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
Duration : 0:25:27
[youtube OFjFG24BeX8]
14:30 - the …
14:30 - the correlation with nature is extremely insightful.
A more business …
A more business side and explanation that ties peak oil and economy together, google “crash course”.
It’s a problem of ever expanding growth beyond what fixed fuels and minerals can support. You can always cry and whine that they hide the oil, coal, fuel, resources, but the fact is exponential growth of populations cannot continue.
He has a good and noble goal, if we all operated out of love and co-operated. Competition = expansion. Good intentioned evolutions = pie in sky dreams.
excelent, what a …
excelent, what a visionary and gentle, positive man. I am working on developing the same discourse in spanish, and planning to make this kind of expository video for the spanish speaking community in the world….this is an ideal model. thank you.
we are living in …
we are living in the dark ages. watch the BBC documentary ‘a farm for the future’ to understand why.
pay particular attention to when they mention crop yields of permaculture farming (hint, they are high, especially when in the light of it’s energy input which is close to 0). there is a possible future for humankind but it will require a massive cultural shift. the documentary is on google video in full. good luck
Excellent video …
Excellent video with an excellent guest! David Holmgren is very insightful. With peak oil (pretty much now), we’ll have an economic collapse, I’m sure of it! Come check the videos from the Montreal Permaculture Guild!
peak oil is …
peak oil is absolutely 100% unavoidable, anybody who says otherwise is living in lala-land. the only argument with peak oil is when it will or has already happened.
who cares about …
who cares about peak oil, global warming tax. the whole point is to be as independent as possible from government and corporations. We should get off oil and we should stop polluting the planet. We have the power to do it ourselves
you know I am …
you know I am walking on new ground for me and maybe I got ahead of my self. I want to learn from all you. I currently don’t worry about real end of resource peak oil in light sweet crude it does exist we need to extract it, the oil companies are not to blame. I think we really need to be against a carbon tax regulatory system. I hope I am not swimming up stream with the “Co2 global warming tax” is a trap and the science says it was the sun.
I do understand …
I do understand what you are saying about corporate manipulation but I also feel that there will come a time when we have to face living without oil and even if that time were 100 years away, I would like to pass on living skills and solutions to the next generation. With economic crashes happening, manipulated or otherwise, survival skills are a good idea. We need to know how to respond, instead of panicing when the hits the fan.
Hewe, myth or not, …
Hewe, myth or not, how about we think about reducing air pollution just as a quality of life issue? Did we evolve with smog or did we evolve with clean air? The latter being true, then I would rather live a life free of harmful pollutants.
People have caught up with the argument so much that they have lost sight of some of the issues surrounding air pollution.
Also if peak oil is a myth at this time, then are you of a belief that it is an infinite resource?
1) Global warming …
1) Global warming is caused by the sun. Oil and coal are nothing more than stored solar energy. So unless you subscribe to something more…fanciful, that point is agreed upon.
2) I think peak oil will demonstrate itself to you over the next few years. The remainder, and admittedly there’s a lot of it, just gets a lot harder to extract as the easy, light sweet crude close to the surface dwindles.
Only time will tell I guess. But personally, I’ll take the precautionary principle…
1 - man made global …
1 - man made global warming is a myth (it’s the sun)
2 - peak oil / out of supply is a myth (technology is supressed)
My beliefs can be discovered
Military Indust Fascist state wants me to believe I oppose
intention is to …
intention is to make sure your not directing your efforts with the idea that no more oil exists. our goals may be the same even though we know different information and one set of info may be wrong though it’s practice is good.
“don’t bury your head” i agree
my two points initially were
So then my question …
So then my question would be, what is your intention when you make the (very debatable) claim that we’re not running out of oil?
Are you encouraging people to turn a blind eye to their own bad habits? Bury their heads in the sand and wait for someone else to fix the problems? If you practice permaculture, you will quickly discover that everything western society is engaged in is utterly unsustainable. Green tech solutions even stop making sense.
Just asking you to consider your words…
many facets of …
many facets of permaculture that are hidden from me. yes, I am new to this. I was just saying where not running out of oil, though the hands that control the oil create shortages. I am interested in permaculture because of what is going on to ecomony and agriculture.
You’re right. …
You’re right. There is a lot of oil left on the planet, but it’s the peaking event that matters. And we’ve peaked, “for real,” dude. Why are people so blind to what’s going on? Look at the banks that require energy (economic) growth to create interest. Floundering. Insurance giants. Floundering. 15% US unemployment (stop believing the mainstream media), and gaining momentum every month.
There are facets of permaculture that are still quite hidden from you obviously. So good luck!
oh and man made …
oh and man made global warming is a myth
it’s the sun - study it
I am really excited about learning how to “permaculture” in canada victoria - okanogan - vancouver
peak oil is not …
peak oil is not real
there is more oil in the world than you can imagine
it may be controlled to appear as though there is a shortage
for real
You have to also …
You have to also remember that using the internal combustion engine spreads pollutants over a much wider area than a power plant, where emissions can be trapped. There are also differences such as chemical additives in petrol which make it more toxic, and the engine needs far more maintenance due to the excess of moving parts compared to electric. Plus, even now the grid is being supplied with nuclear energy, feed in from domestic micro-energy sources, and a small amount of renewable power.
kendanielone,
I’m …
kendanielone,
I’m an ecologist who is very excited about energy descent. My best estimate is that anyone in town who is still financially mobile will try to acquire a little more land than they currently have for gardening and keeping small livestock, but I can tell you from experience that I have an 80′x120′ lot a mile from downtown, and I grow ~6000 lbs. of top quality organic produce, several quarts of honey, and over 1000 eggs anually.
Yeah, at the …
Yeah, at the current system, but in the documentary, they showed how they wanted to develope infrastructure of solar recharging stations…let alone, wind, solar, and tidal power is still a huge possible market,if we can direct all/ or most of those subsidies away from fossil fuels…then how awesome would it be?? Plus you can have SkyTran and or Mag Lev trains…
personally, i think …
personally, i think its a big illusion the thing with the elctric car- understanding energy concepts, electricity has a much higher energy quality than gasoline…virtually more than 70% of the electricity in the world is generated by burning fossil fuels…
an electric car needs more energy (not at all clean) than a combustion engine….
This film “Who killed the electric car” is not credible for me at all…
But “the problem is …
But “the problem is the solution.” The decline and eventual collapse of our current false economy (based on the combustion of fossil fuels) wil finally get us off this accelerating treadmill of bigger - more - faster - faster. In a slowed-down economy, we will actuaaly have time to plant and tend gardens, learn about edible and useful wild plants (maybe they aren’t just weeds), spend more time with our families instead of dropping the kids off a day care, and stop fighting with our neighbors.
If you think …
If you think Holmgren is not optimistic, you aren’t too familiar with reality as it is. Listen to some Richard Heinberg or Jay Hanson or Michael Klare or James Hansen or Sir David King. Colin Duncan, James Howard Kunstler, Peter Ward, Robert Jensen, Derrick Jensen, Jonathan Overpeck, James Speth. Just a list of some scientists, historians, activists, philosophers and social theorists who make Holmgren look like the figure of hope for humanity.
Could anyone direct …
Could anyone direct me to a downloadable mp3 of this segment?