July 2010
20 posts
6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World
Profound solutions which benefit humankind may come from seemingly insignificant species…
By Paul Stamets Posted Jul 7, 2010
In this TED talk video, mycologist Paul Stamets talks about mushrooms. He believes there are six ways that mycelium fungus can save our planet. This brief presentation is not only fascinating, but a reminder of why it is so important to preserve unique species and ...
A Look at the Economic Crises of Capitalism
An entertaining look into how we got here and why things are turning out for us all the way they are.
The 5 Year Permaculture Timeline: Phases of...
Year One: Abundance of Species
When we set out to make a garden on at least 2-5 acres, in the Permaculture mode, we also set out to trial dozens of species, and to select those that thrive in our soil, under the conditions we impose, and in association with each other. Thus, in the beginning, even with generous help from our friends, we have relatively few plants of any species growing, but...
Bamboo in Permaculture Design
People tell me bamboo “takes over” and can pierce and destroy pavement, foundations, and ultimately, Western civilization. We call these people bambusaphobes. Nonetheless, despite its reputation, bamboo is not conquering the world. At the other extreme are people who plant any bamboo they can get anywhere.
Looking carefully at the nature of the plant helps us find a middle ground. Bamboo...
Soil Carbon - Can it Save Our Bacon?
by Christine Jones, PhD
The number of farmers in Australia has fallen 30 per cent in the last 20 years, with more than 10,000 farming families leaving the agricultural sector in the last five years alone. This decline is ongoing. There is also a reluctance on the part of young people to return to the land, indicative of the poor image and low income-earning potential of current farming...
A Better Way of Making a Living for Humanity
We are no more able to find our way forward living as Homo modern as we are living as Homo hunter-gatherer. Both ways are blocked. Living today on the infinite growth treadmill as Homo modern results in the death of our planet. Homo sapien has exploded our population to a level that we can no longer run back into the forest to make a living like the Mayan did. So what are we to do?
The question...
Leaves to Live By
by Craig Elevitch (see bio at bottom), originally published in the Permaculture International Journal, #61 Dec-Feb 1997 page 31
There are two types of gardeners as I see it: the “master gardener” type who genuinely delights in the detailed tasks of garden management; and the “lazy” gardener who enjoys harvesting but who experiences other garden activities as drudgery. I belong to the latter...
Powering Down In Time - Will We?
Most underestimate the implications…
Through our Hollywood-tinted glasses we’re accustomed to happy endings. The instinctive “it won’t happen to me” mentality is alive and well, but, whilst perhaps preserving the comfortable status quo (if not our sanity), it does little to promote objectivity. In a world threatened by global warming, potential constructive accomplishments are thus too...
Philanthropy Bill Gates Style - Disturbing...
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho: Geneticist, Biophysicist and Director of the not-for-profit Institute of Science in Society.
The world’s biggest philanthropic foundation is reaping huge profits investing in companies responsible for causing the problems it tries to solve; its grant-giving is also doing more harm than good in undermining health and agricultural systems, distorting national and global...
The Flaw of Western Economies
by Marcin Gerwin, Sopot, Poland. Marcin graduated with a Ph.D. in political studies, from the University of Gdansk, Poland, with his thesis: “The idea and practice of sustainable development in the context of global challenges”.
Cob House Photo, Gerry Thomasen
Let’s imagine a green and responsible consumer. Let’s call him George. George lives in a sleepy town, near the center and the park where...
Letters from Vietnam: The Hmong People –...
by Craig Mackintosh
The Future of the Hmong People Photos: Craig Mackintosh
It took a few moments for my eyes to adapt to the light. There was a single, clear incandescent bulb hanging just millimetres above my head – hanging from somewhere high in the blackness of the ceiling, from a cable so weathered it looked more like a vine than an electrical cord. But it wasn’t turned on. After all,...
Old Permaculture Masters? Vuon – Ao – Chuong – The...
by Nguyen Van Man
VAC is an acronym formed from the three Vietnamese words Vuon, garden or orchard, Ao, fish pond, and Chuong, pigsty or poultry shed. It refers to a form of domestic agriculture in which food gardening, fish rearing and animal husbandry are wholly integrated, and stems from farming methods developed in the Red River delta of Vietnam.
The VAC system is a highly intensive method...
Biodiverse Systems are More Productive than...
Sustainable farming across the world relies on cultivating a diversity of crops and livestock to maximise internal input, and this is in marked contrast to the high external input monoculture of industrial farming, which is proving unsustainable in many respects. Indirect support for the sustainability of agricultural diversity is coming from an unexpected quarter. Academic ecologists are...
Which came first - Pests, or Pesticides?
The Pest or Pesticide question is a lot more interesting and relevant than the whole chicken and egg argument – and one that’s easier to prove too! Whether you’re a farmer, gardener, or merely a consumer that’s not so keen on ingesting poisons, you might find the following of interest.
I know what you’re going to say – “pests must have come first, or they wouldn’t have created pesticides”....
75 Percent of Food Diversity Lost in Last Century
The average person, roaming supermarket aisles with their trolley, is under the impression that our modern globalised food production system, despite being damaging in every other respect, brings one major benefit to consumers — that being more food choices.
Wrong.
It’s a myth. The corporate takeover of agriculture is seeing a rapid and systematic decline in seed and crop diversity, as...
Set yourself free - Get rid of hope in your life...
All over the world, an ancient way of being has combined its elemental forces with the truths gained in the modern age to spark the fires of a new and imperative revolution. It is a subtle revolution of knowing the story of where all that sustains us comes from, and of honoring those things deeply. This revolution’s power draws from an ancient well of knowing that we as humans, with our...
Nitrogen Fixing Trees - Multipurpose Pioneers in...
The myths about the wonders of nitrogen fixing trees are many. Craig Elevitch (see bio at bottom) and Kim Wilkinson explain how to use them effectively.
Nitrogen Fixing Trees for Permaculture
Flowers of the leguminous tree, Kowhai, the national flower of New Zealand
Nitrogen fixation is a pattern of nutrient cycling which has successfully been used in perennial agriculture for millennia....
Go America! Genetically modified crops...
With American Genetically Modified (GM) corn infecting the entire worlds known varieties of corn (more than 150 varieties now irreversibly infected from the one GM corn plant made in the USA) it is time to take a look at what the other American GM foods are doing to the world.
The GM industry has been ailing at least as far back as 2005, but kept alive by an aggressive campaign of...
If we don’t change our direction, we’ll wind up...
Alan: Permaculture is a slippery idea to me. But from what I read, it seems that not even those who actually do permaculture really know what it is.
Bill: I’m certain I don’t know what permaculture is. That’s what I like about it – it’s not dogmatic. But you’ve got to say it’s about the only organized system of design that ever was. And that makes it extremely eerie.
Alan: Why...
Synthetic Seas - Nothing can break them down
We are turning our oceans into a chemical soup – the result being misery and death for billions of organisms, and serious health implications for ourselves.
When we throw things away, we must ask ourselves “where isaway?” The clip below, one of the most frightening I have ever seen, will give you an idea of where at least one of these ‘away’ locations is. Much of our oil-based plastic products...
