Jesse Lemieux, now living on Denman Island is a Permaculture educator who has been engaged in Permaculture principles around the globe. His presentation at the Building Sustainable Communities Conference was a primer on Permacultur, the reasons and means to make a difference in sustainable design of human settlemtn and the relationship to the environment and resources..
Permaculture is a set of Patterns for Sustainability
The background –
Peak Oil Impacts
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1 barrel of oil 25,000 man hours – 4 cents an hour of labour
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4 – 6% decline in oil production
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The majority of people in the world will never have the opportunity of wasting energy in the way we have.
Climate Change and Peak Oil
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It is the “destructive” use of fossil fuels which is depleting them and exacerbating climate change and pollution.
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Internal combustion engine is only 25% efficient
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Large-scale collapse of global ecosystem, fisheries, deforestation, urban sprawl.
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Eco-systems and their services have been replaced by a finite and decreasing supply of fossil fuel energy.
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Jesse mentioned Transition Towns as a great concept that accurately links the relationship between Climate Change and Peak Oil.
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Possible Futures
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Rapid Depletion
– Collapse, Lean Economy
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Slow Depletion
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Techno-Markets
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Burnouts
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Business as Usual – Linear Model
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Energy + Raw Materials ? Industrial Processing ? Consumers (how about Citizens?) ?
Waste Streams =
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Increased GHG
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Pollution
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Wasted Energy
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Decreased Health
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Chaos
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Pollution is nothing more than energy that has not been put to productive use
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Algae Blooms
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Permaculture aims to put all the energy to productive use and reduce the bumps (highs and lows)
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The Permaculture case – The Eco-System
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Sun, Wind, Rain + Soil Mineral Resources ? Biological Interconnectedness ? Sink of CO2 & Mineral Leaching =
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Carbon stored as biomass
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Increased Diversity
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Increased Organizational Complexity
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Foirest Growth
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Soil Building
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Resources Increase
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Every element must serve multiple functions, every function in our system must be achieved by multiple elements.
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Redundancy
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Resilience
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Feedback loops
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Predator / Prey Species relationship
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How does Permaculture Approach Design?
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We must define our values
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It is not enough to sit back passively and observe what is going wrong
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“What do we want?”
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Integrated human habitats
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Care for the earth
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Care for people
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Returns of surplus
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Positivism and co-operation
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Design Approach
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in harmony with the local climate and landscape
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use a multi-disciplinary bio-social approach
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Assemble all components to form connections (energy production)
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goal is to produce a self-managing design which builds soil ands grows forests.
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Any bylaw is a deficiency in design
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Practical Edge
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Education
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Empowerment and Enthusiasm
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Intra courses in Langley
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Community Development
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Trading labour for a place to live
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moving away from the linear system and into an ethical system.
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Design
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how do we take the money and resources we have and use them to the best of our resources.
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Water is life, Life is Water
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no matter what scale, water is the first point in design, (home through to city scale)
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Access follows
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Structures follow
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Energy
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1st Elements that produce energy and resources
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2nd Elements that save energy
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3rd Elements that consume energy
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Avoid Type 1 Errors (house on a ridge example – not water collection etc). Anything that requires a continuous input of energy over it’s lifetime is a type I error.
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Establishment and Maintenance of Systems
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on paper first
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set priorities based on ethics and economic reality
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locate and trade for components locally or cheaply
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expand on information
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information is only a resource if it is acted upon.
Through active and ethical approach we can be part of the change – the change required is massive, active groups and individuals making small scale changes.
