Peak Water December 18, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Food, Human Ecology, Overshoot, Population, book review, climate change, collapse, water , add a commentPeak Water Civilisation and the World’s Water Crisis
Alexander Bell
Luath Press 2009
Hardback 208 pp
If oil supply peaks and begins to decline times will be hard. Standard of living will decline and people may go hungry but they will be able to adapt by powering down and making do with less.
If water supply- for domestic use but also for irrigation- peaks and declines people have no option but to migrate.
UK journalist Alexander Bell spells out his thesis starkly in this fascinating and clearly written book: many of the world’s major regions are past or on the brink of peak water and face growing populations with declining supplies. (more…)
Reading the Great Book of Life October 27, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Biodiversity, Environment, Human Ecology, Permaculture, book review , 4commentsBook Review:
The Living Landscape: How to Read and Understand it
Patrick Whitefield
Permanent Publications 2009
334pp
48 color photos
When I first saw in the recent Permaculture Magazine that Patrick Whitefield had written a book on reading the landscape I became very excited and thought, “That’s probably a book David Holmgren would have liked to have written!”
Holmgren called it “reading the great Book of Life”- looking at the living landscape of the countryside through the lens of ecology,botany, geology, archaeology, history and even politics and economics.
Observation of the natural world is the starting point of permaculture design and with this book Whitefield helps us gain an insight into the myriad of the many natural and human processes that make up our landscape, and how to interpret their hidden indications.
Patrick Whitefield covers all of these impacts on the British Countryside, taking his examples from all over the country, and shows us how to be a kind of landscape detective, painstakingly uncovering the meaning of signs and indications of past land-use, some obvious – the absence of trees indicating ongoing grazing- some much less so- the horeshoe bat indicating an intact mosaic of different habitats.
The book begins with some chapters on general patterns in the landscape and underlying features of geology, soil and then climate and natural succession before moving onto more specific cases including animal signs; niches; succession; Different Kinds of Woodlands; Grassland; Heaths and Moors; Water in the Landscape; and finally, Hedges and other field boundaries and Roads and Paths.
Throughout Patrick gives us pages from his extensive notebooks that he has kept over the years which show actual examples of reading the landscape in a wide range of landscape types he has encountered on travels up and down the country, from the Highlands of Scotland to the Somerset “Levels” – or Moors as they are more usually known locally; the remnants of diverse wildflower meadows still found on the chalk downs, and the semi-ancient wood of Lady Park Wood in the Wye valley.
Patrick is always an agreeable travel companion and makes fascinating observations throughout. The pleasure he takes at discovering new landscapes or unpicking the story of a woodland and how it got to have the species mix it has- the subtle interplay of geology, microclimate and grazing patterns- is always obvious, becoming most so when discovering a new hedgerow with large number of species ( a possible indicator of antiquity).
we have been using Patrick’s previous books, The Earth Care Manual and How to Make a Forest Garden on the Kinsale course for the past several years; The Living Landscape is another great addition which fills an important niche in permaculture literature. A fascinating and engaging read with great color photos, it will have to find a place on every designers’ bookshelf.
Future Scenarios June 11, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General, Human Ecology, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Powerdown, book review, climate change, collapse , 7commentsBook Review- 
Future Scenarios How Communities Can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change
David Holmgren
Chelsea Green 2009
When I first saw David Holmgren’s Future Scenarios talk and slide at a permaculture design course in Slovenia in 2005 I was still quite new to the concept of peak oil and listened transfixed at what seemed to be a detailed vision of the future: not precise predictions but an outline of four possible scenarios that may unfold over the next generation and beyond as human societies adapt to the consequences of the peaking and decline of our primary energy sources, peak oil and natural gas.
A couple of years ago David continued his explorations of these issues first examined in detail in his earlier book, Permaculture- Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002) with a new website Future Scenarios.
Now in book form, Future Scenarios provides one of the most succinct and lucid accounts of the possible paths that await us as we start the new era of energy descent.
Holmgren is in agreement with John Michael Greer that while much mainstream discussion about energy futures centres on the first two of his scenarios- “Techno-explosion” and “Techno Stability”, and the doomer/survivalist meme amongst the peak oil community tends to focus on the fourth scenario of “lifeboats” or versions of collapse, the more likely would be the third possibility of “Energy Descent”- a more gradual adaptation to diminishing energy supplies resulting in a contracting economy and reversion to technological simplicity that may play out over many generations.
This pathway of earth Stewardship is assumed by the permaculture agenda- an adaptive approach in which human scale design and general sustainability practices are progressively implemented and are informed by the energy flows through human society and ecology, and the energy base of our economies is clearly understood.
The real problem is that this more likely future is currently still marginalised as the mainstream culture refuses to abandon its faith in the myth of progress- a belief that rests on the mistaken assumption that gains in human welfare over the past few hundred years have been as a result of some teleological process propelling us forwards, or of a general increasing application of our genious for technological improvements and innovation, while ignoring the underlying reosurce base that has made all this possible: technology is merely different ways of using energy that is usually dug out of holes in the ground.
The likelihood that this transition will be to one of less energy is such an anathema to the psychological foundations and power elites of modern societies that it is constantly misinterpreted, ignored, covered up, or derided. Instead we see geopolitical maneuvering around energy resources, including proxy and real wars to control dwindling reserves and policy gymnastics to somehow make reducing carbon emissions the new engine of economic growth.
Holmgren categorises the scenarios according to the varying potential severity of peak oil and climate change and how these tow factors interplay:
- Brown Tech- slow oil decline, fast climate change;
- Green Tech- slow oil decline, slow climate change;
- Earth Steward- fast oil decline, slow climate change;
- Lifeboats- fast oil decline, fast climate change
These typologies may necessarily be too simplistic- so many other factors may also come into play, such as financial collapse which, while no doubt linked to both peak oil and climate change, may impact in ways as yet unforeseen. However, Holmgren provides a deeper analyses by showing how the scenarios may be “nested” one within the other- each acting on the different scales of the household, local, national and international economies; or may take a stepped form over time- attempts by governments to keep the system going a little longer by following a Brown Tech path may hasten an eventual collapse; equally, an attempt to switch to green tech may result in the adoption of Earth Stewardship further down the line as renewables fail to fill the gap left by oil. The scenarios may also play out differently in different parts of the world.
Throughout Holmgren’s analysis is informed by ecological systems, the foundation for his permaculture principles, as he sees how energy dynamics in nature may be mirrored in human socieites:
Natural ecosytems tend to maintain homeostasis under stress through the allocation of stored resources. if the conditions continue to deteriorate, then further stress can fracture the homeostasis. If the stress involves a reduction in energy availability, the system may collapse. But total collapse and system disintegration are rare, at least in the short term. More typically a restabalization occurs at a lower level of energy processing and organisational complexity. The new homeostasis will typically be stable for some time before declining energy availability precipitates another crisis. This may also be a model for how human societies respond to the crisis of resource and energy decline.
Holmgren is keen to paint a more positive vision of the future in the earth Stewardship scenario- “conditions for ordinary people may actually improve when resources devoted to maintaining societal complexity are freed for meeting more basic needs”- a reference to the diminishing returns provided by endless growth.
There is a desperate need to recast energy descent as a positive process that can free people from the strictures and dysfunctions of growth economics and consumer culture. This is now apparent to many people around the world and is far more fundamental than a public relations campaign to paint a black sky blue. It is a necessary [process to provide a sense of hope and connection to fundamental human values expressed by every traditional culture throughout human history, among them, that the prusuit of materialism is a false god.
No doubt materialism without bounds, as expressed in modern society in unending growth and the development of consumer culture, is a false god; however, I am not sure that an awareness of this has always been present in every traditional culture. Holmgren here seems to betray a romantic view of the past, at odds with the ecological basis for his work, which is itself of course fundamentally materialistic. What seems more likely is the insights of anthropology and evolutionary psychology: that we have as a species a fundamental propensity towards getting more stuff, as is evidenced by the ready emergence in traditional societies of cargo cults after contact with the west.
This weakness is apparent in his assessment of the corresponding ideologies and belief systems that accompany the scenarios: he seems to equate secular humanism with the materialistic ideology of “Brown Tech” and suggests that these beliefs systems are inherently negative, giving rise to dysfunctional behaviours;
While the elites continue to be driven by a commitment to superrationalist beliefs, a sense of hollowness and lack of purpose characterizes the shrinking middle class, while fundamentalist religions and cults play a stronger role in the lives of the working and unemployed classes, partly through genuine reaction to the failures of modern humanism and partly manipulated by the elites to deflect anger and disenchantment.
While this may be very true, he compares this to a shift in values in “Green Tech”:
Civic culture strengthens where further transition toward nonmaterialistic society combines with the maturation of feminism and environmentalism, and a resurgence in indigenous and traditional cultural values.
It seems to me that there is a contradiction between “traditional values” -many of which may be parochial and overly conservative or reactionary – with post-modern feminist and environmental values; it is far from clear that they would be the same or even compatible.
Similarly, under “Earth Steward” Holmgren suggests that a “simplification in the material domain is seen as the opportunity for growth in the spiritual domain. There is a resurgence in leadership by women and a celebration of the feminine in nature and people”.
But what is the “spiritual” domain? This needs to be defined here becasue there is a vast range of possible interpretations. For the same reasons I have always had some difficulty with Holmgren’s domain of “Health and Spritual well-being” in the Permaculture Flower. I interpret it to mean “Health and Psychological/emotional well-being”. However, it is abundantly apparent that permaculture has become almost synonymous with New Age religion in many quarters, a reactionary and delusional trend that all permaculturalists should challenge strongly. Holmgren’s loose use of the word “spiritual” in this context, and his “celebration of the feminine” will inevitably be seen by many to sanctify pseudo-science and the worship of spirits and nebulous “energies”.
(Again “the feminine” and “feminine values” really needs to be defined: we are presumably not talking about the feminine values of Sex in the City; too often “the feminine” is associated with “the spiritual” in a quite meaningless way which I feel is rather patronizing to women.)
Here, Holmgren looses an opportunity to call for a celebration of secular humanism and rationalism- the most important legacy of the modern world, which will need to be protected less we fall back into a new dark age of superstition and delusion with energy descent.
Nor is it necessary to embody any kind of “earth spirituality” in order to foster more sustainable lifestyles- these should come of their own accord, naturally emerging from a scientific understanding of ecology and our place within it, combined with a simple sense of beauty and wonder at the natural world, unfettered by ideological presumptions.
There is a great danger within the environmental movement as a whole to replace the delusion of unending growth with the delusion of narcissistic spirituality, part of a wider failure to acknowledge the real gains of modernity through science.
For all this, Holmgren remains one of the most significant of contemporary thinkers, and Future Scenarios is an important contribution to peak oil literature, and one of the clearest assessments of the kind of world that awaits us.
Essential Reading on Population March 28, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Population, Renewable Energy , 5commentsThe Real Perils of Human Population Growth by David and Marcia Pimentel
The present world population of 6.7 billion is projected by the United Nations to increase to 9 billion and may rise to as many as 11 billion by 2050. Even if a worldwide policy of two children per couple (instead of the current 2.8 children) were agreed on tomorrow, the world population will continue to expand for about seventy years before stabilizing at about 13 billion people.
Book Review: The Long Descent December 11, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Overshoot, Peak Oil, Science and Rationaltiy, Tools and technology, book review, collapse, consciousness , 12comments
The Long Descent- A Users Guide to the End of the Industrial Age
John Michael Greer
New Society Publishers 2008
John Michael Greer has written a fascinating and engaging, but also contradictory and perplexing account of how he sees the industrial age ending.
His primary thesis is that collapse will not come as a sudden, abrupt End Of Days or Die Off scenario- one minute thriving bustling affluent society with the universe at its feet, the next a crumbling pile of rubble with nothing but wisps of smoke to hint of its former glory- but will follow a “catabolic” process of progressive disintegration, over possibly a couple of centuries. In Greer’s scenario, short periods of abrupt and sharp downturns- the beginning of which we are experiencing now- punctuate longer periods of relative stability. Like an organism that begins feeding on itself, society will collapse in a series of stepped-down stages as it becomes progressively unable to meet maintenance charges with income.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the chapter “Tools for the Transition” Greer has a most interesting discussion of the merits of the slide-rule over the pocket calculator, and explains why it is infinitely more suitable to a low-energy world:it is durable- a solid aluminum slde-rule could last nearly geological time-scales-, independent, dependable and perhaps most significant of all its use of transparent- a future archeologist would be able to work out exactly how to use it. I have never actually used a slide-rule, but this discussion has inspired me to get one, and even teach its use on permaculture courses as an example of durable technologies. There are many other insightful observations Greer makes in this chapter, including comments on salvage and organic agriculture, and what will endure into the post-collapse world.
What sets Greer’s book apart and make it really interesting is his focus on “The Stories we tell Ourselves”. He weaves his discussion of the Long descent around what he sees as two modern myths- the myth of unending progress and technological supremacy on the one hand, and imminent catastrophe and collapse on the other. Both are myths or stories that fail to see the much more likely outcome of catabolic collapse. (more…)
Future Scenarios May 26, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Powerdown , 1 comment so farThanks to Adam Grubb (Fenderson), founder of Energy Bulletin for sending me the link to David Holmgren’s new site Future Scenarios- Mapping the cultural implications of Peak Oil and Climate Change, which is launched today. You can read the press release here. The site is an important new resource developing the ideas of permaculture co-founder David Holmgren who has done more than anyone to articulate an ecological understanding for the human situation and promoting practical sustainable design solutions. In terms of bringing together a synthesis of ecological science, cultural anthropology, thermodynamics and sustainable design, Holmgren surely ranks as one of the great thinkers of the modern and post-modern world:
“Let us act as if we are part of nature’s striving for the next evolutionary way to creatively respond to the recurring cycles of energy ascent and descent that characterise human history and the more ancient history of Gaia, the living planet. Imagine that our decendants and our ancestors are watching us.”
The site contains a wealth of analyses and ideas to help understand the world we live in and prepare for a range of likely scenarios that we can see unfolding as the price of oil climbs and humanity passes the historical point of peak Energy.
See also Permaculture Principles
Monbiot on Population February 1, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Environment, Human Ecology, Overshoot, Peak Oil, Population , 8comments[Update: See John Feeney's excellent response to Monbiot here.]
A few people have pointed me to George Monbiot’s recent article on population in the Guardian. While it is welcome that Monbiot addresses the issue I wanted to reply because I found it really disappointing, failing to join the dots and in some ways misleading.
The main thrust of the article is that some environmentalists complain the issue of population is ignored- perhaps for political reasons- even though it is the “number one environmental problem” and Monbiot sets out to discuss whether this is in fact true. The basic issue in this debate is, can we really give out as it were about the large populations of the developing world when over-consumption in the West is in fact having a bigger environmental impact? (more…)
Back to Nature #5 Consciousness for Sustainabiltiy January 27, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Overshoot, Permaculture, Science and Rationaltiy , 4commentsConsciousness for Sustainability
The discussion of the “Back to Nature” series has been looking at developmental models of human behaviour, with a view to seeing what light, of any, such approaches can shed on the perplexing question:
Why do so many people seem to be in denial, or to be unable to grasp the reality that the human ecological footprint has far exceeded the carrying capacity of the earth, and that energy depletion, climate change and general environmental degradation will inevitably result in the end of our current way of life?
In this concluding part of the series we will have a look at some of the general implications of this model for achieving sustainabiltiy and try to find an answer to the question: Can we really go Back to nature? (more…)
Back to Nature #4: The Trouble with Green January 13, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Geo-politics, Human Ecology, Science and Rationaltiy , 2commentsThe Trouble with Green
“Here’s the point: you look out there, at the environment, and with your senses you can plainly see the wonderful, glorious, empirical world of nature. And of course you want to help save nature from destruction, not only because nature is beautiful, but because your own existence depends in many ways on a healthy environment. So you say, stop doing those things that are destroying nature! Stop polluting the oceans, stop dumping toxic wastes into our rivers, stop using fluorocarbons that create an ozone hole, stop burning carbon fuels that pollute the atmosphere and cause global warming- instead let us live in accord with nature, let us adopt energy-efficient production, use renewable resources, practice natural capitalism’ and in all ways honour Gaia. “Congratulations, you have just bought into the world of Flatland. And it is flatland that above all else is destroying Gaia. And thus your very efforts to save Gaia are destroying Gaia”.
-Ken Wilber, Boomeritis (2002)
Last week we looked at the story of the cultural and psychological evolution of human consciousness through the Spiral Dynamics model.
We stopped at Green- the environmental stage that has emerged as a significant cultural form in the last few decades in many western countries, influencing politics, social movements and heralding a New Age of transformation and care for all people and All Beings.
Green however, although representing much advancement in terms of ecological and social awareness over the previous stages of Blue and Orange, has failed to recognize that these earlier stages are necessary for the emergence of green in the first place. The Green belief of the dawning of a new Age of renewal and Global Consciousness cannot be realized because to reach Green requires a developmental process that must include and value all the stages and all their values in some way. (more…)
Back to Nature #3 The Evolution of Consciousness January 6, 2008
Posted by Graham in : Geo-politics, Human Ecology, Science and Rationaltiy , 1 comment so farThe Evolution of Consciousness
Part 1
In “Back to nature #2” I explored Deep Ecology and the idea that the response to the environmental problems we face should be to in some way “go back to nature” because “nature knows best”. I questioned this idea on the grounds that some versions imply an anthropocentric stance, projecting human feelings, consciousness and motives onto the non-human world in a way that seems more intended to fulfill our own psychological needs rather than actually healing our relationship with nature.
In this post, I want to explore an alternative: that rather than try to return to an earlier form of consciousness, that our consciousness itself – our way of understanding and relating to the world- is evolving.
What follows should be seen as a Story of the Evolution of consciousness. It is based on one particular model that has become popular in recent years- Spiral Dynamics, which I first came across in the writings of Ken Wilber. I do not endorse either the theory as a whole nor Wilber in particular, but see it as a tool that I think is worth consideration for anyone interested in the question: “Why aren’t more people interested in sustainabilty and protection of the environment?”
I am freely interpreting this version to make a story and adapting it . I am not claiming to attempt rigorous accuracy, but the basic idea does I feel have many different kinds of evidence to support it. The important thing is the implications such a view would have for seeking solutions to current global problems, and considering how it differs from the “return to nature” story.
In Spiral Dynamics, cultural “memes” or stage of development are colour coded, so I am referring to each stage with the same colours.
Enjoy reading it and make of it what you will. (more…)
