Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Permaculture One

I was looking through Permaculture One the other day at a friend's house. It was written in 1978 (I think) and was essentially the thesis that came from David Holmgren (student) working with Bill Mollison (mentor/tutor).

It is Permaculture's first book.

In about the second paragraph there is a mention about how this concept is to prepare for our 'fast-depleting energy'.

Way back then, the warnings were there to prepare for a decline in energy production - very few listened.

I'll be interested in seeing how the current oil/energy crisis will affect the popularity of permaculture.

Will we have groups forming everywhere like mushrooms?

Will there be a huge increase in demand for permaculture skills?

Will there be a huge rise in the number of people doing PDCs?

Will we see a weekly tv show called 'Permablitz' where people have their backyards made over into food producing cornucopias?

I'll wait and watch from the vegie patch me thinks!

1 comment:

Geoff said...

Hi Sonya,

I've been reading a few self-sufficiency/homesteading type books from the late 60's and 70's recently, and all of them have made explicit mention of the energy crisis (amongst others).

As a young tending to midage fellow I find it amazing that as we grew up through the 80's there was really no mention of these crises that seemed so apparent during the earlier times, they weren't mentioned in school, nor by parents or on the news. It was sort of like a cultural amnesia had taken hold on the 1st January 1990 with regards to the energy crisis.