[GregT]

Welcome aboard.

Thanks careinke.

Permaculture is exactly what our long term goal is. We've done plenty of reading and planning, but have no illusions that it will happen overnight. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We have community support, and a great knowledge base to draw from. It is a meaningful challenge that we are both looking forward to.

[jedrider]

Yes but with a crucial difference I do not think that the Queen Bee does things that will endanger entire hive and all the bees. Then again I do not know much about Queen Bee.

The Kardashians are our Queen Bees and the worker bees seem to be following them. We must have the wrong program for our Queen Bees. I think our downfall started when makeup was discovered.

[Newfie]

As to carbon negative, we also have 168 acres of forest we are sitting on. It is a bug out spot, a restful spot for us, an investment perhaps, and a way to off set some of our carbon footprint.

Now if everyone else did the same we would be in a lot better shape.

[GregT]

As to carbon negative, we also have 168 acres of forest we are sitting on. It is a bug out spot, a restful spot for us, an investment perhaps, and a way to off set some of our carbon footprint.

Now if everyone else did the same we would be in a lot better shape.

Considering the fact that there are over 7 billion people on the planet Earth, with only 6.8 billion acres of arable land, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out that we have already passed the LTG.

The only thing holding this mess together, is millions of years worth of stored solar energy in the form of fossil fuels. The same fossil fuels that we cannot continue to burn if we have any hope of averting a catastrophic runaway greenhouse event.

Yet many people are still fixated entirely on economic growth. You just can't make this stuff up.

[Newfie]

And this morning, listening to NPR, they were pushing an interview with some knit wit on how to feed our ever expanding population. Some book called "After Plenty" or some such thing.

The continuous growth myth starts with our population.

But it is easy to understand. For millions of years we were a marginal species on the edge of extinction. We breed at every opportunity. We still do, and have become our own greatest threat of extinction.

[ennui2]

As you progress all those people who think you are crazy, will taste your strawberries, eat your eggs, and be amazed at the difference in quality. Then you can say, "I can help you grow your own." Next thing you know, they have progressed beyond you, and become your mentor. Rinse and repeat....

Sorry, but this is a fail. In my yuppie town I helped a family set up a victory garden only to overhear them complain about lobster-tails while keeping their unoccupied home cooled during the summer. They were doing the gardening stuff purely as a soccer-mom status symbol. And because of the heavy shade, the total percentage of calories grown in that patch was miniscule.

For most people, if they get a good enough job, they can just buy organic strawberries at Whole Foods and not have to get any dirt under their fingernails.

Soft-sells like "the food tastes better!" doesn't accomplish anything.

People carve out the best lifestyle they can based on their earning potential. For most in the industrialized world, their time is way too valuable to be out in the fields rather behind a desk.

[GregT]

Sorry, but this is a fail. In my yuppie town I helped a family set up a victory garden only to overhear them complain about lobster-tails while keeping their unoccupied home cooled during the summer. They were doing the gardening stuff purely as a soccer-mom status symbol. And because of the heavy shade, the total percentage of calories grown in that patch was miniscule.

For most people, if they get a good enough job, they can just buy organic strawberries at Whole Foods and not have to get any dirt under their fingernails.

Soft-sells like "the food tastes better!" doesn't accomplish anything.

People carve out the best lifestyle they can based on their earning potential. For most in the industrialized world, their time is way too valuable to be out in the fields rather behind a desk.

Honestly ennui2?

There are so many "fails" in your above post it is bordering on silliness.

"my yuppie town" = fail

"keeping their unoccupied home cooled during the summer" = fail

"gardening stuff purely as a soccer-mom status symbol" = fail

"because of the heavy shade, the total percentage of calories grown in that patch was minuscule" = fail

"a good enough job, they can just buy organic strawberries" = fail

"not have to get any dirt under their fingernails" = fail

"the best lifestyle they can based on their earning potential" = fail

"in the industrialized world, their time is way too valuable to be out in the fields rather behind a desk" = fail

From the above I can understand why you are so concerned with the limits to growth. It sounds like you have never lived life, beyond the city walls and office cubicles. I know many "yuppies" that consider gardening to be a form of therapy, to help them wind down from the stresses of the 'rat race'. I myself have gardened for most of my adult life, something that has already been passed on to many of my friends, after they have experienced what real produce actually tastes like. The same can be said for meat, eggs, or dairy products. There is no comparison what-so-ever between what is available in the stores, and what comes from your own garden/farm. And if you honestly believe that the best lifestyle is spent in an office, behind a desk, I have to say that I really feel sorry for you.

[ennui2]

From the above I can understand why you are so concerned with the limits to growth. It sounds like you have never lived life, beyond the city walls and office cubicles.

Would you like me to list all of the ways hicks in the country who supposedly are so close to nature do their part to destroy the environment as well? How many right-wing hicks even believe AGW is real? Where do you think all those algae blooms come from? These cultural problems are just two sides of the same coin.

[GregT]

Would you like me to list all of the ways hicks in the country who supposedly are so close to nature do their part to destroy the environment as well? How many right-wing hicks even believe AGW is real? Where do you think all those algae blooms come from? These cultural problems are just two sides of the same coin.

I don't think this is a competition over who the most stupid groups of people are ennui2. There are plenty to go around. I was merely trying to point out that growing food is not beneath any of us, and that spending the better part of ones life in an office building is not exactly what I would personally consider to be living ones life to it's fullest.

AGW is not the result of a bunch of hicks living in shacks somewhere out in the middle of the bush. It is the result of modern industrial 'civilization'. It is the result of consumption, and it is the result of a culture that has forgotten about the natural environment. While modern industrial society certainly is not sustainable, permaculture might be. It is the only hope that we have left, if we have any hope left at all.

The concepts of 'earning potentials' and 'good enough jobs', are perpetuating exponential growth. Exactly what we can't continue to do, if we expect our societies and our species to be sustainable.

[ennui2]

spending the better part of ones life in an office building is not exactly what I would personally consider to be living ones life to it's fullest.

The problem is once you think you know what's good for other people, and you try to change them, you're setting yourself up to a world of disappointment, because people, by and large, are set in their ways and don't want to change. You tell them another way of life is better and they feel like you're judging them.

Everyone has their own notion of what constitutes living ones life to the fullest. For my neighbor, pursuing the perfect lobster tails and keeping their home at an exact 68' when unoccupied is part of living life to its fullest. To those hicks, it's using an obscene amount of NPK that pollutes the waterways and killing bees and who knows what more with pesticides. I can no more change their attitudes about that than I can change their religion.

[GregT]

The problem is once you think you know what's good for other people, and you try to change them, you're setting yourself up to a world of disappointment, because people, by and large, are set in their ways and don't want to change.

The problem is ennui2, once you figure out that people will not survive without a healthy natural environment, you start being more concerned with sustainability, than what people like. We either change our ways, or we are done for as a species. You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. Some things ARE worth fighting for.

[ennui2]

You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution. Some things ARE worth fighting for.

Most cynics are just disillusioned idealists, me included. I await your success stories of converting the yokels to ecological thinking, Greg. It's worth a shot if you've got the stomach for it, but I think you're setting yourself up for a big disappointment in the end.

[Graeme]

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation’s collapse by 2040

New scientific models supported by the British government’s Foreign Office show that if we don’t change course, in less than three decades industrial civilisation will essentially collapse due to catastrophic food shortages, triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis, and political instability.

Before you panic, the good news is that the scientists behind the model don’t believe it’s predictive. The model does not account for the reality that people will react to escalating crises by changing behavior and policies.

But even so, it’s a sobering wake-up call, which shows that business-as-usual guarantees the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it: our current way of life is not sustainable.

The new models are being developed at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), through a project called the ‘Global Resource Observatory’ (GRO).

medium

[Newfie]

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation’s collapse by 2040

The model does not account for the reality that people will react to escalating crises by changing behavior and policies.

medium

"Reality", what reality? It can't be a reality if it's still lol in the future. It's a POTENTIAL, perhaps likely, or perhaps unlikely.

F'ing people can't think critically anymore.

[dolanbaker]

It's important the remember that people did react to the US oil peak of the early 1970s, consider what our consumption of oil would be now if nothing had changed and we still had uninsulated houses with oil fired boilers, cars that did 15mpg on a good day, oil fired electricity generating stations and the list goes on...

The report does say " industrial civilisation ", so it isn't too gloomy but it does reinforce the fact that the correct reaction will avoid a catastrophe.

[ennui2]

2040 is right around the corner. If we're really going to avoid collapse, we'd have to see evidence of mitigation long before-hand. If we don't, then I'd say some form of collapse would be unavoidable.

This is all part and parcel of the need to never close off avenues of hope even when the statistical odds of that hope dwindle.

[Newfie]

It's important the remember that people did react to the US oil peak of the early 1970s, consider what our consumption of oil would be now if nothing had changed and we still had uninsulated houses with oil fired boilers, cars that did 15mpg on a good day, oil fired electricity generating stations and the list goes on...

The report does say " industrial civilisation ", so it isn't too gloomy but it does reinforce the fact that the correct reaction will avoid a catastrophe.

Well, is t that what LTG has been saying loo these 40 years?

What is the reality of the correction so far?

See what I'm saying?

[onlooker]

Exactly right what Newf states. For the past 25 years or so we have had strong indications of climate change, of mounting environmental problems, of the coming of peak oil, of a unsustainable economic model. We have also had Cassandras coming out warning. Okay, so where is the appropriate reaction. I am not saying it is too late, I am saying it is getting closer and closer to it.

[dolanbaker]

Here is a simple example of out throwaway society and how some are rebelling against it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02v58rd
To end the dominance of throwaway fashion on the high street, we must 'go back to the times of our parent's era when we expected to pay a reasonable price for clothes,' says fashion retail commentator Karen Kay. 'We've been swept away by the pile them high, sell them cheap cycle', she said. Tom Cridland makes sweatshirts which he guarantees for 30 years. Regarding Princess Anne's outfit at Ascot this week, which she previously wore over 30 years ago, he said, 'we need to promote the idea that wearing the same outfit again and again isn't a crime'.
To end the dominance of throwaway fashion on the high street, we must 'go back to the times of our parent's era when we expected to pay a reasonable price for clothes,' says fashion retail commentator Karen Kay. 'We've been swept away by the pile them high, sell them cheap cycle', she said. Tom Cridland makes sweatshirts which he guarantees for 30 years. Regarding Princess Anne's outfit at Ascot this week, which she previously wore over 30 years ago, he said, 'we need to promote the idea that wearing the same outfit again and again isn't a crime'.

The English royalty have an unusual attention to the "want not waste not" mentality that was drummed everyone in the UK during world war II, but it has its roots in the Victorian mentality that everything was valuable and shouldn’t be wasted.

It is this type of thinking that needs to be encouraged to enable life (as we know it) to continue, while at the same time rebelling against the "use it up and throw it away" society that is currently being promoted!

Resources have to become valuable and not wasted again!

[Newfie]

My Wife recently read a book which was making the case that 19th century industrialist were known for thrift and economy, think Scrroge or Henry Ford. But later industrialist, starting with Oldsmobile, embraced consumerism and planned obsolescence. Supposedly Olds promoted the yearly style changes to encourage folks to buy a new car every year. I suppose the whole GM Progression through the brands was an extension of that, but also stating your place in society with some conspicuous consumption thrown in.

Can't recall the correct name, Looking for America or Finding America, it's on the boat so not at hand.

Perhaps we could say that thrift went out with the Edwardian era?

P.S. found a related link, 1927, so that makes it a bit post Edwardian.

http://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histori ... el-change/