 
> > resources and labor to support their own creature comforts and inflated 
> > lifestyles. We're still doing it, and have tantalized the third world 
> > with 
> > enough of our toxic toys that some are willing to participate in or are 
> > entrapped in a desperate attempt to gain material goods.
> > Yet, the privileged classes still jet around the world, buy new 
> > computers, 
> > eat food grown far away, and sit atop their tractors while pretending to 
> > do good for the third world. Reminds me of the missionaries.
> >> From: toby@patternliteracy.com
> >> Date: Fri, 7 May 2010 05:50:18 -0700
> >> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> >> Subject: Re: [permaculture] Overstep the bounds? was: From TruthOut
> >>
> >> On May 6, 2010, at 11:54 AM, <fdnokes@hotmail.com> <fdnokes@hotmail.com> 
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >
> >> > Do you think we have overstepped the bounds of what is habitable space 
> >> > on
> >> > earth?
> >> > Are we trying to live in too many places that are not supportive 
> >> > enough 
> >> > of
> >> > life?
> >>
> >> No. But the question doesn't get to the real issue. 10,000 years ago 
> >> there were humans in nearly all of the places that we inhabit now 
> >> (Antarctica being the main exception). Some of the most fragile places 
> >> on 
> >> the planet--the Oz bush, the Kalahari--have had humans in them for 
> >> 40,000 
> >> years or more.
> >>
> >> The problem is not where we are, it's how many. There are just far, far 
> >> too many of us in all of those places. Following William Catton in the 
> >> 1980s classic "Overshoot," I'd say the human carrying capacity of the 
> >> planet is 500 million people living carelessly (so to speak) or 1-2 
> >> billion living very carefully. Since I don't think we are capable of 
> >> living carefully, at some point we'll reach the lower number.
> >>
> >> Toby
> >> http://patternliteracy.com
> >>
> >>
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> >
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