I’ve written a couple of articles recently having a bit of a go at Permaculture courses that seem really expensive and also often involve ‘tourist teachers’ (those who travel to other countries to run courses without contacting the national organisations of those countries to check whether or not they are needed).
I don’t actually like being critical of others, sorry pardon? A voice from off-stage contradicted my statement. OK, I’ll be more precise, I don’t like giving negative criticisms but sometimes feel it’s important, at the same time proposing solutions or other paths. Is that better?
I don’t want to continue writing this type of article, I want to get back to the normal ones, I’m hoping this is the last.
So what is getting right up my nose now? Taiwan.
Yes, I realise now that I need to be more specific, I mean the forthcoming International Permaculture Convergence N°15 which is to take place in Taiwan.
As far as I’m concerned we either take the ethics ‘Care for the Earth and people’ seriously or we bloody don’t. They aren’t optional they are at the heart of Permaculture. It’s not like we can go ‘oh alright, I’ll care for the Earth a little bit but not when something else is more important IMO.’ You either do or you don’t.
Sometimes we need to point things out to people who’ve maybe forgotten something. I bloody well wish it wasn’t me, again.
Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. But it has contributed around 3.5% to global warming to date.
Global aviation warms Earth's surface through both CO2 and net non-CO2 contributions.
Global aviation contributes a few percent to anthropogenic radiative forcing.
Non-CO2 impacts comprise about 2/3 of the net radiative forcing. Contrail cirrus, consisting of linear contrails and the cirrus cloudiness arising from them, yields the largest positive net (warming) ERF term followed by CO2 and NOx emissions.
Greenhouse gas and contrail farting our way around the planet is really not helping combat global climate forcing. Most people who, today, take a flight know that it’s not great for the environment, they will however be able to justify their action with some argument.
Millionaires fly private jets all the time
I need a holiday, I work hard
Tourism brings needed income to far off countries
How else would I be able to visit my parents?
Piss off and leave me alone
etc
I would love to hear how the people interested in Permaculture, and especially the guest speakers justify their jet flights to and from Taiwan.
Perhaps they will explain how important are the subjects that will be discussed.
Enhance myceliation of permaculture into the wider world.
Explore ways permaculture design in urban and rural settings can co-evolve to face overshoot consequences and climate chaos.
Envision how permaculture can help the world in crisis at the community level through resilient design and regenerative strategies.
Sharing knowledge and experiences of practicing permaculture.
Do I actually need to comment? Why did we start using Linked’in type bizspeak? The word ‘leverage’ is missing so someone messed up there. Seriously, myceliation? How am I going to explain that to someone suffering from athletes foot, ringworm or Candida?
Let’s look at the above points through the lens of a recent experience of mine. I got contacted by a geezer who works for the International Trade Centre, a part of the United Nations “Our work is focused on topics with the greatest potential to achieve the UN global goals of increased prosperity, inclusiveness, and sustainability in developing countries, especially Least Developed Countries.”
Yup, I know what you’re thinking and I thought the same. The geezer convinced me however that the project he wanted my help with was straight up and I chose to believe him, lucky for me.
Run 2 Permaculture design courses in the Republic of Guinea with follow-up. The students would be in 4 different centres and there would be a hundred or more of them. For the most part they would be graduates from different agricultural colleges.
All of that from my vardo streamed direct to the four centres. It all worked really well, the only problem at the beginning being that I had organised the material for a normal design course. I quickly realised that the level was too low so I restructured the course into a masterclass.
We ran two PDCs and I was frankly well chuffed with the results, the feedback and the support given by the ITC geezer and the local staff.
Then I got asked to make a workbook with exercises that would be used to teach Permaculture design in the Guinean agricultural colleges. I did that and the Government ministers who read it liked and approved it.
At this point I’m still at home doing this from my vardo.
One of the Guinean people who helped organise stuff their end decided he wanted to qualify for the Diploma in applied Permaculture. Two years after he started me and Karine, his two tutors, accredited him. He gave his public presentation in front of the students here for a PDC, they loved it.
I regularly get contacted by different people in French speaking countries asking me to do design work. More and more of this design work has involved helping people set up local/national Permaculture networks and training centres, many of these requests have come from different African countries. Now there is another accredited designer in the area who can take over dealing with these demands. In fact, he is even now helping set stuff up in the Congo.
All of this without me having to leave my vardo except for a leak. I covered all the points that are going to be discussed et the Permaculture convergence. I myceliated, explored ways, got community level with design stuff and shared knowledge.
This is personal for me, I’ve been involved with a project in Brittany for decades. At times the sky above is completely veiled by spreading contrails from jet aircraft, negative externalities spread across the sky. Visible pollution that’s forcing the climate.
What I’d like to know is:
Do we need to replicate models like Davos, COP etc? There are hundreds of ‘International conferences’ each month. Calling it ‘Convergence’ rather than a conference doesn’t change the contents of the packet.
Do we need to continue flying around the world to these events or should we find another way?
Is what you are going to present so important that it justifies flying and cannot be presented another way?
All the people setting off to give conferences at the Convergence are really lovely and doing some really cool stuff, but mass flying? In todays climate? I get shit rebound splatter from this kind of thing, at conferences, during design courses, in the bar. “Oi! What’s all this about then? Your peers flying around the world? I thought you were trying to save the planet!!” Negative externalities again.
Being a lovely person doesn’t mean that the pollution from your flight is going to smell of roses nor will it mitigate the climatic forcing.
To those who will contend that I’m over reacting and being unduly critical my reply is stop bloody well doing stuff that I end up having to try and justify to others. We’ve got an ethical base without which Permaculture wouldn’t be the same, time to respect those ethics no?
So what’s the solution? My little voice lost in the wilderness against egos and ambition? Or just accept it and not worry about such things and plant a few trees to compensate for the carbon emissions of Convergence presenters and attendees? That means forgetting about the contrail climatic forcing but maybe it’s better than nothing.
So .. we’re going to have to work fast because it’s all happening in December. We need to work out how many people are flying there, total distance flown and the number of trees that need to be planted. Then grow the trees and find somewhere to plant them. I’d suggest here but we’re already at 92% tree cover.
Or maybe I’ll just go to the bar and relax whilst at the same time hoping nobody will ask me to explain why Permaculture people are flying across the world to Taiwan.
Cue Sinatra
Once I get you up there where the air is rarified
We'll just glide starry eyed
Once I get you up there I'll be holding you so very near
You might even hear again the angels cheers just because we're together.
It is a complex subject, because if all the permaculture people stay at home then that actually doesnt really dent international aviation, so it could be seen as an act of self harm, when so much good can come about from these events. Personally my only International Convergence was the one in London in 2015 so i can duck the accusations on that one. However I do teach in Africa or have done on several occasions, enough to kick start a very powerul movement, or least be part of energising the uptake of permaculture by many 1000's of people in East Africa. Would it have been better that i stayed at home? I am not sure really because the impact has been significant and is also on going. I am designing myself out of the system, and I think I need one more trip to Uganda to at least complete some of what i had started there. i do take many of the points about these international courses and guest tutors flying in, but we also know how much our presence is appreicated and has been impactful.
What has been more of a dilmma for me it whether to endorse and encourage some of my African counterparts who would love to go to Taiwan, would love to travel and would love to go anywhere really seeing as they have not had the opportunites to travel that we western folk have. I want these guys to grow in experience, confidence and stature, i know first hand just how difficult many people's live are there and how much knowledge of permaculture has helped empower very meaningful change. There are some absolutely wonderful accomplishments to be celebrated and shared by African pioneers like Paul Ogola, Deborah Aluka, Stella Amuge and many more. Paul, who has never left Africa would lvoe to do to Taiwan to be recognised for his incredible work in Homa Bay Kenya, it woiuld be his first ever flight.
Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda is also host to many millions of refugees, a human scrap heap, but also one rich in talent, human endeavour and more, I also feel we have to find ways to take part, to enable and empower these people because in my view these are the people who can maybe create a massive change seeing how they are so uninvested in the status quo. Staying at home is also ignoring the plight of so many people who are very ready to contribute to the shift to a different world.
Yes be very careful of your choices, calculated and informed, work hard to listen to and work with the ethical framework of permaculture, but it is also not a straightjacket, it is nuanced and pragmatic also. i will not be going to Taiwan, I hope to do one more East African PDC because there are 50 villages in Teso Uganda preparing for something like that after 4 years of work since their on line PDCc started them off and i know they crave in person teaching because they repeatedly ask for it.
I appreciate the points raised and basically agree, but we are part of an interconnected world that invovles a lot of people flying all over the place, pople who do not even think about the consequences, and that will only stop when something more powerful than a boycott by permaculture teachers takes hold.
totally agree with these comments - i'm writing this on an ageing mac (which is still a very modern and earth depleting technology) from my foreign holiday home (which is a family owned sleeps two converted barn) in the Brecon Hills in Wales, having made the 130 mile pilgrimage (by car) from poole on the south coast of england so i'm not ignorant of the irony - all fossil fuel based travel is damaging but some has such significant consequences it should be avoided unless no other options are available. I have flown 3 times in my 59 years(first on a school trip to jersey on a prop plane and then by jet to tenerife for a honeymoon in 89 and then to rhodes the subsequent year before the birth of our first child) and i'd never heard of permaculture at that point. My introduction was a few years later after a visit to the CAT on a holiday to Snowdonia and can say that was life changing for me - I hated gardening but seeing their urban demo garden with a courgette growing from a bucket inspired me as i liked cooking and we'd been introduced to exotic courgettes (we'd only ever had marrows) by keith floyd who travelled the world showing other cuisine so that we didnt have to. I thought i'd better get a book so got someone to get me the esteemed Graham Bell's 'Permaculture Garden' as i was totally taken in by its claims to 'grow all of our food for no work' - i loved all of the pencil drawings and ideas but still didnt understand that permaculture design is a whole system approach. I joined the permaculture association in 1998 and took out a subscription to Permaculture Magazine (in 98, pm 18 being my first and pm 94 being my last when the adverts seemed to outweigh the articles) and dreamed of having the time and money to attend a two week residential course, which having a mortgage, two children and only 10 days paid holiday a year was overwhelmingly unattainable. This changed for me in 2004 , attending the Braziers Park convergence (where i realised that the 'members' are the association and met some great people ,Aranya, Andy Goldring, Chris Evans, Graham Burnett, Peter Cow, Steve Charter and Robina Mcready) when the tireless educator, Aranya, announced he was going to be running a PDC, his first as lead tutor following attaining his diploma, as a weekly night class (in bridport)and 3 weekends on the Ourganics site (lived on and designed by the indefatigable Pat Bowcock) - this was wholly affordable (subsidised by the WEA and the blair govt had brought in working tax credits that meant for the first time as family, now with 3 children, we had some disposable income) and i was now working for a charity that gave decent holiday entitlements. I had also read my first proper permaculture book, Holmgren's 'Principles & Pathways'and began to understand the connective nature of good design. I attended the PDC and quickly realised that in many ways a PDC is really and introduction/entry point with the opportunity to do a design with good support from peers and the teachers. This led me to sign up for the diploma as it taught me that i was really only scratching the surface. Still being on a low income i decided that if permaculture design is for anybody then it must be for everybody and so set out to show it was possible (many of my friends on our local community garden were of the view that it's only for the monied middle classes who can afford a small holding on a welsh hillside) to do it with limited money, using only re-usable materials (skip dived folders and paper etc) where possible and doing all of my design work in an urban environment. It took me 7 years and Aranya became my lead tutor and mentor and is still a very good friend. All of my book purchases, courses and convergence attendances were paid for through being a support tutor on Aranya's PDC's that were all reasonably locally for me (i convened 2 within 5 miles) and nearly all of my designs were implemented and all close enough for me to document their implementation and results back when the diploma version included the additional criteria 'dissemination', 'community building', 'evaluation and costings' and 'symmetry' - my diploma scored highly on all of these as did my design examples and 'theory into action'. As well as Holmgren's book something else that he wrote had and still has a big influence on my behaviour was an article regarding 'permaculture & energy' ( https://permacultureactivist.net/2020/12/30/energy-and-permaculture-by-david-holmgren/ ) where he demonstrates what we can do to make a difference without having to think too much - his latest work 'Retrosuburbia' is a masterclass in what could be done and feels to me that it's what the UK Transition Network could've been and still could become - all this long write is a way of me trying to say that for me 'permaculture' is a journey or direction that we are attempting to reach but are a long way from in terms of our use of materials and energy and that the buddhist idea of skilful or unskillful actions (does it bring happiness or suffering to myself or others) is another tool we can use. Technology is a tool that can reduce our travel footprint as you have demonstrated with your example.