Permatopia Patterns: Local, Bioregional, Global Solutions

Global Permaculture Solutions
a graceful end to cheap oil
local bioregional global solutions

GlobalPermaculture.org Permatopia.com
a companion site to PeakOilWars.org - a political map

this website is under reconstruction

Permatopia Patterns:
local, bioregional, global solutions

Permatopia Patterns is a new way of thinking about permaculture. Historically, most permaculture guides and analyses have been focused on individual properties, often rural homesteads. Zones and sectors are key concepts in permaculture analysis, examining how to locate components of a permaculture system based on distance from the house and ecological factors. These are incredibly powerful tools for the personal level, but are far too limited in their scale for a society wide transformation to cope with Peak Oil and climate change.

This page shows how the concept of zones can be extended to the goal of "permaculture for nine billion people." Learning skills at the more local levels can help with efforts to extend to bigger levels, since effective solutions at the biggest levels depend on understanding how the solutions work at smaller levels.

The sectors concept reflects how there are many paths needed to move away from overshoot and collapse. Different people have different skills and interest, no individual or group could possibly address all of the various facets that are needed. The concept of interdependence between these issues (and levels) is one not normally promoted in our hyper-individualized society, but it is the type of path most likely to accomplish common goals.

Whether you are expanding a local community garden, installing utility scale wind power, teaching environmental education to second graders, starting up a community currency barter system, operating a bicycle shop, creating manufacturing cooperatives, campaigning for accountable elections, or any of thousands of other positive things is irrelevant - the key point is that you are doing something that is a piece of the puzzle.

The Permatopia Patterns graphic indicates two directions of travel. As one gets more local, closer to the Earth, the disciplines become more focused on the practical. But as one becomes more expert in those local practices, it can empower actions at the larger levels, it adds to the skills needed to implement shifts on the bioregional and global levels. They are all interconnected.

Large Scale Permaculture

The permaculture movement has just been in warm up mode over the last years and decades.

With the collapse of the financial system, the end of cheap oil and climate disruption to agriculture, the time for baby steps is over.

On September 22, 2008 Matthew Simmons spoke to the "ASPO USA" annual conference in Sacramento, California (Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas - USA). Simmons is an investment banker in Houston who is a friend of George W. Bush and was on the Cheney energy task force (and is now an Obama supporter). He told the audience that he is worried that energy disruptions would cause severe food problems for cities within a week of serious problems to the transportation network.

The permaculture movement has the right idea about transformation to mitigate the energy and ecological crises and to shift toward sustainable societies. But so far most permaculture efforts have been directed toward modest number of local food initiatives: community gardens, victory gardens, farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture. These are all excellent accomplishments, but the scale of what we are all facing requires several orders of magnitude more systemic community organizing, teaching of critical skills and networks to implement these good ideas.

Community currency, large scale suburban agriculture, grass seed to food, shifting highway funds to transit / amtrak / carpooling networks, moratorium on efforts to make the crises worse -- these and many other steps would be needed to implement permaculture solutions to the unfolding, interlinked crises that are escalating all around us.

Zones (Permaculture)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Zoning in permaculture design refers to a method of ensuring that elements are correctly placed. Zoning is about correct placement- positioning things in ways that are the most appropriate; Zones are numbered from 0 to 5, and can be thought of as a series of concentric rings moving out from a centre point, where human activity and need for attention is most concentrated, to where there is no need for intervention at all...

Summary of Permacultural Zones

ZONE 0 -- The house, or home centre. Here permaculture principles would be applied in terms of aiming to reduce energy and water needs, harnessing natural resources such as sunlight, and generally creating a harmonious, sustainable environment in which to live, work and relax
ZONE 1 -- Is the zone nearest to the house, the location for those elements in the system that require frequent attention, or that need to be visited often, e.g., salad crops, herb plants, soft fruit like strawberries or raspberries, greenhouse and cold frames, propagation area, worm compost bin for kitchen waste, etc.
ZONE 2 -- This area is used for siting perennial plants that require less frequent maintenance, such as occasional weed control (preferably through natural methods such as spot-mulching) or pruning, including currant bushes and orchards. This would also be a good place for beehives, larger scale compost bins, etc.
ZONE 3 -- Is the area where maincrops are grown, both for domestic use and for trade purposes. After establishment, care and maintenance required is fairly minimal provided mulches, etc. are used, e.g., watering or weed control once a week or so.
ZONE 4 -- Is semi-wild. This zone is mainly used for forage and collecting wild food as well as timber production. An example might be coppice managed woodland.
ZONE 5 -- The wilderness. There is no human intervention in zone 5 apart from the observation of natural eco-systems and cycles. Here is where we learn the most important lessons of the first permaculture principle of working with nature, not against.

Sectors in Permaculture Design

Sectors are a way of considering the external energies that move through a system such as prevailing wind direction, site orientation and aspect (north, south, east, west, etc.), winter/summer sun paths, underlying geological make up (bed rock causing clay or sandy soil types, etc.), frost pockets and so on; and how we might best take steps to either utilise or counter such factors.

One Meshika grandmother, Xilonem Garcia, has said "Anyone who knows how to run a household knows how to run a world." She understands fractal biology -- that patterns repeat at different levels, and that a healthy living system must run by the same principles no matter what size and scope it has. Consider the definitions given earlier of ecology and economy as `organization of the household' and `operating rules of the household.' This native elder understands that they cannot be separated. [emphasis added]

http://healingtreefarm.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/the-universe-in-a-weed/

September 16, 2008...11:11 am
The universe in a weed

The biggest lesson I’ve received from observing the natural world, is that everything mimics a larger system. The smallest atoms with electrons revolving around an nucleus mimic the planets in orbit around the sun. The laws of succession which produce nutrient-rich top-soil are mirrored by the same process over time in our universe with dead stars giving birth to matter which later forms new stars and new planets. There’s always some reflection of ourselves or our garden or in the largest of imaginable places that resembles the smaller, that takes on the characteristics of another system within a system within yet another system. The further out we head from tiny atoms to the great expanse of our own universe, we begin to see how each thing is connected and most importantly, it reminds us that we are a part of everything.

www.energybulletin.net/12052.html

Published on 1 Nov 2005 by Permaculture Activist. Archived on 13 Jan 2006.
Adapting zones and sectors for the city
by Bart Anderson

When permaculture was developed in the early 1970s, it emphasized agriculture ("permanent agriculture") and the design of homesteads and small farms. ...

This article describes how a classic permaculture technique -- zone and sector analysis -- can be adapted to deal with current problems.

local level	bioregional level	global level
home power	public utilities, solar cities	oil depletion protocol
energy conservation ethics water conservation (water pumping and purification uses lots of energy) use compost piles to heat water (via tubes run through the piles) install extra insulation in your home switch to efficient appliances and lighting, use less heating, abandon air-conditioning, plant fruit trees for shade on the south side of your house (provides natural cooling in the summer, but allows light through in the winter) renewables at the residential scale: solar, wind, micro-hydro, biogas, passive solar, attached greenhouses solar design for heating and/or cooling (dependent on local climate and comfort requirements) energy tips for renters (and owners): turn off "phantom loads" (devices that are using power even when "off"), curtains or cheap blankets on the windows, less wintertime heating (wear sweaters) less summertime cooling (adapt to your local climate) give up clothes dryers (solar drying in the summer, drying racks near heating sources in the winter)	make megalopolises more sustainable through relocalization, reconfiguration of urban areas for efficiency in transportation, food production and energy production local energy production: solar energy requirements for new building construction (in building codes), local biofuel production publicly owned utilities - public power - utility scale solar and wind power local government roles: Municipal and State implementation of Global Oil Depletion protocol change building codes and homeowner's association rules to promote efficiency, passive and active solar (hot water and electricity) shift budgets from continued exponential growth toward a stable state economy shift road construction budgets toward mass transit and intercity train service tax incentives for renewables and efficiency financing for renewable energy equipment factories ban wasteful uses of electricity (billboard lights, neon lights, office buildings lit all night long) shift from petrochemicals to plant based plastics, inks, glues, solvents and other industrial products (the carbohydrate economy)	use remaining oil for permaculture for nine billion people - convert the military industrial complex for peaceful purposes The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (sometimes called Uppsala Protocol -- the Peak Oil equivalent of the Kyoto Treaty) technology transfer of renewable energy equipment and efficiency systems to encourage newly industrializing nations to avoid the mistakes of the US and Europe -- reparations for imperialism
personal finances	bioregional focus for stable state economics	reverse globalization, relocalize everywhere
get out of debt, if possible learn skills that would be useful in a barter based society voluntary simplicity (is easier than involuntary simplicity) vote with your dollars: support local businesses, buy locally made products from companies that treat their employees and the Earth with respect, invest in locally controlled, ethical businesses gold? if you are thinking about gold, remember that it is hard to dig garden beds with gold coins - it is a substance that has been valuable for millennia, but if the dieoff scenario is the outcome for Peak Oil, it is unlikely that gold would be useful and gold mining has severe environmental and human rights problems	Community Currency - LETS, paper currency and hybrids (at local and bioregional levels) locally ownership of banks, credit unions , cooperatives and collectives of cooperatives encourage economic development of sustainably oriented businesses tax (or ban) polluting, unsustainable industry and subsidize businesses needed for the post-carbon future municipal support for locally owned businesses, not out-of-region owned chain stores shift economic paradigms away from "growth" toward steady-state systems Community Supported Manufacturing (similar to Community Supported Agriculture) - begin making products currently available in stores but made on the other side of the planet Relax zoning ordinances to promote relocalization and permaculture	cut military budget to fund sustainability transitions This shift of the military budget would include $4 trillion looted from the Department of Defense. There are also $11.5 trillion hidden in offshore accounts to avoid taxation that could be used to eliminate poverty, mitigate climate change and transform civilization toward renewable practices. nationalize US petroleum corporations (to use petroleum profits for public purposes) stop drug profits (through decriminalization / legalization) and arms trade In "third world" -- microcredit loans (such as the "Grameen Bank"), changing IMF/World Bank policies, land redistribution, reparations for corporate exploitation and imperialism - compensate war victims and convert military establishments to the biggest challenge in human history: developing a sustainable civilization that can survive and thrive beyond the petroleum era
local transportation	bioregional transport	think and act globally, use internet not jets
walking (humans are bipedal) bicycles (the most efficient mode of transportation ever invented) car sharing and car pooling consolidate driving trips use public transportation slow, dependable electric cars and delivery vehicles telecommuting (although that uses lots more energy that most are aware) turn suburbs into ecovillages (know your neighbors) relocalize production and buy local to reduce fossil fuel use for cargo ships, delivery trucks and freight trains - your personal ecological footprint probably includes many other people using energy on your behalf, to sustain your way of life (even if you are conscious of energy conservation and have already reduced your consumption)	moratorium on new highways, lower speed limits (90 km/hr, 55 mph), and tighter drivers license requirements fund urban mass transit with federal transportation dollars, use interstate highway funds to maintain and repair crumbling bridges - declare the interstate highway system complete municipal communication systems to support car sharing, car pooling, car-free days improved urban public transit: buses, streetcars, light rail, subways better urban design (ecological cities) - walkable cities, car free areas change zoning and long term planning to promote permacultural cities relocalize production of food and other essentials revival of the national train system in the US -- inter-city high speed bullet trains for passenger service, shift freight from interstate highways to rail, put solar and wind power systems along tracks better intercity bus services increased gas taxes to fund public transit and renewable energy systems, institute gas tax rebate system for poorer citizens so that increased gas taxes impact the rich	use the internet for international communications instead of jet travel sails on cargo ships can reduce energy consumption for products that are transported relocalize production to reverse globalization and reduce petroleum combustion
Personal Food Production	Community Food Security	Organic Solutions for Global Food Supplies
food not lawns - grow food around homes grow gardens if you have a lawn, share with a neighbor or a community garden if not permaculture gardens, intensive square foot gardens container gardening and community gardens for apartment dwellers rooftop gardens "victory gardens" support organic food growers, natural food industry, buy in bulk (cheaper, less packaging) eat low on the food chain (meat based diets require much more energy and water than plant based diets)	urban/rural alliances to protect farmland from sprawl development, promote urban gardens, farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture convert golf courses to agriculture compost municipal sewage for agricultural fertilizer, if toxic chemicals dumped down the drain (ie. sold in local hardware stores) are banned -- a substitute for synthetic fertilizer made with natural gas -- methane digesters using sewage can also provide cooking gas to replace depleted fossil "natural" gas -- substitute cover crops and humanure to replace natural gas based fertilizers urge grocery stores to buy local Agricultural Extension Services (and permaculture experts) can help teach communities to learn to grow food again inventory regional sufficiency - identify gaps in skills, materials and facilities city dwellers train and work exchange with rural farms	unprecedented international cooperation will be required moratorium on genetically engineered crops ("frankenfood") substitute hemp, kenaf and other annual plants for trees for paper making (these could also be done on the regional level) ban factory farming (the cause of bird flu?) ban cannibal cows (feeding cows to cows causes incurable Mad Cow disease) reverse Green Revolution with low-input agriculture that is locally appropriate and doesn't require fossil fuels climate change requires promoting drought tolerant agriculture, adapting new varieties for shifting growing conditions halt deforestation to reduce climatic disruptions and protect arable soil food aid for worst disasters - but support local agriculture even during famine relief (when possible) transition from free trade to fair trade -- relocalization plus fair trade of surpluses
Local Water Conservation	Watershed Protection	Climate Change and Global Water Policies
rainwater harvesting graywater re-use: divert water drains from sinks, showers and washing machines for beneficial plants (fruit trees, berries and other food plants) humanure (preventing water pollution) piss outside! (especially if you male) solar distillation of drinking water conservation and efficiency drought tolerant plants (xeriscaping)	water conservation and pollution prevention bioremediation and mycoremediation for toxic areas (especially in cities) reforestation to restore hydrologic cycles plant based diets require less water	Kyoto Treaty (to slow drought and desertification) enforce weather modification prohibition treaty (1976) prohibit water exports between bioregions (which encourages unsustainable living, damages ecosystems and requires enormous energy inputs)
Personal Wellness	Health Care For All	Global Public Health
preventive health: organic food, herbs, exercise, stress reduction, low (or no) meat diet, exercise, bicycle, walk take responsibility for your own health to minimize dependence on industrial medicine systems	single payer National Health Care to reduce economic waste in the health systems (the money for the insurance industry would be sufficient to ensure basic health care for the uninsured) non-toxic industries reduce consumerism	international cooperation to prevent pandemics similar to 1970s smallpox eradication efforts -- AIDS, bird flu, malaria global ban on organochlorines and other persistent toxic substances nuclear power ban and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, ban on "depleted" uranium ban land mines, which have devastating effects on war torn regions (Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Cambodia, etc) reproductive rights for women: family planning, prenatal health care, nutrition, abortion rights
Local Culture	Bioregional Culture	Global Culture
Reclaim streets for pedestrian purposes Turn off TV, corporate media and entertainment and entertain yourself, your family, neighborhoods - musical instruments, poetry, reconnection with natural world (and much more) Transition out of corporate work learn ways to gently extricate yourself, family, neighborhoods from corporate control of food, economics, transportation and other vital systems	festivals and carnivals (secular and / or religious) community supported entertainment reclaim endangered languages	United Nations Declaration of Human Rights cross cultural understanding through exchanges, respect the variety of experience instead of ethnocentrism human rights equal opportunity for women and ethnic / political minorities
Cooperative Neighborhood	Bioregional Governments	A World Beyond War - Planetary Democracy
conflict resolution authentic consensus and respect for diversity gender, racial, religious, economic non-discrimination non-violent communication potlucks, gatherings, picnics, meetings learn skills that increase self-reliance and that are useful for trading with your neighbors - this will probably be more practical than individualist, survivalist schemes to survive while those around you do not	honest elections require paper ballots, counted by hand Campaign Finance Reform to end legal bribery (public funding of elections would cost taxpayers less than corporate corrupting of the political process) break up media monopolies, support local independent media that is not funded by corporate interests or foundation grants abolish the CIA to prevent covert interference in elections Truth and Reconciliation Commission to expose military-industrial-intelligence complex in the decline of American democracy: JFK, Vietnam, Watergate, October Surprise, Iran-Contra, Oklahoma City, election frauds, 9/11, Iraq war and much more	democracy for the United Nations: abolish United Nations Security Council (the permanent members are the World War II victors who admit owning hydrogen bombs) include First Nations into UN General Assembly (most nations are not represented at the UN - the Kurds, Hopi, Lakota, Cree, Western Sahara, and many, many others have no voice in the world's governmental body) disband undemocratic elite planning groups: Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, World Trade Organization human rights, women's rights, respect for bioregional autonomy and independence, support for the World Court and International Criminal Court, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights repeal NAFTA treaty and similar "free trade" agreements - replace them with global agreements on "fair trade," workers' rights, minimum wages, and prohibition of slavery and sweatshops
Green Building	Intelligent Urban Design	Gender Equality and Global Overpopulation
intentional (and unintentional) communities -- cohousing, ecovillages and other shared housing models City Repair revitalization strategies green building with non-toxic products retrofit suburbia for post petroleum paradigms, if possible	building codes need to reflect the end of cheap oil - mandatory passive solar design, solar panels, insulation requirements, etc. some US cities make abandoned homes available for $1 if the new owners will fix them up - low interest loans can help poor people achieve home ownership rent control prevents economic dislocation and gentrification land use zoning changes to encourage compact urban footprints, protection of green space in cities, encourage urban agriculture (food not lawns)	the gap between global overpopulation and declining natural resources is the greatest crisis facing the human race solutions to overpopulation include women's equality and mitigation of extreme poverty family planning to prevent unwanted children (world population increases 10,000 people per hour, births minus deaths)