PERMACULTURE & PEAK OIL: Beyond 'Sustainability'

David Holmgren is co-originator (with Bill Mollison) of the permaculture concept and author of the recent book, PERMACULTURE: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. He talks about the need to move beyond the lulling hope that 'green tech' breakthroughs will allow world-wide 'sustainable consumption' to the recognition that dwindling oil supplies inevitably mean a mandatory 'energy descent' for human civilization across the planet. He argues that permaculture principles provide the best guide to a peaceful societal 'powering down."

http://www.holmgren.com.au/html/Publications/Principles.html

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• permaculture
• david
• holmgren
• peak
• oil
• energy
• descent
• beyond
• sustainability
• green
• tech

[MrEnergyCzar]

great points... too bad that even with permaculture the planet can't support 7 or 8 billion without being subsidized by oil....

[jittysan]

He is absolutely right about not looking from the top and saying "this is terrible". Growing up behind the iron curtain, our house had apple orchards, pears, hazelnuts, walnuts, peaches, apricots, blueberries, strawberries, carrots, peas, potatoes, beans, radishes and a million different currants! I played outside and never ever felt deprived. My grandmother preserved, dried and stored fruit, which she also traded with neighbors.

It wasn't til we moved to the west that I suddenly felt "poor."

[TerrierBram]

@MrEnergyCzar Truth. The club of Rome expects that the world population will decline with 5 billion the coming 40 years. #TheFittestOfTheFittest

[sustainable2012]

permaculturists and mycologists will be the future... get on it

[sustainable2012]

@Soressi1

Sepp is awesome... david knows though about the economic/ecological paradigm and can transcend many young minds and serve his purpose without always referring to Sepp... we're not trying to create any deities here

[sustainable2012]

im a permaculturist in law school... I live a duality...

permaculturists develop microsystems of design into their property soas to sustain the property and produce a surplus of value.

permaculture, like IRACing in law school, is a process of observing an ISSUE in the microsystems you design on your property; retracting the LAW of the wild to improve your local ISSUE, and making an Analysis on what can be done to Conclude to create more edge.

[OVESCOIPS]

Thank you David, you are a ray of hope.

[linghun]

If peak oil doom happens, permaculturists will be first to be shot dead for their cute tomato gardens in their isolated "eco-villages" by hicksters, plus when their pitchfork breaks, will they manufacture steel? People wake up from silly fantasies.

[SamCarroll212]

@FKLampton Yes, there are plenty of acres of land on Earth. But how much of that is arable land? How much land has sufficient topsoil to support crops after being subjected to modern monoculture and depletion of water supply? Or, alternately, how many decades or centuries will we need to restore our soil and water to a degree that supports such a large human population?

[JasonDamisch]

this is very interesting, but I think that the gist of what he is saying, and what he is hoping for, is an out to the End Game. I have heard it both ways, that either A. limited resources, or B. unlimited resources will allow us to stop playing in the End Game and that will save us. Either way we must.

[Soressi1]

@seth553 These guys lose credibility to me because they don't credit Sepp Holzer, who is the originator of permaculture back in Germany in 1962.

[MrTadblack]

Thank you for the little ray of hope.