R2R day 4
January 18, 2010, 12:28 PM
Filed under: Climate Change, Design, Education, Permaculture, Ridge to Reef
Filed under: Climate Change, Design, Education, Permaculture, Ridge to Reef
This week we begin our introduction to permaculture while participating hands-on projects. I will have now taken part in three permaculture courses which is great because each one makes me feel more confident in the work than the last. We started off the day by giving recognition to the great Martin Luther King and sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot, something I’ve never had the chance to sing and am glad I got the chance. After breakfast and chores (harvesting fresh greens from the garden) the R2R group gathered and started to go over the reasons why we are interested in organic agriculture and permaculture methods.
I think its important to remind ourselves of this. It was easy for the students here to recall the many reasons such as: resource depletion, deforestation, habitat loss, pollution, over-fishing, degradation of food systems, over population, peak oil, the unconscious consumer… But for those of you at home it might be difficult to see beyond climate change, which is also a reason why organic agriculture is important, but not the only reason. After looking at why we are here to learn about creating sustainable, resilient systems we discussed the three permaculture ethics: Earth Care, People Care, Resource Share.
We then looked at philosophies behind permaculture such as the Prime Directive: ethically take care of your self and your children by taking responsibility for your existence… every decision you make should be a conscious one. This really resonates with me, I want to be fully involved and aware in my decisions knowing that they connect to the great whole that I want to achieve. In addition we discussed the Principle of Coorperation; Positivism- Actionism: creating positive, replicable, shared change; No Box: tearing down the walls we create, that have been created for us; and Diversity which leads to stability which leads to abundance.
We then went over the principles of permaculture as I tried to link these to the final R2R project that Jon will collaborate on with me. For our project we would like to design a small family garden with maximum yield, as a model for people who don’t know anything about growing their own food, who have limited space, and who want to learn organic growing techniques and permacultue systems. I’ll keep you posted on this as we go.
To finish the day the class went over swales and found the contour lines in the land where we wanted to prevent water run-off and started to dig a swale. Love that hard labour. All in all a good day.
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Climate Week NYC
This week NYC and elsewhere are paying special attention to climate change and the issues/opportunities that come with it. Find interesting events on the Climate Change NYC website!
Today started off with another great performance by the Yes Men as they pranked NY POST readers into a fictitious, yet factual “Were Screwed” edition of the paper. Also, TckTckTck kicked off its efforts to engage people who are ready to address climate change and support an international agreement to be determined in Copenhagen later this year.
This is what I’m talking about
Came across an article via a permaculture list serve I belong to via The Huffington Post. It’s called The Waking Up Syndrome, by Linda Buzell and it discusses how our issues with climate change, whether we can do anything about it, whether it’s going to be as devastating as some say are grounded in our resistance to change and our behaviors (something I spoke about in an early post). The article refers you to several groups out there that offer methods for a transition in behavior and action including the permaculture movement.
You can read the full Waking Up Syndrome essay in Sierra Club’s Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind.
More news on EXXON
Remember when I sent you to a list of climate skeptic scientists paid off by Exxon. Well here’s some more interesting news. Now, as Treehugger writes, Exxon spends more money on lobbying than clean energy. I guess I’m not surprised. Read their article here.
This picture was taken at a gas station in Ghana. We had to visit several before any gas could be found.
DINOSUARS and US, what do we have in common?
Who?
They reigned over the earth for more than 20,000 years and suddenly, mysteriously disappeared. What caused the demise of this ubiquitous group of mammals, which included some of the most socially and technologically, advanced animals to ever walk the planet?
Who?
It’s a great question and fortunately we don’t have to know the answer yet because it hasn’t happened. But can you only imagine space creatures visiting our once treasured planet trying to identify how and why we came to an end. Imagine it because once we’re gone someone or something is going to ask the question. Right now we do that job for the dinosaurs. No one really knows why they became extinct but each of the many theories all point to one thing in common: climate change. Whether it was a meteorite, volcanic eruption, major flood, disease or any combination of these factors as it is suggested, climate change plays an undoubted role in this mystery and should be a lesson to our own species.
But it gets even better. While climate change helped this mass extinction, as it has with several other periods of living species, it’s not the same kind of climate change we are dealing with today. No, unlike today the factors that induced climate change during the Cretaceous period were naturally caused. Instead we have something different; a human caused climate change. In one sense this is exciting. If its human caused then we might have the chance to un-cause it. But as we know, this is challenging. Think of this:
Because we have evolved to depend on the artificial construction of shelter, production of food and now water, our main resources for survival other than the sun and the air we breath, we place our self in a vary precarious position when it comes to maintaining our artificial lifestyles in a natural world that is breaking down every day. When it comes to the sun and air both of these elements are also now being artificially manipulated by the gesture to take the three resources, shelter, food and water that come naturally and recreate them artificially to meet our leisure needs.
We have actually orchestrated our own potential for downfall. This is scary. I’d like to think we still have a chance.
Recently Read
To be really successful you must learn to overcome ways of thinking and behaving that have proved themselves, over decades of your life, to be either counterproductive or- at best- almost random in producing the results you want. The truly great movers and shakers of every age, and of every part of the globe, have had to learn to reexamine each of the beliefs they grew up with.
I am actually half way through The Diamond Cutter, by Geshe Michael Roach, but I wanted to share an excerpt from this inspiring read:
To be really successful you must learn to overcome ways of thinking and behaving that have proved themselves, over decades of your life, to be either counterproductive or- at best- almost random in producing the results you want. The truly great movers and shakers of every age, and of every part of the globe, have had to learn to reexamine each of the beliefs they grew up with.
Don’t leave the success of your business, your life, at the mercy of unexamined assumptions and prejudices of your own country and culture. Remember that what your culture says is good or bad or right or wrong or successful or unsuccessful has changed from year to year, even in your own lifetime… You can’t just blindly trust what you grew up with- whether it was taught to you by your elementary school teachers, or parents, or the people at your church or temple. You can’t follow one way of doing business just because that’s the way other people are doing it right now
Many people who fear the potential catastrophes of climate change (this includes me) say that if we keep “business as usual” we will never be able to reverse or even mitigate the effects of climate change. I think that this small piece of writing really expresses what we mean by business as usual and why it is important to do something different.
It’s been raining… a lot
The rain just won’t stop here in NYC and I was curious about how many people out there relate this to global warming and whether or no they could explain why. While perusing the web I found an article on iBrattleboro that had a lot to say about the rain and its meaning(s).
After reviewing weather channels, the latest US climate change report and other sources they find that the rain is absolutely related and not going to stop- so get used to it, I guess.
Must See
Last night I got a chance to see the new film, Food Inc. This is a must see. Everything we eat, whether we like to acknowledge it or not, has its costs and unless we start making changes in our diet and production of everything we consume expect to see a serious meltdown in one of our most important resources: food.
Please see this movie and educate yourself. Please tell your friends.
Even Banks talk about Climate Change
I was just on Groovy Green, another eco resource blog site, and found this interesting image produced by HSBC. My first thought was, cool, and then, is this just another form of greenwashing; what do they do for the environment? So I did some research on the HSBC website and found that they are supporting several great organizations. I think I’m impressed.
