Full+Introduction

toc ** Introduction ** ** Civilization is going to end, but it is ok ** (see similar content in short draft andin very short in Permaculture Revolution Article)

Whether it is a question of survival or long run sustainability, humanity face anyway unprecedented crisis that challenges ideas at the very basis of society life organization. To pick only three crisis, financial credit-debt crisis, global warming climate change and peak oil are expected to bear an explosive situation with huge economic, ecological, social and human losses. We propose to seriously overcome them simply with permaculture, an approach to design a system as a whole. This simple regenerative solution for a complex problem is a hope in time of change, that scale up from individual to community and large territories. "We can solve all world problems in a garden", now. You can do it as well, start permaculture and make your part of the change, just do it !

=**Problem : Relations is what make atoms a world**=

**//The problem//**
The root cause for current world problems is in fact one systemic disorder, a flaw or failure by design to take in consideration flows and interactions (e.g. money, energy, life) among world components (e.g. businesses, plants, people, ecosystems). Very often we simply build a system based on "an infinite growth on limited resources", a logical contradiction in terms, a system living beyond its means and digging its own grave.

**//Global warming//**
Global warming is an effect of depleting natural resources and global mismanagement of carbon flow. The flow of carbon continuously released from burning fossil fuels and deforestation is a flaw in our society design so critical that is now threatening global food security and millions of lives : "The rising average temperature of [|Earth] 's [|atmosphere] and oceans and its continuation is caused by increasing concentrations of [|greenhouse gases] produced by human activities such as [|deforestation] and the burning of [|fossil fuels] [|[3]][|[4]][|[5]][|[6]]. An increase in global temperature will cause [|sea levels to rise], change in the amount and pattern of [|precipitation] , a probable expansion of [|subtropical] [|deserts]. [|[11]], more frequent [|extreme-weather] events including [|heat waves] , droughts and heavy rainfall, [|species extinctions] due to shifting temperature regimes, and changes in [|crop yields]. Hence, the [|ecosystem services] upon which human livelihoods depend would not be preserved. [|[13]]".

//**Agriculture**//
Agriculture is a more precise example leaving beyond land means and depleting its fertility. Based on a fundamental misunderstanding of nutrient flow, i t fail to account for the connection between fertility and soil ecosystem. Toby Hemenway explains the extractive nature of traditional and then industrial agriculture is bound by design to be ecologically degenerative. To increase production, agriculture consist in cultivating one species at a time, plowing and fertilizing soil. This practice destroys soil biology and erode topsoil, suppressing the source of their land fertility. Farmers are pressured, by poverty, markets and short term profit, to force the extraction of nutrients, and buy more fertilizers to replace the loss of fertility, at the expense of making themselves progressively poorer. This spiral continues inexorably until fertility is over and the land becomes unproductive, depriving community from a valuable resource, which lead farmers to abandon this land and move to a more productive land. This is going for more than 3000 years now, and only accelerated with the development of energy intensive agriculture, irrigation, and the abandonment of traditional soil conservation practices.

As for a land, in the large scale, this system is bound by design to collapse when remaining productive lands are not sufficient anymore to cover people needs. Riots of hunger, in the 21Ist century, in countries such as Morocco and Egypt, remind that remaining fertile lands are coming to an end, especially since pressured for the production of energy.

**//Energy//**
Energy production and consumption is another example of the mess we've done with energy flows. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen explains that "thermodynamics demonstrates that natural resources are depleted irrevocably". A system addicted to cheap resources cannot survive, when these resources are depleted or become too rare to obtain.

On earth, there is only two sources of energy: the sun and the earth. Sun energy is stored by plants in their tissue with photosynthesis, that all other living creature need to survive. Earth energy is transferred through pressure and heat to underground liquids (e.g. water), that can show on the surface as thermal springs, and that we can exploit to produce energy and heat. Combined together during 300 million years, sun power stored sedimented photosynthetic plants is transformed by earth energy into large petroleum or oil reserves, a non-renewable energetic concentrate. This oil boosted the expansion of global economy during the 20th century, but consumption is so high today that production is already insufficient (oil price of 2012 is x6 its price of 1999) and not really expected to rise enough in the future.

For David Holmgren, "the flows of energy production and consumption are insane. Seven years of solar power are consumed everyday in oil." "Now, our economy, agriculture, financial system, technology, transportation, and culture are completely dependent on cheap oil and energy for our food, economic growth, and social stability. We have “stolen” a huge amount of entropy from the planetary environment to build and run our highly interdependent and computer coordinated economic system and to feed our oversized population. Cheap free energy created and has so far sustained this complexity but entropy stands waiting for cheap energy to disappear. Therefore, moving toward a society that is not dependent on fossil fuels is seen as essential to avoiding societal collapse when non-renewable resources are depleted." But, "we'll have a serious energy descent", to learn to live again with a "solar budget".

// price rise unaffordable, economic production crisis before social crisis

//**Financial**//
Economic and financial system is another illustration of how wrongly can be flows of energy, money and debt. Our economic system always require growth to survive, but is totally dependent on limited resources of fossil fuel. "The unfortunate effect of the credit explosion and collapse since 2007 is that we now face a serious depression and yet desperately need economic growth and credit to invest in infrastructure maintenance, to prepare for Peak Oil mitigation, and to transition to a renewable energy infrastructure and local manufacturing." Peak negative perspective on oil production make us look for new ways of growth. But why does it require growth. A good answer can be find in the money issuing system. Money is a promise of value. Today it is guaranteed by the economy itself, and by gold or other valuable item in the past. Money is a very important mean of exchange, but bankers found ways to use the money system for their single profit. Banks are taking a tax on the use of money, and are very creative to find ways of increasing it without anyone notice, but that devaluate money value and requires from us to always produce more and work harder to get the same result than before.

First, all money is created today in private banks through debts to individuals or states. These private banks borrow to central banks, themselves owned by private banks, hence they borrow to themselves. Second, creating money through debt is the way banks earn money, which foster them to find ways to maximize debt and eventually get around limitation such as fractional reserves. Derivatives are very useful in this case as a way to externalize the risk and debt from the bank and continue to produce more new risky debt. The economy is drown under the massive creation of legally "counterfeited" debt, which in 2007 massively devaluated the economy itself. Of course, banks found ways to minimize losses by being bailed by states, which in practice transferred the debt to tax payer.

Third, the sacred principles of "independence of central bank" and state borrowing from private banks, freed economy from politicians control, to give it as hostage to bankers. We exchanged small crisis and shortages of money from political cause, we knew before these principles, with huge crisis and shortage of money for financial causes. More precisely, all states are today in debt and pay to private banks annual expenses equivalent to revenue tax, and higher than education or health. With debt crisis in Europe today, this financial power turn into a political power, able to control nations, but this system is in fact very old in history. It is easy to understand at this stage how harmful is any use of this type of money to self and other people, e.g. shopping or paying taxes.

 =**Current Limitations : The theory behind**=

The logic of flows and interactions between energy, food and exchanges is chaotic, and thus inherently hard to take into consideration, but failing to do so, no surprise that we witness all types of unforeseen global consequences, in butterfly effect series.

global warming agriculture Energy Finance

"The global economy represents an organization of capital, resources, and labor on an unprecedented size and complexity scale. From an entropy perspective alone, the complexity of our global economy makes our situation regarding declining free energy very precarious. Unfortunately, a serious problem with complex systems is that they are inherently prone to instability, nonlinear behavior, and positive feedback processes where small changes in a subsystem's behavior can produce huge unexpected changes or collapse of the entire system, described in the butterfly effect about the weather. (…) In the complex infrastructure of our economy, positive feedback can amplify minor problems in small subsystems into major market meltdowns, painful job losses and recession, electrical blackouts, or fuel and food shortages. This instability is especially prominent when subsystems within the complex system lack reserve capacity and resilience which leads to what are called cascading system failures (Heinberg 2005, Kunstler 2006). This instability applies to our current physical infrastructure, food production, and financial trading markets. Now, even minor interruptions in our complex global supply chain, credit markets, or energy infrastructure ripple in unpredictable ways through interlinked business segments all over the world.

Fortunately, ecology and non-linear mathematics revealed some of the logic behind physical world chaos and life complexity. Hopefully, with permaculture, this logic of complexity is put into design and practice, for the benefit of all.

//Transition Network supports community-led responses// //to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy,// //building resilience and happiness// not taking the responsibility of the resultdependency //gibson// Life is not all survival in a stable ecosystem.//

 =**Permaculture as the art of building with relations**= Permaculture turn the problem of building with complexity and interactions into a solution. Permaculture is a method for building food production and human living systems that are self-sustainable, relocalized and replicable, recycle themselves in a positive spiral of growing fertility. Permaculture extends concepts from agroforestry, agro-ecology and other organic farming, such as polyculture, multi-cropping, companionship, but also integrate knowledge from other areas, such as water harvesting, green building and energy generation. Permaculture designs mimic natural ecosystems and combine elements into their best dynamics where nothing is waste and everything is a resource. By minimizing waste, human labor and energy input, and maximizing final design synergy and positive outcomes, permaculture design result in extremely complex systems that produce a high density of food and materials with minimal input.

//effective to educate people to plan for themselves than to pay "planners" unrelated to people conditions// not effective to pay "planners" unrelated to people conditions, is to educate people to plan for themselves // He suggest that with permaculture we can convert to a horticultural society flat and regenerative.

 =**Benefits : Save you, and save us, but not the world link you know it**= Permaculture logic of multiplying mutually beneficial relations extend to humans, and to a "better cultivation" of humans, rather than plants, as a solid ground for a future permanent culture. Permaculture aim to free people from "job and money for food, home and energy" logic, and invite then instead to become self-employed producer and self-reliant consumer. Permaculture systems are not only productive with minimal work, but they benefit to our health, social and ecological environment, that we also see as political benefits. This simple approach solves huge economic, ecologic and energetic problems we face today, and is actually doing it all around the world the same instant I am writing these lines and you reading them, "the change" has already started.

//maximize happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means—sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community//

//First by designing well, and then observing system evolution, we gain contemplative and celebratory time. In celebration we can incorporate the myths and skills that are important to future generations. In contemplation we find more refined, profound, or subtle insights into good procedures (Fukuoka). To implement and manage a constructed or natural system inevitably leads to a more **revalationary** lifestyle, a more satisfied and contented life, and a sense of one’s place in nature.// //To become a philosopher is not necessarily to be of benefit to the natural world, but to become a designer or gardener is to directly benefit nature or society, and one will inevitably generate natural ethics and philosophies. To become a good designer is to be in search of an understanding of nature, and to be content with the search itself. It is to design by natural example, becoming aware, taking notes, sitting a long time in one place, watching the wind behave and the trees respond, thrusting your hand into the soil to feel it for moisture (it is always more moist on the shade side of tussock grasses, for example), and becoming sensitive to the processes and sights about you.//

reducing consumption does not require individual martyring and a decrease in well-being //internet permaculture

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