 Hello again. Today's question is, perhaps on the face of it, a very simple one, but one for me that is the epitome of what we're trying to do. And the question is, what is permaculture? Now, many people who are familiar with permaculture, when you ask them that question, they'll usually say, hmm, that's a tough one. And there's a reason for that. Because when we're doing permaculture, essentially what we're trying to do is to mimic the ease with which nature meets her needs, if you like. So if we look at all of life around us, we're surrounded by permacultures. In fact, permaculture is what life has been doing ever since it evolved on earth apparently three and a half billion years ago. So why do we need to focus on that if everything's already doing it? Well, the thing is that we have made decisions in the last few hundred years that have disconnected us a little bit from nature. And that has brought us many gifts. There are certainly things like the camera that I'm talking to now and the microphone that's recording me and the internet that's bringing you this information. Those things have come about because of those disconnects, if you like, those decisions that our ancestors made. So it's not about blaming them, it's just saying, okay, so we've created all this amazing stuff and here we are. And actually if we step back and look at some of the things that we've done that we've created, they can be very clever, but also they've created some vulnerabilities. And so permaculture is looking at our landscape and how we meet our needs and saying, where are the vulnerabilities? How can we do those things better? And there's a couple of significant things that have disconnected us from nature. And the first one was to decide to settle. So most of human history and much of the rest of nature, if you look around, everything moves. And most of our ancestors have basically up until a few thousand years ago, our ancestors were nomads. They moved around, they gathered, they hunted, depending on where they lived. And then there's a certain point in history where agriculture appeared and people started to grow food and stay in one place in order to care for those crops, if you like, because when you start planting things, they become attractive to other things. So our ancestors settled and as people, some people settled obviously that put pressure on the people who were moving around to then either go somewhere else or to come into conflict or to settle themselves. And so we now live in a world which is primarily settled and we live in little boxes with, you know, this is my bit and some of us have much more than others, but essentially we all stay in one place. And we use a lot of energy in order to stop everything else moving. So even within the kind of nature conservation, you have people who are trying to keep this particular place as this kind of a habitat. And that can involve stopping nature, doing what nature wants to do, because nature wants to change that habitat into something else. It wants to turn a heath into a woodland, for instance. And if the heat is considered an important habitat, then we pull out the trees in order to keep it a heath. All of this takes a huge amount of energy. And we're only able to do it because of the gift of oil. And so along came the OPEC oil crisis back in the 1970s. And a couple of Australian chaps started looking at that and saying, hang on, we're very vulnerable to the problems with oil. If oil runs out or the price goes up, or it becomes very difficult to get hold of what happens. And so permaculture is really focused around that. And so what do we do if we don't have so much oil in the future? And of course, technology comes along and says, don't worry about that. We have hydrogen, hydrogen is just a way of carrying energy. It's not generating energy. We have nuclear, but nuclear again has proved not to be especially safe, and it has lots of inherent problems. And I did a degree in physics. And I was still not convinced by the nuclear argument, even having sat through a very pro nuclear education, if you like. And so, so permaculture is looking and say, well, nature, the rest of nature runs on the laws of physics, gravity, in particular, conduction and convection of energy and such. And so how can we work much more in the same way that nature does use the same materials that nature does, as much as possible, look at how we supply food and water and energy to ourselves. And just look at those vulnerabilities and say, how can we improve them? And so permaculture encourages us to learn from nature. There's a set of principles that come out of studying nature, guiding principles that can help us with deciding what to do, and so on. But essentially, what permaculture is about is creating a permaculture, human permaculture to meet our specific needs. And that has to be very much about where we are, because if I live in Russia, it's a very different climate from living in the equator, for instance, very different conditions, very different cultural history, very different body type really adapted to living in that place, very different foods will grow in that place. And so permaculture, we can't just make permaculture just like that, or from a recipe, we have to understand where we are. And so permaculture starts by observing where we are, looking at what goes on in that place, and how might we put components, things that work well in that place together in a way that to meet our specific needs in that place. And so essentially, when we ask the question, what is permaculture, we're saying, what is permaculture to meet my needs here, and it will be very different from permaculture for you in your place to meet your specific needs. And that's why we use a process of design, which is what my book, of course, is all about permaculture design, how do we go about going from where I am here, now, with the needs I have and the things that I don't have security with things that are vulnerable, perhaps food supply, water supply, and so on. And how do I get to a place where those things are more secure? And not just for me at an individual scale, but also for my community in the bioregion I live in and so on. So what is permaculture? Well, that's very much a question that you have to ask yourself where you are. But there are many tools in permaculture that will help you answer those questions. And I wish you a lot of fun in finding out.