WEDESDAY, JAN 11, 2023: NOTE TO FILE
Module 1-4
A short 8-week course in ecological design, module 1, lesson 4
Eric Lee, A-SOCIATED PRESS
TOPICS: SUSTAINABILITY, FROM THE WIRES, LANGUAGE GAMES
Abstract: As I have sustainability concerns and concerns for posterity's and the biosphere's future, I will start a course in Ecological Design tomorrow, which is one of four 'dimensions' of the offering. Subnotes to file will likely follow.
COOS BAY (A-P) — The 4th lesson. [My comments are in brackets.]
Permaculture
What is Energy Descent?
[Before reading further I will confess my bias. I have a different view of 'alternative agriculture', and based on prior consideration of permaculture claims and permaculturalists, I could repeat Wolfgang Pauli's 'not even wrong' comment, sigh and say no more other than 'hey nonny, nonny'. To indicate the extent of bias, imagine Richard Dawkins time travels back to 12th century Oxford. He might not be so clueless as to offer to give a lecture on 'The God Delusion'. He might smile and nod when verities are shared, and if forced to, admit that due to some unfathomable personal deficit, that he had never included theology among his interests. He had been fully instructed by top theologians, but the words had no meaning, little relevancy bore. I will reconsider all claims, but I foresee no opening for begging to differ. Both facilitators are expert permaculturalists. I'm with Richard Feynman who believed in the ignorance of experts (i.e. science).]
Two events that took place in the early 1970s challenged the assumptions about progress current since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. The Oil Crisis (1973) drastically and suddenly reduced the availability of crude oil and raised questions about the long-term viability of our dependence on fossil fuels, while the publication of a report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology entitled The Limits to Growth (1972) predicted that our growth-oriented industrial societies would collapse due to depletion of resources if we continued to over-exploit them. Among the many people discussing the socio-economic and environmental implications for the future were Bill Mollison, a lecturer at the University of Tasmania, and David Holmgren, the environmental design student he was mentoring. [And Ted Trainer, The Simpler Way: Envisioning a Prosperous Descent, whose designs do not require any understanding of the principles of permaculture or feng shui.]
The scenarios that emerged from a range of scientists, economists and engineers in response to the Oil Crisis and the Limits to Growth report varied considerably. At one end of the spectrum where those who envisaged transcending the limits through technological innovation, nuclear and renewable energies, automation, robotics and exploitation of other planets. On the other end were those proclaiming the inevitability of a ‘Mad Max’ scenario of famines, disease and wars over resources. Mollison and Holmgren were among the few who actually sat back and calmly asked what a planned and measured ‘energy descent’, one that embraced a whole-systems approach to resources, would look like. The result of their collaboration was Holmgren’s dissertation, published as Permaculture One in 1978. [As neither end nor middle of the spectrum could forsee viable designs that citizens would agree to, most concluded that the limits to growth story had predicted collaspe that hadn't come by the 1990s (even though Limits to Growth hadn't) and so was proven wrong, hence don't even think about limits, and so the intelligentsia's consensus narrative stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb.]
Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements
The structure of any society, be it hunter-gatherer, agrarian or industrial is largely determined by the quality and availability of the energy sources that sustain it. The intense energy generated by burning fossil fuels has enabled our industrial society and a transition away from fossil fuels to any other form of energy, including ‘renewables’ such as wind and solar photovoltaic, will inevitably be a step down in energy intensity. Moreover, fossil fuels are a stock of energy, laid down in the ground over hundreds of millions of years, once we have burned through this stock, we will be obliged to return to ‘flow’ models of energy provision.
For this reason, Permaculture One focused on land-based design solutions to powering down and providing our essentials without the need for fossil fuel inputs.
Permanent Agriculture
Mollison had spent many years working on the land as well as in some of Australia’s last-remaining intact rainforests and one question dominated their thoughts. Nature is dominated by perennials, so why is our agriculture dominated by annuals? Nature exhibits remarkable abundance as well as resilience in the face of shocks such as droughts and storms without any human intervention, so why is our agriculture based predominantly on scarcity, for 90% on annual crops that erode soil, degrade ecosystems and deplete groundwater resources through irrigation? This was at the crux of any energy-descent scenario - modern agriculture is highly fossil-fuel dependent and requires massive and steadily increasing inputs of artificial fertilisers, chemical pesticides and heavy machinery. A transition to any lifestyle that could limit our dependence on oil and provide for our basic human needs — food, fuel, fiber and shelter - would require a system that mimicked nature’s resilience - permanent agriculture - an edible ecosystem perfectly adapted to the local biome. The title was shortened to permaculture, recognizing that in order to facilitate an orderly descent from the energy-intense industrial societies that fossil fuel stocks have permitted, there would need to be changes to the culture too. [Why would a traditional Hopi farmer grow 4 bushels of corn on an acre plot every 30 to 50 years after the needed fallow period was over when he could study permaculture and grow 200 to 300 bushels of corn every year (using conventional industrial agricultural methods and lots of fossil fuel inputs direct and indirect I could only grow maybe 200 bushels/acre and permaculture can grow more, so certaintly more than 200 bushels/acre without fossil fuel inputs, and likely closer to 300 bushels using permaculture. Let say the Hopi farmer's fallow period is 40 years, that means he grows 0.1 bushels/acre while I couild grow 200 bushels/acre (2k more) and the permaculturalist could grow 3k times more without using fossil fuels perfectly adapted to the local biome. Having guessed, let's test. I predict the Hopi farmer will prduce 4 bushels, I'll produce 200 bushels, and the permaculturalist will take a refresher workshop to find out why their yield was zero. If I had to grow corn the traditional Hopi way, I'd apprentise myself to a Hopi farmer for 10 years and hope to produce half as much my first year and if any permaculturalist showed up to educate me, I'd throw rocks at them.]
Mollison and Holmgren subsequently went in different directions. Mollison set up Zaytuna Farm, the Permaculture Research Institute and the curriculum for the basic courses in permaculture design still taught today - the Permaculture Design Certificate - and toured the world teaching thousands of people and producing a second generation of permaculture teachers across the globe. In 1988, he produced The Permaculture Designers’ Manual. When he retired due to ill health, he named Geoff Lawton as his successor. Lawton continues the teaching in land-based design and has expanded into ecosystem restoration projects. Many of Lawton’s videos can be found online (see the appendix for more details). Mollison died in 2016 leaving behind him a global movement. [just a suggestion: Eric Hoffer's 'The True Believer']
“Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.” — Bill Mollison, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, 1988.
Mimicking nature: Mark Shepard’s permaculture project, New Forest Farm,
transformed land degraded by annual cropping through a process of restoration.
Permaculture focuses on creating water-retention landscapes following application of
Yeoman’s ‘keyline’ structures on landscape contours. More of these in modules 2 and 3.
A Whole-System’s Thinking Approach
Holmgren always regarded permaculture as more of a philosophical mindset for a way of life rather than just gardening and agriculture. He continued to work on models of energy descent geared to creating small communities in the margins of small towns and transforming the suburbs of major cities. His model homestead, Melliodora, includes all aspects of an energy-descent plan, the bioclimatic buildings, water management, passive and renewable energy as well as small-scale, ecologically designed food and fuel provision. It is situated on the outskirts of a small town to facilitate community-building through exchange of goods and services and in the expectation that more people will follow by example.
Bioclimatic design for the house. David Holmgren, Melliodora. The project designs can be seen in enlarged format at https://store.holmgren.com.au/product/melliodora/ Bioclimatic design will be discussed in module 5.
Holmgren also embraced the work of Howard T. Odum (Ecological Engineering) in search of a deeper understanding of energy flow through (living) systems (we will introduce Odum later). He [Holmgren] simplified Mollison’s 18 principles and reduced them to 12 clearly defined approaches to the design process and to ongoing change. They focus on the importance of observation, integration, conservation and renewal of resources, on systems, rhythms, patterns and process. More information can be found, including a downloadable booklet, from the permaculture principles website. [The book dedicated to H.T. Odum: Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability 2002. "The publication in December 2002 of a new major work on permaculture, saw a deeper and more accessible systematisation of the principles of permaculture refined by David Holmgren over more than 25 years of practice. The book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability (2002), is dedicated to Howard T. Odum, who died two months before its publication, and it owes much to Odum's vision of a world in energy transition.[A Prosperous Way Down] The concept of the energy descent future that Holmgren describes in Principles and Pathways has also been independently articulated by American writer John Michael Greer." Holmgren's posthumous association with Odum explains the interest that advanced, expert permaculturalist have in Odum's diagram language despite a notable inability to read it. What H.T. Odum thought of permaculture principles is not known to me. Of interest, permaculture is now taught at the university level, e.g. Cal Poly Humboldt. Students there have read over one million pages provided by Appropedia: a sustainability wiki, a permaculture and 'green' information site the above quote is from. Site search: 'permaculture'.]
[In India you can get a PhD in Vedic astrology. Elsewhere you can get a PhD in sustainability studies. Seven years ago there were frustrated students looking for a university offering a PhD in permaculture. Predictably, in 2018 the University of York, UK, was thinking of being the first. In 2019 The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases offered to design student's "dream permaculture PhD around health." Prescott College now offers PHD77530 : Advanced Permaculture that "builds on the understanding developed in the Introduction to Permaculture Design or any Permaculture Design Certificate course." While a PhD 'in permaculture' is not yet offered, 295 universities worldwide offer PhD degrees in 'Agriculture & Forestry' with a focus on permaculture, "Agriculture & Forestry students can also focus on permaculture, a concept that fully embraces the idea of working with nature, rather than against it. Permaculture aims to create systems that produce no waste and are beneficial for us and the environment. Permaculture principles are applied in many fields, including regenerative agriculture and rewilding. The need for this type of approaches will keep growing in the next years." So a 'PhD in permaculture' is coming to a university near you. Over 22,000 schools of higher education now teach the pretend science of neoclassical economics, and when Vedic astrology is fully recognized as one of many forms of astrology, the true astrology, Modern astrology (evolved from Hellenistic astrology) will be taught and the demand for teachers will ensure PhD programs will be offered as someone will have to teach the teachers, certainly before 2050.]
Here is a short video (5min) of David Holmgren introducing the permaculture design principles and their relationship to the foundational ethics of permaculture: Earth Care, People Care and Fair Shares.
You can also download a short summary entitled The Essence of Permaculture in various languages here
In 2002, Holmgren published Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability (dedicated to Odum) which aimed to make the permaculture principles open to a much wider audience of researchers, designers, teachers and activists and explain their relevance to the design of energy-efficient, dynamic systems with natural feedback loops and regenerative capacity. [Instead of dedicating a book to Odum, read the Odum brothers, who did not include permaculture among their interests so far as I know, thought about agriculture: as the Odums note.]
It was followed in 2009 by Future Scenarios: How communities can adapt to peak oil and climate change in which he envisaged four global climate change and energy-descent scenarios. These formed the basis for ongoing discussions about the impact on resources and potential choices we would make within each of the scenarios bearing in mind that even the ‘techno explosion’ scenario run on renewable energies would still be a step down from the energy intensity of fossil fuels.
Source of image: https://holmgren.com.au/tag/future-scenarios/
Holmgren’s vision of permaculture has evolved but remains true to the initial conception of human lifestyles and settlements determined by the need to adapt to dwindling resources and an ecological, climate change crisis. In his work, permaculture is both a design concept based on a long-term vision as well as a culture of ongoing change. For Holmgren, energy descent is not a problem, it is an opportunity to build resilient, regenerative cultures, as long as we fully comprehend the energetic and biological basis of life. [I would likely agree with everything Homgren claimed, energy descent is not a problem, provided rapid population degrowth over a 50 to 80 year period is faster than economic contraction, and that the population supported by permanent agriculture was in the 7 to 35 million range.]
As a logical development of Holmgren’s trajectory, the most recent project is RetroSuburbia. It highlights the vast potential for ‘retrofitting’ suburban houses and gardens and transforming neighbourhoods into resilient communities, on a street-by-street basis, for an energy-descent future. The book also contains designs for heating and cooling, growing and storing food, DIY building tips and community-building exercises as well as 8 case studies. On the website there are 3 short videos and further links to information and examples about simple ways to retrofit your home and build community. Since the covid-19 pandemic, in the true spirit of applying the third permaculture ethic, it is now also possible to read the book for free, online. https://retrosuburbia.com
Permaculture embraces every module in this dimension as part of a comprehensive whole-systems approach. It is now a global movement growing daily in response to climate change and the degradation inherent in an extractivist model of industrial society. It is a diverse movement, one that has inspired homesteading and backyard self-sufficiency, ecovillages, urban community and rooftop gardening as well as ecosystem restoration and sustainable business models. It is taught in almost every country across the globe by second and third-generation teachers and has entered schools and universities and influenced design across disciplines.
The Permaculture Flower shows the seven domains of permaculture design. While all energetic and biological processes relate to land use, so that tenure, community governance and stewardship of land are primary concerns, the sphere of activities expands outwards through buildings, tools and technology, education, spiritual well-being, culture and finance/economics. The ethics embrace all aspects of human organisation. For an enlarged version, click on the link below. You can also listen to David Holmgren’s explanation on the same website.
https://permacultureprinciples.com/resources/free-downloads/#lightbox/1/
The US permaculture film INHABIT is available on Vimeo. The filmmakers visit projects from the smallest backyard through to Mark Shepard’s 105-acre farm passing through businesses, prisons and urban projects on the way. Watch the trailer by clicking on the link below.
Permaculture is not a ‘toolbox’ of techniques, it is whole-systems thinking in practice. Some more recent developments in permaculture design include:
Marine Permaculture
Marine Permaculture aims to combat the loss of ocean biodiversity naturally through the use of kelp platforms and as the kelp photosynthesizes CO2 is drawn out of the atmosphere and returned to the carbon cycle. It is an excellent example of a whole-systems approach. Watch the following short (3min) video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEDxaiukCk&t=2s
A Permaculture Design for Business
The whole-systems design concept offers a great deal of potential for networks of local businesses sharing and recycling resources. A good example would be the former navy terrain in southern England where a small group of sustainable businesses co-habit in symbiosis. It is an excellent example of how a site can be regenerated by designing businesses around ecosystem restoration. The Sustainability Centre, which runs courses, and a sustainable camping site, shares the terrain with Permanent Publications (Permaculture Magazine), the Beech Café, the Green Beans (children) Group, Convex Environmental Media, Fitzroy, Support-Rural Skills Centre Project, Hampshire Beekeeping, Memorial Benches, Nifty Bins and South Downs Natural Burials.
The design concept can be seen from the mind maps. The first shows the relationships with the Sustainability Centre. The second, the design for Permanent Publications is based on the permaculture ethics: Earth Care, People Care and Fair Shares. Maddy Harland (Permanent Publications) has given an inspiring talk about permaculture designs for business as part of Gaia Education’s webinar series. While this is not part of the Ecological Dimension course work, a link can be found in the appendix for those who are interested.
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Permaculture has also played a major role in the evolution of the school garden movement, ecosystem restoration camps and many other regenerative projects.
Module 1, lesson 5
