Visiting Konso Schools Project Sites, Ethiopia
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Alex McCausland January 22, 2011
Editor’s Note: Alex gives us another update on the excellent work he and his team are doing in Ethiopia. You can see his previous reports via his author’s profile. If you want a first hand look at their work, and an exciting trip-of-a-lifetime as well, now’s a good time to book for their upcoming March 2011 PDC. Check out details on the course and book.
We were recently visited at Strawberry Fields Eco Lodge (SFEL) by Ali, the vibrant and energetic manager of World Challenge’s Africa section. World Challenge is an organisation which organises trips for school children from the UK to destinations around the world where they undertake challenging and productive activities involving nature, adventure and local communities. Ali’s visit proved to be very fruitful in tying together several aspects of our work in Konso, in line with our project’s objectives of promoting community well being through permaculture and eco-tourism.
(0)Tiny House Movement, Small House = Big Life
Building, Consumerism, Ethical Investment, People Systems, Society — by Peter Greg
In the face of growing problems with climate change, and the unpredictable rumblings of the economy and housing challenges of the USA, there seems to be a wonderfully positive and exciting revolution/movement happening in the United States and in other places of the world: the Tiny House movement.
(1)One Million People in Sri Lanka Need Your Help
Community Projects, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Society, Village Development, Water Contaminaton — by Shisir Khanal
Dear Friends
"The disaster we are facing is second only to the tsunami," says Dr. Vinya Ariyaratne, General Secretary of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of Sri Lanka. A torrential monsoon rain has flooded Eastern Sri Lanka.
(0)Figures
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Reports from BP and Exxon-Mobil predict ongoing and massive increases in CO2 levels due to energy consumption…. whilst the consequences thereof threaten belt-tightening worldwide.
(0)Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course with Bill Mollison (Guest Speaker), Geoff & Nadia Lawton, Rosemary Morrow, Warren Brush & Brad Lancaster
Courses/Workshops — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
What: Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course
Where: Amman, Jordan
When: 3rd – 15th September 2011
 Bill Mollison |
 Warren Brush |
 Rosemary Morrow |
 Brad Lancaster |
 Geoff Lawton |
 Nadia Lawton |
Starting September 3, 2011, students will be treated to what will likely be one of the most dynamic Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) courses ever!
This course will run immediately prior to the Tenth International Permaculture Conference (IPC10) in Jordan. It’s a great opportunity to combine attendance at the world’s premier permaculture gathering with taking your PDC with some of the world’s most experienced and best permaculture teachers. Indeed, the IPC’s Convergence, a four day permaculture gathering that runs after the 1-day open-to-the-public Conference, is only open to PDC graduates. If you haven’t already graduated from a PDC, this course will make you eligible to attend the Convergence.
(0)Village Towns
Building, Community Projects, Eco-Villages, People Systems, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Oyvind Holmstad January 21, 2011
Vandana Shiva, an internationally recognized Indian activist and philosopher, explains that planning for the human being rather than the automobile can liberate space and create community within a city. In her opinion, a sustainable city should operate as a self-reliant and self-sufficient cluster of villages.
(0)All About Borage
Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems — by Kelly Pagliaro
Photos by Kelly Pagliaro unless otherwise indicated
Beautiful. Traditional. Functional. Therapeutic. What am I talking about you say? Why borage of course!
Borage is a wonderful plant to have around the garden. Borage (Borago officinalis), also known as starflower, bee bush, bee bread, and bugloss, is a medicinal herb with edible leaves and flowers. In my garden, borage and sunflowers share the honor of being bee hot-spots.
(9)Mismanaged Expectations
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts
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Courtesy: Marc Roberts
I enjoyed this thoughtful piece from Andrew Revkin at DotEarth.
(0)2010 Hits Top of Temperature Chart
Global Warming/Climate Change — by Earth Policy Institute January 19, 2011
by Alexandra Giese, Earth Policy Institute
Topping off the warmest decade in history, 2010 experienced a global average temperature of 14.63 degrees Celsius (58.3 degrees Fahrenheit), tying 2005 as the hottest year in 131 years of recordkeeping.
This news will come as no surprise to residents of the 19 countries that experienced record heat in 2010. Belarus set a record of 38.7 degrees Celsius (101.7 degrees Fahrenheit) on August 6 and then broke it by 0.2 degrees Celsius just one day later. A 47.2-degree Celsius (117.0-degree Fahrenheit) spike in Burma set a record for Southeast Asia as a whole. And on May 26, 2010, the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan hit 53.5 degrees Celsius (128.3 degrees Fahrenheit) — a record not only for the country but for all of Asia. In fact, it was the fourth hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere. (See data at www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C51.)
The earth’s temperature is not only rising, it is rising at an increasing rate. From 1880 through 1970, the global average temperature increased roughly 0.03 degrees Celsius each decade. Since 1970, that pace has increased dramatically, to 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade. Two thirds of the increase of nearly 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in the global temperature since the 1880s has occurred in the last 40 years. And 9 of the 10 warmest years happened in the last decade.
(7)Power Trips
Society — by George Monbiot
What could be sillier and more invidious than the Observer’s “eco-power list”?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Is there anything the Sunday papers can’t turn into a fatuous celeb-fest? Two days ago, the Observer published what it called its eco-power list. It’ll come as no surprise that it featured Brad Pitt – what list doesn’t? It was more surprising to find Jay Leno there, on the grounds that he has made the, er, 240 cars he runs “as green as possible”. And the CEO of Ford, because he has just unveiled an electric Ford Focus (sadly he didn’t simultaneously veil the gas guzzlers he continues to market). Much of the list was a catalogue of rich and powerful people who have now added green, or some nebulous semblance of green, to their portfolios.
But I’m less concerned about the contents of these lists than the principle. To me, eco and power occupy different spheres. The environmentalism I recognise is a challenge to power. It confronts a system which allows a handful of people to dominate our lives and capture our resources. The fame, the extreme wealth, the disproportionate influence celebrated by power lists stand in opposition to the values and principles green thinking espouses.
(4)City Kids Move to the Country – Part IV
Biological Cleaning, Conservation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Swales, Urban Projects, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Nicola Chatham
Editor’s Note: This article was written in mid-December, when Queensland’s rains were nothing like that witnessed of late, and which have caused the catastrophic flooding in many towns and cities across the state. I mention this to ensure people realise Nicola was not being insensitive with timing of a Queensland- and water-based article. Our thoughts go out to all who have suffered in the recent deluges.
Pit-falls, projects and laughs from our Permaculture journey
If women knew diggers looked this good I think swales would pop up like weeds
around the globe. Gee whiz. Beats a four-tonne excavator in my books
– even if it had a swivel bucket.
Chris woke up the other day and declared, “I think I can dig those swales by hand.”
“Super,” I said, “go for it!”
(11)Masanobu Fukuoka
Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation — by Thomas Fischbacher
This is a fairly recent video about the Natural Farming pioneer Masanobu Fukuoka (1913-2008) that was produced by one of his former students, Larry Korn, who also translated Fukuoka’s best-known book "The One Straw Revolution" into English. One of the reasons why this video is especially interesting is that it contains video material showing Fukuoka in his fields that doesn’t appear to have been widely available before.
Unfortunately, Fukuoka’s seminal treatise "The One Straw Revolution" may be difficult to grasp for many people who grew up in western culture, especially due to philosophical ideas that are rooted in the Zen Buddhist concept of "Nothingness" (mu) which are all too easily misread as being nihilistic. His other — but less well known — book, "The Natural Way of Farming", is more elaborate, far more pragmatic, and contains a good deal of background about the observations, ideas, trials and errors by which Fukuoka developed his methods. Hence, it may serve well to make both his other writings and his work more accessible to a wide audience. (I would highly recommend to read the section "Second Thoughts on Post-Season Rice Cultivation" and the one immediately before it in Chapter 4 of that book before reading this work from the beginning.)
(8)The Real Domestic Extremists
Society — by George Monbiot January 18, 2011
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
Click for larger view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
This is what the head of a police unit set up to monitor domestic extremism said in 2009. “I’ve never said – and we don’t see – that any environmentalist is going to or has committed any violent acts.”(1) That chimes with my experience. Two years ago I searched all the literature I could lay hands on, and couldn’t find a single proven instance of a planned attempt in the UK to harm people in the cause of defending the environment. (That’s in sharp contrast to animal rights campaigning, where there has been plenty of violence). No one has yet produced a factual challenge to that conclusion. Yet every year a shadowy body spends most of its £5m budget(2) on countering a non-existent threat that officers call eco-terrorism(3).
The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) employed the undercover officer Mark Kennedy, who was embedded and bedded for seven years among peaceful green activists. Kennedy claims that it has supervised 15 other undercover agents on the same mission(4). But what is the mission? Sorry, can’t tell you. NPOIU is run by the Association of Chief Police Officers. As Simon Jenkins pointed out last week, ACPO is not a police force but a private limited company, beyond democratic scrutiny, not subject to freedom of information laws(5). While it receives much of its funding from the government, it is not accountable to the public. It looks to me like a state-sanctioned private militia, fighting public protest on behalf of corporations.
(1)Heading to Haiti with a Permaculture Vision and a Plan – UPDATE
Aid Projects, Food Shortages — by Jim ODonnell
Editor’s Note: As we cannot count on governments to make good on their promises, let alone implement holistic solutions, supporting grass-roots endeavours like this may well be the very best, or only, way to do something meaningful to assist our beleaguered brothers and sisters in Haiti.
A few months ago, I began soliciting donations to help start a Permaculture plan in the mountains of Haiti. Thus far, you’ve helped me raise $1,400 (including $500 from myself) towards this project. It’s a good start, but there is still $2,300 left to raise just to get the project off the ground.
First of all, I’d like to thank, from the bottom of my heart, those of you who have been able to help with this project. Second, I’d like to offer a very quick update on the project.
(6)Respecting Ourselves, Part III: Needs Met Ineffectively or at Great Cost
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, People Systems, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Kyle Chamberlain
Editor’s Note: This is Part III of a three-part series. If you haven’t already, please read Part I and Part II before continuing.
Those of us who live in the ‘developed world’ frequently see their higher needs compromised. But, unlike much of the world’s population, we rarely find ourselves destitute of our most basic requirements, like shelter, water, and food. Our housing may not be particularly secure, our water may not be too clean, and our food may be low on nutrition, but we have, at least, some semblance of the basics.
Our piecemeal life support system works well enough that many of us become fat. The tragedy of this system is not just the substandard services it provides, but also the extreme wastefulness and inefficiency.
Recalling that these basic services were once provided freely by the environment, it’s clear that they’ve become remarkably expensive today. Studies of some hunter/gatherer groups found that their members typically labored just three or four hours daily for their sustenance. Today, the nine hour work day is the norm, with an astonishing proportion of our incomes going to basics, like housing and food.
(3)