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
[permaculture] Peak Water/Where to ride out the coming collapse and which gun to buy,
Jim, 12/02/2007