Good morning folks.
The video for today is from Ted Talks, an online video collection from annual lecture events that I highly recommend. Like almost all of the videos there, the lecturer in this one took some of our most troubling issues and looked at them with fresh, intelligent eyes and reviewed an active solution. How we obtain and process vital resources as a species – our energy supply, our food supply, our water supply – is unsustainable on almost every level. Thankfully, there are alternatives, and they are better every way.
This video is about a fish farm, but it is also about how we must approach our basic resource challenges in this new century. Study nature. Emulate nature. Create local solutions, not mega-corporate solutions. Produce smart, grow smart, and you can enjoy a mighty tasty fish.
Remember everyone, buy local or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
Good morning folks.
I was beginning to think that I knew a lot about sustainability, but Introduction To Permaculture opened a whole new world for me. More than anything, it deepened my appreciation for the quantum intelligence of nature.
For a design professional who has studied and worked hard to learn as much as possible so that my designs would have depth, it is very humbling to learn about Permaculture, because I realize that compared to nature, all of my clever little ideas are nothing. The beauty of permaculture as a method for developing homesteads and communities is that it works in line with the natural order, not against it. It takes all of the elements of traditional agriculture – annuals, perennials, vegetables, fruits, trees, livestock and aquaculture – and arranges these these elements so they are interacting with each other to maximum effect. The book is not just for farm owners though. It is for anyone with any land, even apartment dwellers, who wants to make the most of their space in an organic, sustainable fashion.
Maybe the most attractive part of permaculture is the relative ease by which a developed system can be managed. While there is intensive energy and labor involved in creating a permaculture landscape, the end result can be a fully self sustaining food forest that provides for you, your family and some extra for the market. Now that is old school, and that is the way it should be done.
The author Bill Mollison first developed permaculture ideas in the late 60’s. The movement now has an institute devoted to its study, several books and many case studies. I can truly say that I have no idea why this planet is not following these principles already. Permaculture solves so many problems at once, not the least of which is how to make money. The end of the book provides some great ideas for making money through what is produced on your land.
Introduction To Permaculture is a great idea book, and I highly recommend it for everyone who is interested in sustainability.
Remember everyone, buy local or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
Good morning folks.
Just when you think you have figured out sustainability, a whole new layer of information unfolds before and throws everything you think you knew before to the curb.
This is how I feel when I research Permaculture. The whole concept is really what sustainability is supposed to be. I am still in the research phase with this one, and I will continue on the path that I have already started, but I can already tell that permaculture techniques and principles are going to play a major role in my work in the near future.
This video is a quickee about a permaculture garden in Washington state. Hope you enjoy.
Remember, buy local, or grow it yourself everybody!
Love to all,
Millard
Good morning folks.
Permaculture may be the ultimate sustainable strategy. In this video permaculture consultant, designer and teacher Geoff Lawton tells an amazing story of establishing thriving agriculture in the middle of the desert near the Dead Sea in Jordan.
When human beings use techniques that are in line with nature, miracles can happen. Bringing green back to the desert, and making what was once uninhabitable thriving, has the possibility of solving so many of our problems.
Remember, buy local, or grow it yourself everybody!
Love to all,
Millard
Good afternoon folks.
It is hard to know where to begin with Anastasia. The book is a very fun read, but the central question throughout is: Is Anastasia real?
The Ringing Cedars series consists of nine books written by a Russian businessman. The series documents his encounters with a very unique and gifted girl in a remote forested area of Russia. What the businessman, Vladimir Megre, discovers is that the stunningly beautiful Anastasia was raised in the woods, and is able to communicate with and issue orders to animals. This is only the beginning. Anastasia is exceptionally intelligent, and despite having been raised in such an isolated Siberian location, has very informed and thoughtful opinions on our modern world. In addition to being a stone cold fox, Anastasia does not not wear clothes very much, and never sits down to eat proper meals, but snacks throughout the day on berries or nuts brought to her by her animal minions.
Strange? Yes. Unbelievable? Maybe, but I don’t really care. What I care about most is if there is any usable information there that can contribute to a more sustainable human species.
Now I have to admit something here. I have always been drawn to the strange and fantastical stories. I love how these stories stretch your horizons and ask you go against the grain of common wisdom. Frankly common wisdom is too common sometimes. As I have gotten older my attraction to stories like this for entertainment’s sake has not diminished, but I have seen weird before. I have been there and done that. What I want to know is what I can take away from it. The translator describes the series as a cross between Star Wars and the Bible, so what are the profound nuggets we can take away from The Word According To Yoda?
I believe there are many. More than anything else Anastasia shows us what we can become once we free ourselves from ourselves. I am fully convinced that this is the insane asylum of the galaxy, and the doctors have pretty much let the patients run wild to cure themselves, or not. As a species we are struggling with all of our might to do it, but we still think it is an acceptable plan to get dressed in funny green outfits and go and kill total strangers. We still allow our dreams to die inside of us while we work in boring jobs in boring corporations because everyone else is doing the same thing. If anything Anastasia’s story highlights these facts by sheer contrast.
It may be stretch to think that going to the nearest forest, shucking your clothes and engaging in a telepathic conversation with the first squirrel is a recipe of happiness for most of us, but I do not think that is the moral of this story.
We live on a living being, Earth, who has provided us with everything we have. Everything. This incredible planet has sublime and breathtaking life systems we are only beginning to comprehend. Our technological gizmos are toys by comparison. When our creativity and inventiveness work in line with these systems, we touch infinity, but when we ignore nature we tend to run into a few snags, like for instance being strapped to a dirty, messy, polluting, inefficient, antiquated energy delivery system, or cataclysmic wars to control aforementioned antiquated energy system. (For you chickees and daddy-o’s who are not in the loop, Hitler invaded Russia to get to the Caucasus Oil fields. Rommel’s North Africa campaign? Two pronged assault, baby. Japan’s entire war strategy in WWII centered on the Dutch controlled oil fields in Indonesia. I could go on, but you get the picture. We suck.)
This book was written in Russian, and has inspired millions of Russians to to leave the city and establish eco-villages in the Motherland’s vast hinterland. Small, private gardens account for 54% of the nation’s agricultural output, and this is on 7% of the total land used agricultural area. Food independence is efficient and very possible, and as I stated in my square foot gardening review, I think it is the greenest thing you can do.
One of the more interesting passages relays that seeds can be charged to restore health and taste fantastic to a particular human if that human places the seeds in his mouth for at least nine minutes. I do not know if this has any validity, but I will in a few months. I planted my veggies yesterday, and darned if I didn’t give every one of those seeds a saliva soaking. Like I said before, I don’t care if it’s weird. I just care if it works.
The mystery of whether Anastasia is real or not enhances the allure of the book, but it is ultimately an aside. As fact or fiction, Anastasia is a valid and timely call for all of us to detach ourselves from the corporate teat, reconnect with the rhythms of nature and enjoy self sufficiency.
Good afternoon folks.
I am very busy with integrating facebook with this blog and doing internal upgrades here, but I wanted to share with you one of the many fantastic proposed high rise sustainable projects. Mark my words: this type of project is going to be the norm very soon. Cities and buildings must become producers, not just consumers. My latest research has indicated to me that traditional horizontal monocrop farming is not sustainable. Ecosystems thrive on diverse plant species interwoven together, as anyone who is familiar with permaculture will know.
I foresee high-rise downtown condos with entire floors dedicated to hydroponic agriculture, solar and wind energy generation, and animal husbandry. That is right. You will see pigs and chickens in high rises in a few years.
Remember to take a look at the first section of the book draft I am working, Sustainability: The Big Picture.
Love to all,
Millard
