Permaculture to the Rescue!

I'm already into the fourth week and the fourth lesson of the online permaculture design certificate course I'm taking with Geoff Lawton and his team in Australia (see this intro to Geoff). I've gotta tell you, it sure is exciting learning!

Given that I'm as far away as you can get from having a three-dimensional-seeing brain, I'm already on my way from being a person who only saw flat land versus hills to someone who can detect contour and see the nuances in a flattish landscape. I'm starting to be able to see possibilities and opportunities whenever I look at someone's land. (Now my own chunk of rock in the shade, it still stumps me.)

But more important than the landscaping "eye" I'm developing is the ecological learning I'm doing. For example, there's a whole section just on patterns in the natural world. It's the patterns that capture energy for living systems, and it's vital that we harmonize with patterns rather than working against them. 

Things got really out of whack in this culture when we started working against the rest of Nature: growing monocrops in straight lines with no diversity, with no features for trapping and recycling nutrients, with no water features. Topsoil was either lost or depleted of nutrients. So farmers had to start using chemical inputs, which has led to even less diversity of life in soils and on farms generally. This course teaches that soil degradation is at the core of the environmental problems we're facing. Permaculture is about partnering with ecosystems and designing for ecosystem interactions that will build soil. 

Looking at what's happening in California right now is chilling, knowing how much of western Canada's food comes from there. One hundred percent of the state is in drought of some kind (and it's only April, close to two months away from summer), with nearly 25% of California in exceptional drought. The most important element in permaculture is water, and permacultured landscapes are focused first and foremost on water retention. 

Imagine the resilience in the face of climate disruption that would come from food growing that is based in and on natural systems (which we help along) that have many connections, that are rich in diversity, and that waste nothing because everything is cycled through the system. Imagine!

If you are ever feeling totally blue about the state of this planet, I won't blame you for going the way of Paul Kingsnorth and Will Falk (I often go there myself). But if you want to try out something different, look up permaculture. Watch Geoff Lawton's videos on it or check out the old videos by permaculture founder Bill Mollison. Read a book on it (try Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, or a book by co-originator of the movement, David Holmgren). Take a course in it. It will definitely cheer you up for a while, by the sheer sense of possibility and opportunity it will give you.

p.s. I am grateful to permacultureprinciples.com for the wonderful image above.

"In Short, We're Screwed" ... But What's the Long Version?

Faith sees the invisible, believes in the incredible, and receives the impossible.
— Unknown

What a week! On Tuesday night, we went to a book signing where Nikki van Schyndel talked about the year and a half she spent living in the wild in the Broughton Archipelago of British Columbia. I've been reading Becoming Wild during every spare minute ever since. What an inspiration! 

Then on Wednesday, I read We're Finished. Now What? by Will Falk in the San Diego Free Press. This is someone who says, "In short, we're screwed." And he's right. He goes on:

Let the knowledge sink in. Let it weigh on your shoulders. Let it pull you to the ground for a second and rub your face in the dirt of reality. Let it kick you in the gut and double you over with plain truth. Let it boil the acid in your stomach until you’re sick with honest anxiety.

Reminds me of something I realized almost exactly a year ago (see that post here), that if we can't feel the pain that comes with realizing "we're screwed," then we'll never get to the point of taking action. And Falk has realized (personally, viscerally) that the only way past the depression that is setting in with this understanding is action. 

And then on Thursday, while discussing Falk's piece with my husband, he said something that really resonated for me. 

So many huge innovations and transformations have come about even just in our lifetime. But look at how absolutely impossible (indeed, science fictiony) they seemed only years before they were invented! 

Yet when people are asked whether we can win this admittedly humongous climate change challenge, practically everyone (who's awake ... most people around me don't even care yet) says no, this problem is too big to fix. The universal social response seems to be "No can do" ... "No want to do" ... or "Ain't gonna waste my time worryin' about it."

But damn it, my hubby says, this problem is too big NOT to fix. So he's not giving up, and I'm in for the long haul. 

I am reminded of the man who, alone in a vast desert with no hat, no water, and a broken leg, pulled himself up on one bruised and battered elbow and smiled at a bunch of dry grass, saying, "You know, if this keeps up I might get discouraged." — Larry Dean Olsen

That's the long version of "we're screwed." All it's going to take is a miracle. And we've had lots of those lately.

By the way, Falk's essay is worth a read. He ends it by asking us: 

Who among us can sit idly by while our loved ones are doomed to death – while everything is doomed to death – and not act with every ounce of our power? Action is still possible. And once you start, you’ll begin to feel better. I promise.