permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Tue, May 7, 2019 at 6:45 PM Robyn Francis <robyn@permaculture.com.au>
wrote:

> Just curious about the various interpretations and renditions of the Third
> Permaculture ethic, in particular the origins of the ‘Disperse the surplus’
> catch cry. Curiously this is not mentioned in the Designers Manual, only
> “Limits to population and consumption” is defined there as the 3rd ethic.
>
> Any thoughts?
>

In this list there was fairly intense discussion of the three ethics, how
they were names an how they were defined and interpreted. Scott probably
participated in this. It went on for
enough posts to cover plenty of ground. My thoughts are that "return the
surplus" or disperse the surplus" is critically important.....for hundreds
of good reasons, some of which are "keep the money (or goods) in the
community" and fund highly valued activities of community members" and the
obvious "fund those in need".

We can thank Scott for continuing to emphasize the importance of the three
ethics and that they are the essence of Permaculture.

Here are some things I found by searching the message archives for this
list:

>From the Permaculture Institute Facebook page:
Permaculture Institute
<https://www.facebook.com/Permaculture.Institute.USA/?__tn__=kC-R&eid=ARCAF13L2rx8SAeWJ8GxIRurdcCYrojKr3nEFE29qfk3LjcViwmEIjmkCWGy7v_H0UUOlgP7tPVOxmgQ&hc_ref=ARRPMS861rijgVIn9OTv2lMO3gn0bPK0uZvvRioN2z3ECpnojOm57Eoc7YyFzAvBpCw&fref=nf&__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARA61dYKztio4Hmwxg-mag2mvvbw3AHoq8fwpDxnjPYQ2iMWeAlgRn2QEb2UYk87vJCxGJuRSRWU2YiF6L6ev-JgasgSLxo8eHEZH6JSne79VbuTYpyiP5wu1oCbxnpwaxRYfbLG1k2A49qkdRujtwrcmdQrQXVZP8gDz8XgXGJvpXjR73jOhLuQx1exnRQ3Pji2mwOxE1thJtrTsn0zSp7zKVmMT9kJ5_VgMYsjL570Ii2BVdLpooAtIBf7owDlfwuabkmlTTrV5ePNhOr9E3Pt2o7jmG5MXi1q-3uSOWPnq5IrwId89OVBCBTwRh-k9iM5uciiJNG5Oe5WhbbYuEvCqneB>
March 22, 2014
<https://www.facebook.com/Permaculture.Institute.USA/posts/10202597250786217?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARA61dYKztio4Hmwxg-mag2mvvbw3AHoq8fwpDxnjPYQ2iMWeAlgRn2QEb2UYk87vJCxGJuRSRWU2YiF6L6ev-JgasgSLxo8eHEZH6JSne79VbuTYpyiP5wu1oCbxnpwaxRYfbLG1k2A49qkdRujtwrcmdQrQXVZP8gDz8XgXGJvpXjR73jOhLuQx1exnRQ3Pji2mwOxE1thJtrTsn0zSp7zKVmMT9kJ5_VgMYsjL570Ii2BVdLpooAtIBf7owDlfwuabkmlTTrV5ePNhOr9E3Pt2o7jmG5MXi1q-3uSOWPnq5IrwId89OVBCBTwRh-k9iM5uciiJNG5Oe5WhbbYuEvCqneB&__tn__=-R>
·

Musings and mutterings from Scott Pittman in response to comments made by
Toby Hemenway and Steve Hart (see below)!!

I have to concur with Toby's rejection of bum osculation as our way out of
a grim situation but I must also reject the hypothesis of evolving
ourselves into a brighter future. I think that there is a middle path of
activism that gives me some hope.

That activism is what I have been teaching and practicing for the past 30
years and it is permaculture. Not the watered down version of permaculture
that is currently being flogged by to many incompetent teachers and
practitioners but the version that I believe was envisioned by Bill
Mollison's anger and David Holmgin's thoughtfulness and keeping in mind
that hey stood on the shoulders of generations of experiential knowledge.

To correct our current course it is necessary for us to return to some old
ideas, beginning with the "ethics". At some point the fourth ethic was
dropped from the teaching of permaculture and that ethic, reduction of
population and consumerism, was and is critical to our future path. It has
been the incredible increase in grain crops afforded by agro-chemicals, and
mechanical monocrop agriculture that has provided the fodder for the
phenomenal boom in population while at the same time ushering in a new
catalog of diseases and economic inequality. I have reverted back to this
use of four ethical principals in order to cover what I perceive as a
serious oversight.

I also believe if we are to take ourselves seriously, and be taken
seriously we have to return to and further develop a set of standards and
practices of permaculture that will give the word more credibility. Since
the first courses taught by Bill Mollison (except for a brief period in the
early development of the Permaculture Design Course) the PDC was 12 full
days of lecture, practicum, and design. I think this should be a minimum
standard and I would argue that we need more time than this if teachers
insist on creating the illusion and giving permission for their students to
immediately go out and teach the PDC and design properties. This is of
course fantasy for the most part and has opened the doors to speculators
who see the marketability of permaculture and once they have their
"certificates" feel free to exploit those seeking solutions to real
problems. The Permaculture Institute (PI)does not recognize certificates
from a PDC that comes from an individual who does not have a Permaculture
Diploma as valid certificates nor do we honor certificates from course that
are less than 12 days in length.

In order to encourage more development of teachers we only charge full
tuition and costs to first time participants in the PDC, once one has a PDC
one is welcome to participate an any other courses just for the cost of
being there (food, lodging, and venue). This was the practice of Bill
Mollison and it was, I believe, to enable potential teachers the
opportunity to experience many teaching styles and to hone their own craft
thereby.

The Curriculum of the PDC was established at the first Permaculture
Conference in 1984 and that curriculum is the one that the PI still
recognizes as the only curriculum for certification. Since there have,
obviously, been many new developments not incorporated in this curriculum
it is expected that the teachers will incorporate new material on a regular
basis. We believe that "Permaculture - A Designer's Manual" is one of the
seminal books on permaculture we do not recognize it as the curriculum, but
rather one of many books that more fully explicate the material in the
curriculum.

Every PDC must incorporate one or more design exercises and must finish
with a talent show. While many current teachers don't maintain the
tradition of a talent show I believe it is an important part of the
pedagogy of permaculture and should be continued. I would be glad to argue
the pedagogical benefits of the talent show off list.

That pretty much covers my thoughts on teaching and the PDC and it is the
erosion of this tradition that I think creates the greatest danger to
permaculture as a design system and as a way into the future.

While I am deeply concerned with global climate change, social inequality,
the rapid growth of fascism in our governing bodies, and economic
malfeasance that supports all of these maladies, I am not in the least
deterred from the path I am on. I believe that permaculture offers all of
the tools we need to create a better way to live and I don't see any other
game out there that does as good a job, when done right and with integrity.
Even if mankind was due for extinction within the next twenty years what
would you radically change about your daily life and your relationship with
others??

Thanks for indulging me!

Scott Pittman

"To change something build a new model that makes the existing model
obsolete" Buckminster Fuller


-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:
permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Toby Hemenway
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 12:24 PM
To: permaculture
Subject: Re: [permaculture] Extinction of the species Man ? H2BO&KYAG

In the immortal words of Larry Santoyo:

"Then, let's just die."

I don't think saving the planet or the human species or civilization are
goals worth contemplating--no more achievable or worth wasting resources on
than keeping the sun from burning out in a few billion years. But what is
quite achievable is saving myself and any friends who want to play with
me--and creating models for others to do that--and that's what I'm focused
on. And I am having a wonderful time doing it, rather than wrecking my
spine and getting a terrible taste in my mouth by trying to master
auto-ass-kissing.

I think "it's too late to do anything" is a harmful and false message. It's
illogical: if it's true, then it's pointless to waste time talking about
it, and if it's not true, then you're spreading fear and despair
unnecessarily. Since you can never, ever know if it's true, given all the
other choices of message we could have, it's unethical to spread it. The
inaction, despair, and fear that it breeds are the worst frameworks for
decision-making. It's the dumbest kind of dead-end street to waste time on!
And it sure ain't permaculture.

Human extinction would take centuries at the least, and more likely
millennia, and will be avoided by lots of tiny, local decisions rather than
giant global plans. The loudest advocate of near-term human extinction is
Guy McPherson, and he's had to utterly distort the scientific evidence to
make his case:

http://fractalplanet.wordpress.com/…/how-guy-mcpherson-get…/
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffractalplanet.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F02%2F17%2Fhow-guy-mcpherson-gets-it-wrong%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3EKq2XWPOx06Hl5NuxnKEIXpSj4WZXGfegQTX0bduN4m-ZiRAbaGQTvCg&h=AT2iE4ddl8jaLkmvmo9tlzjjjOSWBii3HVDz3tVLElxcd-db52spXHJvj74TQgOvGWvJAOaC6aubEfFVYfL_HT4pJNHdu-JFRzP9sF-3a3-9MLY3VPwz7hoSF3rk9tMDYcWlFP4FqGA_qnNT_Q0_8wObnBcpb-GcaR-syorKbg1G7WFsQy8uVKeRa9vAW6m8mCojrWK3L8GusVC1bHYxRAmYLi2HOhjmMoEP1IOutlSc8XxwqcHA4i9aVdUh1abWLhb2_DoFaT5rn8tMF7LGYzReVmji0JzZd7tY8NgjjNVMKXhp-a0BPMezwtd3wN_vB_y-IQRqIUDaGuK3kTPGjRMRlXiK1NDXFCd2xXuDTkVM1WJqJlU30IG9ui8eOEmfCpmfFehRZnUlDuiEJeLlEUforsoscNv7M1vKC-2cM1LS_3XxhoTUHwNubt79Dk7D9x4WyBisozZtLa2VSFo6k9uEW9vqpo49iWvZwV8ywmFP-8Oh0XwhrbT_6UsKheLxUyBrPLv7qdnJzHsWwD2QDhOIQBtTYgsRLmAc85S3Uh9o8ikbNx1C-q-B9ZJUGn7EnxBvsGqJCYlxI8nzVtwa_vJ-L-B097k3fv1aOxsbqTc0VD4BV34AGCt-6CpDcw7FzvpxwA>

Guy and his ilk are unfortunate cases of confirmation bias, only hearing
evidence that supports their theory.

The most common cause of whole-species extinctions, speaking as a former
geneticist with a shelf-full of books and papers on the subject, is not
resource depletion, but climate change. The most common cause of
extinctions of local populations (rather than widespread species) is
competition for resources by more fit variant populations (think
Neanderthal vs us), and the next is predation to extinction. Resource
depletion runs a far third (or maybe 4th, after epidemic), and usually
affects small sub-populations only (think rabbits on a small island). And
climate change, for local populations (emphasis on local), can be dealt
with.

Like the joke says, I don't have to outrun the bear--I just need to outrun
you (okay, not you, but the fools who refuse to do anything because they
think nothing can be done; which is the point of the joke).

If I were being truly selfish, I'd encourage others to do nothing; it would
better my own chances to get their stuff when they die off. Hey, maybe
that's the point of that message!

But most extinctions are an artifact of evolution--the species drift and
shift over time into a different species, rather than get wiped out. At our
distance in the fossil record, it just looks like they died without
offspring, but they had offspring who were subtly different, generation
after generation. E.g., the dinosaurs are still with us; they just are
smaller and have feathers now. Humans will probably do something like it,
as we already have over the last two million years.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpatternliteracy.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR3qNIsosdBKGSdsMVTJ9qER2JIQT_KPNLweIyU9kTKNs8QztxtKWl1p_uE&h=AT2w5NBUTGN6TkQlDa7C5xzWEmHAT8yeRtkizhF3Bcys__mysN0byLN7_dnfW-zLBP9mHpNw24nOIxFJ_jFlVqumt-0Xm4Ij1wG0ur4NhjuwkVZlrCoGaFTy9Z2ftFsESwpgD52KZCcTXTGREc0KAOY_vcvCGRl11kFpP_zT4OCGE2k5ZuNr2hLLafeHRVm-GCgVzIzuRRL4WoRIHbR1bSOoPxbFmQQiJfkL9vzNWDjdegDY0hNpK_rybzizVmXpvoIWwsxHwvfN9gbhy0j5ridrUnLgUMpLqmQfFyKOgNYzjGvgCmiIaBgwsySAJgjh4ugy-L5rOY6bcnZ1Ib4O2UYoIrOGCiTHoOIUWqIeO7RUF2453CXFP9VV8ucBdSBxZJh4sDolMik4W5KTgdZHTHJCtGoJUhzGNb30k0aTLcQgDP-6LkIiDj5MY2Zegi98jKexlhLW8FVq0Y3nentyaXBhEzVo_VokV9Y0pCmdvphf8oYtEobQIpGGC22xsajGfQGbDqh2iw1Aq3PkzEVJJ2qbmpszYBVfn8FHteaqvOIoYpw_jY3ItUQMxPOy7HodVKJy-demxxL_ZIi8KPyEXHoHi-HfjspU5XFvBbj3jRavvUFl31FJdRvFB8LRGoZkVir2jg>


On Mar 19, 2014, at 10:43 PM, Steve Hart <stevenlawrencehart@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yeah...finally the news is out...something I have been quietly
> commenting on for a few years now. For many years we talked of "Saving
> the Planet" but then we realised the planet can do very nicely by itself,
and always has.
> The reality is about saving the species...after all there is such a
> thing as species extinction. And, when we research the reasons for
> most species extinction it is due to total exploitation of its
> resources, generally, by itself....so...does that ring a bell. Yeah
> well its time to start runnin workshops...and we all love
> workshops....but the next wave of workshops will be on How 2 Bend Over
> and Kiss Your Arse Goodbye. As Schumacher said...sometime ago...its
> all too late we are over the tipping point. So not even David
> Holmgrens scenarios on decline design can save us now. It is suggested
> that even if we plantedt the world in trees ..over the next five
> years...it is still too late. Besides the economic policy of
> Rockerfella and Rothchild who own the world and manipulate every
> aspect of every ecomomy are not into planting trees so...who wants to
> come to my next workshop ?. Maybe I should offer this....H2BO&KYAG... at
the innaugrual Nth American Permaculture Conference...
> Like to join me on that one Toby or Scoty? ...how about you Skeeta ?.
> Albert..how about you ?.....Steve Hart
>
>
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>From Bill Mollison through Dan Hemenway:

On 12 Jun 2001 15:22:35 GMT, in alt.permaculture permacltur at aol.com
<http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture>
(Permacltur) wrote:

Actually, anyone with a permaculture certificate is supposed to
subscribe to a
set body of ethics.  Here there are from a 1981 Permaculture Design
Course
taught by Bill Mollison.  They are reprinted in Designing for
Permaculture,
Pamphlet VIII of the Permaculture Design Course Series.  Since these
pamphlets
have been placed in public domain by me (with Mollison's consent),
they may be
freely reproduced without copyright violation.


PROFESSIONAL PERMACULTURE DESIGNERS' ETHICS
 1. As a group of designers, we cooperate; we do not compete.
2. We do not duplicate each other's work. As far as possible, we
create and use
individual designs.
3. We care for our clients and are responsible to them.
4. The end to which we are working is the reforestation of the Earth
and the
restoration of its soils to health.
5. We care for the environment and wildlife. In all our design work,
we side
with that "super client," Gaia, which is an old Greek word for the
Mother Earth
Goddess. Earth was con-ceived of then as a living, thinking organism,
a
biological entity.
6. We seek the best, the most appropriate energy paths, utiliz-ing
appropriate
energy.
7. We recycle at the highest level possible. Everything can be a
resource. You
must know how to use it. Use what you have. Try to make the least
change
produce the most effect.
8. A final ethic, which we practice in our community in Tasmania, is
that we
divest ourselves of everything surplus to our needs. But we don't ask
you to do
that.


Dan Hemenway
Barking Frogs Permaculture Center

>From Maddy Harland and Permaculture Magazine:

What Is Permaculture
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/what-permaculture-part-1-ethics

What is Permaculture - Part 1: Ethics
Maddy Harland
Wednesday, 23rd January 2013
In this first part of 'What is Permaculture', Maddy Harland explains the
three permaculture ethics - Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share

Permaculture is primarily a thinking tool for designing low carbon, highly
productive systems but its influence can be very pervasive! What can start
as a journey towards living a more ecologically balanced lifestyle can go
far deeper, even transforming our worldview and radically altering
behaviour. This is the inspirational nature of permaculture, it is a means
of connecting each of us more deeply to nature’s patterns and wisdom and of
practically applying that understanding in our daily lives.

The discipline of permaculture design is based on observing what makes
natural systems endure; establishing simple yet effective principles, and
using them to mirror nature in whatever we choose to design. This can be
gardens, farms, buildings, woodlands, communities, businesses, even towns
and cities. Permaculture is essentially about creating beneficial
relationships between individual elements and making sure energy is
captured in, rather than lost from, a system. Its application is only as
limited as our imaginations.

Permaculture is not just a green way of living or a guiding system of
ethics, it is a way of designing using nature’s principles as a model;
‘bending’ them as much as possible to create fertile, self-reliant,
productive landscapes and communities. This is what defines permaculture
and it is uniquely effective and powerful. Where permaculture stands out
from the crowd as a design system is in its capacity to integrate the
intellect with ethics. It can teach us to ‘think’ with the heart and
respond with the head. By combining pragmatism with philosophy, we can
create a greater synthesis.

The three ethics are: Earth Care, People Care and Fair Shares. They are not
exclusive to permaculture and were derived from the commonalities of many
worldviews and beliefs. They are therefore shared by many throughout the
world. What permaculture does is it makes them explicit within a design
process; removing them from the realms of philosophy and practically
rooting them in everybody’s lives. This transforms thinking into doing. It
is their combined presence within a design that has a radical capacity for
ecological and social transformation.
Earth Care

Imagine the originators of permaculture, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren,
in the 1970s, seeing the devastat-ing effects of a temperate European
agriculture on the fragile soils of an ancient Antipodean landscape. Like
the dust bowls of Oklahoma in the 1930s, an alien agriculture has the
capacity to turn a delicately balanced ecology into desert. Their initial
response was to design a permanent agriculture with tree crops and other
perennials inhabiting all the niches, from the canopy to the ground cover
and below. The soil is left untilled to establish its own robust
micro-ecology. Key to this is that the land must be biodiverse and stable
for future generations.

This ethic of Earth Care was the basis of permaculture design, but it was
bound to grow and pervade all aspects of permaculture... How can we have an
organic agriculture or horticulture and manage our landscapes to sustain
themselves over gener-ations on one hand, then consume goods from
industries managed in ecologically damaging ways on the other? It’s
pointless designing an organic garden and then buying a gas guzzling car or
building a house from concrete and steel, when we can use local materials
with less embodied energy.

The original vision of care for all living and non living things has grown
to embrace a deep and comprehensive understanding of Earth Care that
involves many decisions; from the clothes we wear and the goods we buy to
the materials we use for DIY projects. Though we can’t all build our own
house or grow all our own food, we can make choices about what and how we
consume and conserve. Key to this is the understanding that up to one third
of our ecological footprint is taken up by the food we buy, so even growing
a small amount in a city allotment or container gar-den can make a
difference. Permaculture is all about making a difference.
People Care

Fundamental to permaculture is the concept of Permanent Culture. How can we
develop a permaculture if our people are expendable, uncared for, excluded?
People Care asks that our basic needs for food, shelter, education,
employment and healthy social relationships are met. Genuine People Care
can-not be exclusive in a tribal sense; there can be no elites here: no
plutocracies or oligarchies, all members of the community must be taken
into account. It is a global ethic of Fairtrade and intelligent support
amongst all people, both at home and abroad.

At the core of People Care is an understanding of the power of community.
If we can change our lives as individuals and make incremental differences:
think what we can do as a community! The permaculture designers who helped
initiate Cuba’s post oil urban agriculture are a good example. They
mobilised a whole country to become self-reliant. Ecovillages and cohousing
communities who can significantly reduce their ecological footprint by
sharing resources are other good examples.

In smaller ways; in our cities, towns and villages, we can all benefit from
deepening community links. I may not have all the skills to grow all my
food or eco-renovate my house, for example, but by developing good networks
I can expand my capacity to live more sustainably and become more
self-reliant. This is a decentralised, democratic vision of social
transformation where grass-roots initiatives like the Transition Towns
movement can begin to plan for a low carbon ‘energy descent’ on a community
level. There is no time to wait for central government to act, or
eventually to react.
Fair Shares

The last ethic synthesises the first two. It acknowledges that we only have
one earth and we have to share it with all living things and future
generations. There is no point in designing a sustainable family unit,
community, or nation whilst others languish without clean water, clean air,
food, shelter, meaningful employment, and social contact. Since the
industrialised North uses the resources of at least three earths, and much
of the global South languishes in poverty, Fair Shares is an
acknowledgement of this terrible imbalance and a call to limit consumption
(especially of natural resources) in the North.

Permaculture fundamentally rejects the industrial growth model of the
global North at the core of its ethics, and aspires to design fairer, more
equitable systems that take into account the limits of the planet’s
resources and the needs of all living beings. Whilst these permaculture
ethics are more like moral values or codes of behaviour, they are not
enough on their own.

We need the principles of permaculture to provide a set of universally
applicable guidelines that can be used in designing sustainable systems.
Otherwise, permaculture becomes merely a lifestyle choice within an
existing unsustainable system. These principles can be inherent in any
perma-culture design, in any climate, and on any scale. They have been
derived from the thoughtful observation of nature, and from earlier work by
ecologists, landscape designers and environmental science...


>
> cheers
>
> Robyn Francis
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-- 
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
Avant Geared
avantgearedshop@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared