Permaculture Design Courses:

Is "Sustainable Agriculture" an Oxymoron?

Jared Diamond calls it “the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”(1) Bill Mollison says that it can “destroy whole landscapes.”(2) Are they describing nuclear energy? Suburbia? Coal mining? No. They are talking about agriculture. The problem is not simply that farming in its current industrial manifestation is destroying topsoil and biodiversity. Agriculture in any form is inherently unsustainable. At its doorstep can also be laid the basis of our culture’s split between humans and nature, much disease and poor health, and the origins of dominator hierarchies and the police state. Those are big claims, so let’s explore them. . . . Read the full article here

Gaia's Garden: A Guide to
Home-Scale Permaculture

by Toby Hemenway

Chelsea Green, 2001, with a foreword by John Todd

The Origins of Peak Oil Doomerism

People in the Peak Oil movement chafe at the label of doomer, but many of us do have an apocalyptic bent. Although plenty of Peak Oil commentary is sober analysis, a survey of the major websites and books quickly brings up apocalyptic titles like dieoff.org, oilcrash.com, The Death of the Oil Economy, The End of Suburbia, and The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Peak Oil writings are sprinkled with predictions that billions will die, civil order will collapse, and even that civilization will end.

Why are we so enamored with the idea of doom? . . . Read the full article here

Permaculture: A Pattern for
Whole Systems Design

Of all the various incarnations of ecological design, sustainable living, holistic systems management, and related big-picture ideas for living on a small planet, the one that grabs me is permaculture. None of the other schemes seem so complete, self-contained, and naturally integrated. That may be because permaculture design combines a set of coherent and interlinked principles, an energy- and resource-conserving attention to relative placement of elements, and, unlike most other design systems, a set of ethical guidelines. It is also amply broad-reaching to appeal to a restless generalist like me.

Permaculture is notoriously hard to define in a sound-bite. Here's one way to describe it: If you think of natural building, sustainable agriculture, solar energy, graywater recycling, consensus process, and the like as tools, then permaculture is the toolbox that helps organize those tools and suggests how and when to use them. Some of the writings and links here may help deepen your understanding of this vast subject.

I make my living teaching, writing, and consulting about permaculture and related fields. On these pages you'll find a list of my upcoming courses, workshops, and public appearances with links to their venues, plus links to other resources for permaculture and ecological design. You'll also find articles I've written for the various publications, including the magazine Permaculture Activist, where I was editor for five years. More articles and reources will be added over time

Here also are excerpts from my book, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, the first major North American book on permaculture.