Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 2130 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:42 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
Ludi wrote:
Ew. "Militant"? No thanks.
Well, all of your kin who are yet to be, will die. You have no future.
History is utterly dispassionate in the manner with which it dispatches failed species to the waste bin of history. _________________ Bugger me, I hear oil's runnin out mate!
Joined: Oct 18, 2004 Posts: 2130 Location: kiwibush
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:02 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
Ludi wrote:
americandream wrote:
Well, all of your kin who are yet to be, will die. You have no future.
History is utterly dispassionate in the manner with which it dispatches failed species to the waste bin of history.
You are the same species as me, you know. So I guess you're going in the waste bin, too.
You have no future.
Of course. Understanding the forces of time and history, whilst disconceerting, also contemplates one's own personal demise, which is inevitable and not capable of being postponed, as well as that of your species (future kin etc.), which, with the use of reason and objectivity, is capable of being postponed. There is the self and the group. _________________ Bugger me, I hear oil's runnin out mate!
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 4590 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
davep wrote:
Yet you also don't bother reading any alternative approaches.
I read them. But it's preaching to the converted. There is only so many times I can hear the same message about permaculture and powerdown again and again. I get it already. It's everyone else that should be reading it. But they aren't.
davep wrote:
The only way we can influence the macro level is by doing the right thing at the micro level.
That's fine. It's just hard to see the connection between the micro and the macro. I don't see the transferrence.
I just think that western capitalism works against the proactive macro level changes we need. I'm not saying we have to move to communism. I'm just saying that 'the market' will not do what is right. They will do what makes money. And since changes require a long lead time, when the status quo no longer makes money, they will not adapt in time. That's what we're seeing with the auto industry right now. Corporations will become victims of their own short-sightedness and we'll all suffer for it.
We're all prisoners of the economy of scale of big business. The reason you can get a cheap gas car is because that's what decades of industrial scale out has given us. Compare that to budgeting out a solar roof, for instance, or lithium batteries for a one-off EV conversion, or pricing out the cost of growing your own food compared to the grocery store (especially if you factor in the land cost itself).
There is no mechanism in place to enable the rapid change that we need without going totally against the spirit of the free market. _________________ http://doomsteaddiary.blogspot.com/
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:48 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
The markets and economies must collapse. Until they do, social inertia maintains the status quo. While the permaculture/self-sufficiency manifestos are widespread, there are few who read them and take action. The masses are unwilling and unprepared to adapt to rapid changes in the world. When the crash comes, they will hold on to their lifestyles as long as possible.
The macro level can't help in a situation where there is no economy. I think people will gravitate towards local leadership at the micro level. It is human nature (for most) to follow the leader. The natural leaders in an economic collapse scenario will be those who are familiar with sustainability, organic gardening, homemade energy and are willing to share. Other leaders will be those able to rapidly adapt to changes, improvise solutions to small problems, and again, are willing to share this knowledge with others.
The corporations will offer no help whatsoever. Without the profit incentive, a functioning economy, and a viable distribution/supply system, these structures will dissolve and fade into history. The corporate resources left over may be claimed/seized/assimilated by the government, to be handed out to the destitute masses
There will be plenty of followers looking to the government for help. Perhaps governments will help for a little while, as long as resources hold out, but what government has supplies and equipment to jump start a local, renewable society? All they can really do is pass out blankets and gubment cheese. When the money stops flowing, the public employees evaporate, leaving few, if any, to do the handing out.
The destitute masses will raid and pillage any stockpiles they can find, left abandoned by the government and the corporations. When those supplies run out, its off to the countryside.
We are left once again with the farmer vs the raider.
Rising from the dust would be the Alternative, Sustainable Society which is the Holy Grail of civilization. The small groups that make up this society will have adapted to changing situations, made do with whatever is available, and will certainly have gone without a great many things.
Can we create these small villages in the world as we know it now? Possibly, but economics has the upper hand in that there is limited incentive to do so ahead of time. We here in the lunatic fringe of society know it is the better path. Many ecovillages and intentional communities are indeed springing up. While the viability of these communities is in debate, they at least offer a blueprint on what to do and offer a glimpse into the future. _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
______________
Accept the Facts.
Last edited by kpeavey on Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:39 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 11:14 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
mos6507 wrote:
I just think that western capitalism works against the proactive macro level changes we need. I'm not saying we have to move to communism. I'm just saying that 'the market' will not do what is right. They will do what makes money.
Of course.
mos6507 wrote:
There is no mechanism in place to enable the rapid change that we need without going totally against the spirit of the free market.
Of course there isn't.
These changes can't be made at the macro, or state, level, only at the micro, or local, level. We can expect no help or support from the state. The state exists to support the status quo. If we're extremely lucky, we will be allowed to make micro changes without interference. But we should not expect any kind of support from the state. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
[quote="Ludi"]
mos6507 wrote:
These changes can't be made at the macro, or state, level, only at the micro, or local, level. We can expect no help or support from the state. The state exists to support the status quo. If we're extremely lucky, we will be allowed to make micro changes without interference. But we should not expect any kind of support from the state.
I don't know in USA and elsewere, but here, in CHILE, I'm working with a group of Friends in a Eco-Transformational Project that would include the micro and the macro (the Chilean State) levels:
It consists in the Positive Eco-Transformation (participative and valoring and viewing the complementarity and mutual enrichment of diversity and that of the whole) of a very poor neighborhood of the periphery of Santiago (big Capital City of Chile) -- Also would be included the intermediate level of the inmediate surronding community, because our project include a Local TV Program in collaboration with a Catolic Parish Church that havs a nascent Local TV Station that would show the experience to other precarious setlements around ..... And today we discover that also exist a parallel government's project for the site, and think to dialogue with it for to see if we can complemet our iniciatives for the best result for the neigborhood in question
Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:29 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
Ludi wrote:
These changes can't be made at the macro, or state, level, only at the micro, or local, level. We can expect no help or support from the state. The state exists to support the status quo. If we're extremely lucky, we will be allowed to make micro changes without interference. But we should not expect any kind of support from the state.
The thing that worries me is that not only can we not expect support, we can expect the opposite. The attempts to escape the system already are not and will not be looked upon kindly, IMO.
I had a "future flash" awhile ago, in the course of a conversation about sourcing local food, that the movement will somehow come under attack. What and how I'm not sure, except for legislative methods. Luckily, it would be very difficult to control.
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:10 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
mos6507 wrote:
davep wrote:
Yet you also don't bother reading any alternative approaches.
I read them. But it's preaching to the converted. There is only so many times I can hear the same message about permaculture and powerdown again and again. I get it already. It's everyone else that should be reading it. But they aren't.
That's why you need to avoid slipping into despair. It's not about spreading the message, it's about doing it and showing the advantages.
Quote:
davep wrote:
The only way we can influence the macro level is by doing the right thing at the micro level.
That's fine. It's just hard to see the connection between the micro and the macro. I don't see the transferrence.
I just think that western capitalism works against the proactive macro level changes we need. I'm not saying we have to move to communism. I'm just saying that 'the market' will not do what is right. They will do what makes money. And since changes require a long lead time, when the status quo no longer makes money, they will not adapt in time. That's what we're seeing with the auto industry right now. Corporations will become victims of their own short-sightedness and we'll all suffer for it.
I agree. However, we're not entirely powerless.
Quote:
We're all prisoners of the economy of scale of big business. The reason you can get a cheap gas car is because that's what decades of industrial scale out has given us. Compare that to budgeting out a solar roof, for instance, or lithium batteries for a one-off EV conversion, or pricing out the cost of growing your own food compared to the grocery store (especially if you factor in the land cost itself).
There is no mechanism in place to enable the rapid change that we need without going totally against the spirit of the free market.
I'll quote David Blume in a response to a 'post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like "Of course you couldn't feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture."'
Quote:
Dear Folks,
I would like to inject some real world experience into this otherwise abstract discussion of food and permaculture.
In addition to being an ecological biologist, a permaculture production food farmer for 9 years, and an expert on biomass fuels, I have also been teaching permaculture since 1997 and have worked in many countries on food/energy production design issues. I have certified more than 400 people in permaculture design since 1997. For more info on this see my site at www.permaculture.com
So in light of my experience I have a couple of things to say. Let us dispense, for the moment only, with the talk of hunter-gatherer models since, to return to that state or to imitate it with design would meet limited acceptance. This is not the core design goal of permaculture although some of our small scale subsistence agriculture designs vaguely look like a hunter-gatherer paradise (i.e. it never existed like this in nature.) The issue of private property as we now define it also complicates that model. We are living in an agricultural age and permaculture offers huge benefits to both production and subsistence agriculture.
As far as I know I was one of the only farmers fully utilizing permaculture to produce surplus food for sale in the US as a full time occupation. On approximately two acres— half of which was on a terraced 35 degree slope—I produced enough food to feed more than 300 people (with a peak of 450 people at one point), 49 weeks a year in my fully organic CSA on the edge of Silicon Valley . If I could do it there you can do it anywhere.
I did this for almost nine years until I lost the lease to my rented land. My yields were often 8 times what the USDA claims are possible per square foot. My soil fertility increased dramatically each year so I was not achieving my yields by mining my soil. On the contrary I built my soil from cement-hard adobe clay to its impressive state from scratch. By the end I was at over 22% organic matter with a cation exchange capacity (CEC) of over 25. CEC is an indirect measure of soil humus or the ability of the soil to hold nutrients available to crops. The higher the number the more nutrients are stored and available. For reference, most Class I commercial agricultural soil is lucky to hit 2% organic matter—the dividing line between a living and dead soil—with a CEC around 5.
At most times I had no more than half of my land under production with the rest in various stages of cover cropping. And I was only producing at a fraction of what would have been possible if I had owned the land and could have justified the investment into an overstory of integrated tree, berry, flower and nut crops along with the various vegetable and fruit crops. The farm produced so much income that I was routinely in the top 15% of organic farms in California (which has over 2000 organic farms) in most years on a fraction of the land that my colleagues were using. I grew over 45 different kinds of crops so my financial success cannot be attributed to growing a few high value crops like Yuppie Chow (salad mix).
Unlike other organic farmers, I almost never used even organic pesticides on my farm. The permaculture ecosystem I designed was so self-managing and self-maintaining with natural controls such as carnivorous insects, toads, lizards, snakes, owls, bats, and other allies, that it was rare that I needed to intervene (I can count the times on one hand that I intervened over 9 years). On the few occasions I did, I used coffee solution made from waste cafe coffee. You didn't think plants made caffeine to get you high did you? Caffeine is an extremely effective natural insecticide, which degrades in the sunlight or air in about 24 hours after use.
On the subsistence agriculture level, we permies regularly have designed productions systems around the world, which feed everyone living in a given house within a 50-foot radius of the house. This rule of thumb holds pretty well because the more folks who live there, the bigger the house, the larger the surface area, so no more than 50 feet is really necessary.
The math is easy. With a polyculture, yields of 3-10 pounds of food per square foot are easy to come up with in most climates. For comparison, commercial agriculture in California , which is way inefficient, routinely runs about 1.5-2.5 pounds per square foot per year across a wide variety of crops. People need to eat about two pounds of mixed food a day if active, or around 750 pounds a year. In a good but somewhat sloppy design, you need about 500 square feet per person MAXIMUM. In a very good design, 200 square feet will do the job. If your diet is heavy on grain you'll need more space but not an astronomical amount. Utilize a greenhouse to extend seasons and exchange air rich in carbon dioxide from chicken houses or human houses, which otherwise would go to waste, and yields ratchet up even more. Take a little more space and include ducks and aquaculture into the mix and the yields become quite diverse and substantial. This sort of system is typical in Vietnam now and there is no longer any measurable hunger there. Wouldn't it be nice if the US could do that with its "superior" first world agricultural system?
Can't do this on a commercial scale? Tell that to Archer Daniels Midland who operates many acres of greenhouses in Decatur using partially integrated production of fish, lettuce and other vegetables using waste carbon dioxide, grain by-products and other by-products from its 100-million gallon per year alcohol fuel production facility, while delivering these profitable agricultural products in trucks running on biodiesel (made from the corn and soybeans they process). This qualifies as commercial scale, very rudimentary permaculture that is wildly profitable and productive.
As a reality check, I'd like to remind everyone that in the 1850's, prior to refrigerated transport, New York City supplied all its food for a population of over a million from within 7 miles of the borders of the city. (It wasn't worth the cost of horse feed and time to go further than 7 miles to export food into the city). No one would discount a system of community food security for one million people as non-commercial.
There are two main reasons known for the dramatically increased productivity of a polyculture?\the benefit of mycorhyzzal symbiosis (which is destroyed in chemical agriculture) and less solar saturation. Solar saturation is the point at which a plants' photosynthetic machinery is overwhelmed by excess sunlight and shut down. In practice, this means that most of our crop plants stop growing at about 10am and don't start again until about 4 in the afternoon. Various members of a polyculture shade each other, preventing solar saturation, so plants metabolize all day. Polyculture as we pursue in permaculture uses close to 100% of the sunlight falling on its mixed crops. Monoculture rarely can use more than 30% of the total sunlight received before saturation. How long could you run any business without external support at 30% efficiency? When you look at a simple Mexican permaculture example, growth of the three sisters of corn, beans and squash (not even counting the 200 vegetables of various sorts growing in the shade of the sisters) you get close to 90% solar efficiency. When you total up the pounds of food from a Mexican acre you get FAR MORE FOOD than the highest yielding nitrogen soaked Iowa cornfield. This is the myth of the green revolution; that the highest total food yields occur in chemical monoculture.
Enough of this. The argument that we don't have enough food to go around is specious anyway. We currently produce more than twice the amount of food we need to feed everyone, even with the extremely inefficient model of monoculture. What starving people lack is money to buy food which is not considered a right but a commodity. Even being able to buy the food isn't a guarantee of access. Midwesterners find it cheaper to burn 5 cent a pound corn in stoves for heat even though Mexican families are willing to pay up to $1 a pound for corn to feed their family.
So you say, "Well if you're such a wiseguy and you obviously would make so much more money from the greater yields of a simple three crop permaculture system, why don't corporations in the Midwest do it to make more money?" This gets to the core of the problemw—hich is not population/resources and/or biological models of overpopulation which typically apply to wild animals.
Capitalism is concerned with more than just making money. The reason why monocultures are favored by corporations EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE THE LEAST EFFICIENT WAY OF PRODUCING FOOD in pounds of food per acre is that it can be done with the least amount of labor. To harvest the three sisters you would need a digital harvester—i.e. two hands—not a combine. Even though the increased labor would be totally justified by the increased profit, corporations are totally allergic to dealing with labor. Labor is messy. It organizes, it wants a fair share of the profit, cities want tax money to pay for worker habitat infrastructure and other pesky things that corporations will avoid at all costs. Our current form of agribusiness is a textbook case of design maximizing the advantage of capital to the disadvantage of labor facilitated by the artificially low cost of energy.
The other reason is control of the market. It is now estimated that 80 percent of the world's arable (read European-style plowed) agricultural land is now in the hands of multi-nationals. It has served their needs to keep productivity low to make it possible to get a hold of as much of the means of production as possible. Farmers who are barely making a living sell their land for a fraction of those making a good profit. Midwest corn farmers generally net only about $50-75 per acre on corn on a gross income of $300 per acre.
My discussion above is not to be taken as a suggestion that population growth is not a problem, it is. So let me make a quick comment on population, from a designer's point of view, which is totally related to the structural issues above. I dare anyone to find an example in which population is stable yet there is no system for security in old age. It has been shown in countless studies that the ONLY consistent reason why population stabilizes is that people know they will have security in their old age. At that point they stop having excess children. Why? It has absolutely nothing to do with the biological resource-population relationships. We are not wild animals and have markedly different behavior. In a developing country, or any country for that matter, without a secure social security system for the aged, you need at least two kids to support each elderly adult. In virtually every case studied where stabilization of social systems occurred, women immediately find systems to end unwanted pregnancy. Herbal indigenous methods for ending fertility are known all over the world. In my own Italian heritage—hardly a herb-oriented aboriginal tribe, even into the 1900's, utilized ergot obtained from the local apothecary to end unwanted pregnancy.
So structural adjustment—the neoliberal formula the World Bank and IMF impose on the developing world—ensures population growth. By intentionally eliminating a secure social safety net as a condition of borrowing money, population growth—and therefore market growth for various consumer goods—continues to grow. Therein lies the rub. If population doesn't continue to grow, capitalists rapidly run out of customers. Can't let that happen now can we?
Permaculture design offers an alternative security for old age when the family has even a little land. In the Deccan desert of India , where there is huge success with permaculture turning hundreds of square miles of man-made desert back into productive designed rain forest, there is a saying: "Trees are better than sons." Sons might take care of you in your old age but income or trade from your productive trees (food, timber and fuel) definitely will. This approach offers families security to limit population growth and takes the supply of old age security back into the people's hands.
Restorative agriculture?\which goes far beyond sustainable agriculture—depends on solar energy replacing fossil fuel use. Buckminster Fuller and I discussed this back in 1983 when he wrote the foreword for my book Alcohol Can Be A Gas!, that accompanied my ten part PBS television series at that time. (Alcohol is a virtually pollution free engine fuel which is superior in almost every way to gasoline.) World photosynthesis in its fully undesigned state, produces biomass in wasteful agriculture and in the wild which far exceeds human need. Our analysis shows that world biomass photosynthesis produces between 6 and 15 times what we used to power every human need every year, including food, electricity, transportation, and heat.
In a designed system, especially a permaculturally-designed system, we could increase the biomass produced by an order of magnitude and in so doing supply all our needs in a much smaller footprint. For instance, you only get about 200 gallons per acre of alcohol fuel from corn, but 1000 gallons from sugar beets, 1200 from Jerusalem Artichokes, 1500 gallons from annual sugar cane in southern states and a variety of other crops which, when properly designed for climate, might yield 2500 gallons per year from two crop cycles. This would be done while increasing soil fertility and providing all the animal food we need as a by-product (replacing the corn which largely goes for animal feed now) at a fraction of the energy cost of corn-soybean agribusiness. This is all possible right now without any new technology.
The Department of Energy-sponsored program to reduce the cost of cellulose-dissolving enzymes. Soon, yields based on that carbohydrate (cellulose) rather than the relatively scarce starch or sugar carbohydrate scenarios described above will ratchet up cost-effective yield another order of magnitude. (We could do it right now with current technology but the fuel would be about $1.65/gallon wholesale). Once again this is just scratching the surface.
I could go on for two weeks non-stop about this?\my colleagues and I do so in my permaculture design courses. The point is that although humans are great at creating deserts and poverty, we also have the incredible capacity to design ecological systems that work for everyone—even some corporations. The argument that we can't produce enough ecologically is, at its source, promoted by corporations who benefit from a view of scarcity and limited resources which they control. Their constant cry is TINA "There Is No Alternative". Right, and the wizard says, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
Around the world people are demonstrating that, not only are there alternatives, there are alternatives that allow us all to take care of each other and the rest of the species we live with, and to direct surpluses from our designs back to this care. These are the three main tenets of Permaculture design. We aren't waiting for governments, corporations, or bureaucracies to solve the world's problems. We will do it with or without their help. We are already doing it and no one can stop us because we can't be forced to buy what we don't need anymore. Since few of us in permaculture education are hired by anyone in business or government, we can't be fired or threatened.
I like to say, if you want to end transnational capitalism, (the very opposite of bioregionalism), then stop giving them your capital. To do that you need to start producing what you need—plus some surplus for others—bioregionally and I would respectfully suggest that permaculture design is a good tool to begin that process.
_________________ All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:57 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
mercurygirl wrote:
The thing that worries me is that not only can we not expect support, we can expect the opposite. The attempts to escape the system already are not and will not be looked upon kindly, IMO.
So far I haven't experienced any interference in my attempts to live differently. I don't expect the state to look "kindly" upon them, which is why I don't invite the state to look at them at all.
Often I think people are too worried about what the state might think. The state doesn't care about you, in general, as long as you fly under the radar. Don't flounce. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:02 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
Excellent testimonial from David Blume there, davep. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 4590 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:09 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
davep wrote:
I'll quote David Blume in a response to a 'post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like "Of course you couldn't feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture."'
That's an exciting read but it sounds too good to be true, absolutely cornucopian (in a classical sense of the word). The fact that David Blume is peddling ethanol as a magic bullet makes me highly suspect that his math adds up. _________________ http://doomsteaddiary.blogspot.com/
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:16 am Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
mos6507 wrote:
davep wrote:
I'll quote David Blume in a response to a 'post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like "Of course you couldn't feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture."'
That's an exciting read but it sounds too good to be true, absolutely cornucopian (in a classical sense of the word). The fact that David Blume is peddling ethanol as a magic bullet makes me highly suspect that his math adds up.
He doesn't see ethanol as a magic bullet, he sees it as part of an integrated farm. OK, he gets a bit over-enthusiastic, but we need people like that to stop us becoming too despondent IMO.
Read his book, it may just give you some extra will to go out and do something rather than give in through despair. _________________ All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 6:08 pm Post subject: Re: The Alternative, Sustainable Society We Must Build
patience wrote:
Great plans, and undoubtedly the right way. I don't see how to get past human greed, however. The greed of big business that will muster all their resources to keep the status quo, along with the greed of the sheeple who have had their innate greed augmented by business advertising/brainwashing.
Our present path leads to destruction. As individuals, we know that, but as a world society, we don't behave that way. The looming economic and energy crises we face will undoubtedly slow down the machine, but with the greed ethic in place, our struggles will be to replace what we have lost, instead of building a sustainable society.
Whence cometh the brains and good judgement to change this, and make everyone believe in it?
I'M SEEING THEM NOW GROWINGLY IN ALL HUMAN BEINGS AND NON HUMAN ANIMALS, PERCEIVING THE GOOD AND WISDOM IN ALL OF THEM (FROM ALL PEOPLE WHICH I COLLABORATE I THINK I LEARN FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE WHOLE) -- IN OTHER WORDS I THINK THAT THE GREED AND "EGO VERSUS OTHERS" PROBLEMS CAN BE RESOLVED BY THIS WIN-WIN OR SINERGY SEEING ATITUDE OR APROACH.
mos6507 wrote:
I just think that western capitalism works against the proactive macro level changes we need
I ALSO THINK IN THE POSSIBILITY THAT PERHAPS RAPID ORDAINED SOCIAL CHANGE COULD BE NECESSARY IN THE FUTURE DIRECTED FOR THE STATE FOR TO IMPED THE SOCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL EVENTUAL TOTAL DISASTER -- BUT STILL I'M SEEING ADVANCING THE POSSIBILITY OF A PEACEFUL POSITIVE ECO-TRANSFORMATION.
[quote="davep"]
mos6507 wrote:
davep wrote:
Yet you also don't bother reading any alternative approaches.
I read them. But it's preaching to the converted. There is only so many times I can hear the same message about permaculture and powerdown again and again. I get it already. It's everyone else that should be reading it. But they aren't.
I STRONGLY THINK AND FEEL THAT HERE IN "PEAKOIL.COM" IT HAS BEEN DEVELOPED WITH CRUCIAL DETAILS ATTENTION THE WHOLISTIC GREEN OR ECOLOGICAL THOUGH THAT I INTEND TO SPREAD AND TO REALIZE IN THE PHISICAL OR MATERIAL WORLD BY ALL MY MEANS ... !!!!
I WARMINGLY THANKS ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR CONMITEMENT THAT HAS OPEN MY HEAD AND HEART AND IS DOING BETTERS MY PROJECTS AND ACTIONS.
Quote:
[quote="davep"]
The only way we can influence the macro level is by doing the right thing at the micro level.
YOU KNOW THAT I'M THINKING WITH SOME CHILEAN ECO-ACTIVISTS IN HOW TO GENERATE TRASCENDENT SINERGY WITHING CIVIL SOCIETY AND OUR PRESENT GOVERNEMENT WITH A SOCIAL ECOLOGY PROJECT DESCRIBED IN PART IN OTHER THE SOMEWHERE IN OTHER PART OF THIS FORUM.
Quote:
We're all prisoners of the economy of scale of big business. The reason you can get a cheap gas car is because that's what decades of industrial scale out has given us. Compare that to budgeting out a solar roof, for instance, or lithium batteries for a one-off EV conversion, or pricing out the cost of growing your own food compared to the grocery store (especially if you factor in the land cost itself).
There is no mechanism in place to enable the rapid change that we need without going totally against the spirit of the "free market".
I REMEMBER THE LAND TRUSTS OF BILL MOLLISON DISCUTED WITH LUDI IN OTHER THREAD AND ALSO I THINK IN THE IDEAS OF THE LATE AMERICAN HENRY GEORGE ABOUT LAND TAXATION FOR THE JUST ACCESS TO LAND -- I HAVE ALSO A GREAT INTEREST IN ECO TECNICS AND TECHNOLOGIES AND HAVE MADESOME EXPERIENCES THAT I THINK TO SHARE IN THE UNBAN SOCIAL ECOLOGY WORKSHOP.
I ADDED INVERTED COMMAS TO THE PRESENT SO CALLED "FREE MARKET" FOR I THINK IS CLEARLY MORE LIBERTY OR OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE ALREADY ECONOMICALLY RICH PEOPLE FOR TO BE EVEN MORE RICH IN THAT SENSE ... BUT ALSO I THINK THAT EXIST THE WEALTH OF THE SOUL IN HEAD AND HEART AND THAT IT WILL FINALLY PREVAIL FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL.
davep wrote:
I'll quote David Blume in a response to a 'post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like "Of course you couldn't feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture."'
Quote:
Dear Folks,
I would like to inject some real world experience into this otherwise abstract discussion of food and permaculture. (...)
davep wrote:
mos6507 wrote:
davep wrote:
I'll quote David Blume in a response to a 'post to the bioregional listserve from a woman at ATTRA who said something like "Of course you couldn't feed the world with such a hippy-dippy, hunter-gatherer, landscape system like permaculture."'
That's an exciting read but it sounds too good to be true, absolutely cornucopian (in a classical sense of the word). The fact that David Blume is peddling ethanol as a magic bullet makes me highly suspect that his math adds up.
He doesn't see ethanol as a magic bullet, he sees it as part of an integrated farm. OK, he gets a bit over-enthusiastic, but we need people like that to stop us becoming too despondent IMO.
Read his book, it may just give you some extra will to go out and do something rather than give in through despair.
I AGREE WITH LUDI THAT THE ABOVE POST IS GOLDEN FOOD LIGHT FOR THE MIND OF THE ALTERNATIVE MOVEMENT PEOPLE LIKE US.
... BUT FOR NOW TOO LONG COMMENT -- I WILL STUDY IT AND HOPE TO SHARE SOON SOME THOUGHS.
AND ... MANY THANKS BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS! ... AND DON'T FORGET THAT "ALWAYS EXIST A REASON FOR TO SMILE"
Last edited by Piedro on Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:37 pm; edited 1 time in total
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