Julia,
the Transition Towns movement from Britain http://www.transitiontowns.org/ initiated by permaculture teacher and activist Rob Hopkins is probably the most rapidly growing process for building community resilence to CC and PO that includes both the physical retrofit and behaviour change in keeping with my general strategies for retrofitting the suburbs. Of course the UK context for Transition strategies has more been focused on compact small communities rather than large scale suburban ones on the fringe of big cities.

These and other community based processes often involve co-ordination with and support from local government, NGO's and/businesses.

Many of these more organised and formal processes are not identified as permaculture but are informed by permaculture reflecting a long history of permaculture activism as an "agent of positive influence" within more mainstream systems.

Most permaculture activist straddle the apparent contradictions and strengths of working bottom up from the self to the community to the world on the one hand with the top down processes that working from global networks to available points of leverage in power structures within society.

From my limited understanding of Portland, there are many overlapping networks working on these issues even if they dont look like they have broken through into affecting the dominant economic or decision making activity.

Using permaculture to analyse and support the best of what's happening is often more effective than trying to introduce some different framework. Its important to understand the territory and identify the assets and opportunities as well as the limitations and hazards whether we are designing a site or a strategy for community resilience.

I believe it is essential to be living the change at the same time as we attempt to facilitate community change. By "walking the talk" as natural and normal, we bring it to life as a real possibility. At the same time we ground ourselves with the practical realities and reduce our personal vulnerabilities as we work on larger scale change. Looking after the self (in the deepest sense) is neither selfish nor politically naive.

I am currently working on more detailed writing on the retrofitting the suburbs strategy. Not sure what form it will take yet, book, website or both. While the current material is intended to give people a better overview of the strategy and the evidence to support it, some case study material would be an obvious benefit. An early example of the strategy that influenced my thinking on the subject was the Compost co-op in suburban Melbourne in the late 1970's where adjacent houses were bought by members of a co-op who then took down the fences and engaged in some integrated design and activities. While the unfavourable social conditions did not lead to widespread replication of this and similar models, the current situation is much more favourable and I am aware of several places in Australian cities where people are doing similar things. However at the moment I don't have links to documentation of any of these projects at my fingertips. Other readers may be able to point to examples where neighbours and even whole streets have begun this process. Of course Portland itself is well known for it's City Repair project and related activism http://www.cityrepair.org/wiki.php that provides models of community self organisation to relaim and restore public open space. While this and similar projects may have focused on community celebration more than self reliance, they provide very useful models that have strong cross over with permaculture activism

An example of the more hardcore food production and self reliance potential of the suburbs are projects like Path to Freedom in Pasadena CA. I have not been there myself but I have had some reports that the substantial web presence in reflected in the real results on the ground http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

The web is great, sometimes it shows us that the answer we are looking for is outside our own door.

David

Hello David,

Thank you so much for this wonderful site, and especially for your life's work. I am thankful for your vision, ability to think with such clarity, and communicate your ideas with such skill and care.

Are you aware of any efforts going on to utilize local governments, nonprofits, or even corporations to facilitate suburban retrofitting via teaching permaculture?

I realize that one cannot become a skilled permaculturist overnight, but folks have to start somewhere. I believe you are in agreement with the idea of just getting started and go from there(?)

I have seen your interview in which you point out that permaculture will necessarily be a bottom-up phenomenon, rather than all planned out by large organizations. As you say, if the time were taken to try to plan it all out, it would be too late to address the urgent issues facing us. Besides, what organization could possibly accomplish a quick and effective redo of much of our world?

However, it seems that it could possibly be useful to utilize, while they still exist, institutions like local goverments and mass media to facilitate the awareness and knowledge of of permaculture, if it could be done without too much of a corrupting influence. Maybe that is the big “if”!

For example, in a smallish suburb like mine, where exceptionally strong municipal support for neighborhoods exist, it seems like it might be worthwhile to build upon the already-existing civic infrastructure towards fostering permaculture. Perhaps hiring permaculturists, architects, gardeners and planners as consultants to go into neighborhoods, do some training and design to get the ball rolling. As you have said, “just do it”. (Perfect idea for my city where Nike’s world headquarters lives, right?)

The decidely non-wealthy city of Curitiba, Brazil, under the leadership of a visionary mayor, apparently provided each shantytown resident with one hour of free architecture consultation to design his or her shack! It’s a shack, but why not make it work as best as it can for the resident?

Likewise, if perhaps one or two successful permaculture installations can take place in each neighborhood, and if there is adequate permaculture training for the caretakers willing to “pay it forward”, perhaps permaculture could more rapidly spread in neighborhoods than if it were left only to the grassroots. Perhaps people who normally are not aware or concerned about peak everything and sustainability might take notice and want to get on board, if they see it happening in their area, even if they do not entirely realize what this has to do with their future.

Is this a naïve pipe dream? I hoping to get your honest opinion about this, and to know whether it has been tried anywhere…

I was also wondering if you were aware of any implementations of suburban retrofits similar to the one you have drawn up in your article, where several adjacent homes have knocked down fences and are sharing animal husbandry and food production. It seems that one would have to be extraordinarily lucky find one's self in the midst of neighbors who are open to this. But I think that necessity will usher in more and more of these types of arrangements as time goes on. Perhaps someone has been successful at buying up several houses and retrofitting them as a developer?

Again, thanks so much and warm wishes,

Thanks Patrick, Jonathan and Adam for your comments and links to useful resources dealing with the emotional responses to the global crisis. I certainly have no easy answers on healthy emotional responses to these huge issues. I think different people have varying needs. For some the awareness of the scale and nature of the problems precipitates a gross loss of faith in society that is personally destabilizing while others (sometimes with a family history of dissident or radical views of the world maybe more emotionally "hardened". Whether this experience leads to cynical detachment or positive engagement with the issue (amongst other possible responses) depends on so many internal factors. I can't remember the source on research into the nature of emotional response to the experience of natural and other disasters suggesting the personal character traits that allow people to adapt.

Hi David,

a very impressive website, I have read some of your work before like your "retrofitting the suburbs" essay, and appreciate this site increasing the perspective to a global scale.

To the previous poster Jonathan: I remember hearing of a Victorian group presenting a workshop called "The Heart of Peak Oil" about it's emotional impact. Just used google to find a bit more about them:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/13964

I don't think there's an "easy" answer though. Personally I've re-aligned my career to try to contribute to something like the "green tech" future David describes here. But the idea of preparing for the 4 scenarios listed here, and possibly others, probably all happening at once at nested levels, is I think very useful.

David, thank you for the website and all the other good work you have been doing. I particularly appreciated the interview included on the site - it helped bring to life your ideas described here.

I say this even though none of the ideas are new for me, as such. It is more how you draw them together with clarity. Like the interviewer, I also appreciated the calmness with which you spoke in the interview, which in my mind reflected the strength of your ongoing commitment to responding to the challenges of climate change and peak oil.

It is good to be reminded that there are many people in the world who share this commitment.

For me, personally, a major challenge of responding to climate change and peak oil is emotional. All the strong emotions it brings up - fear, sadness, anger, frustration, confusion...

Over a number of years, my concern for climate change lead me to trying to minimise my own consumption, to involvement in protest activism, to emotional burnout... and from there to organic gardening and involvement in my local community garden, but I always have the sense that it is not enough, and wonder how best to contribute to the changes that need to happen.

I thought I'd write these personal things... because they are real, I suppose. Maybe I wonder what space there is for such concerns on this particular site, or whether perhaps you or anyone else knows of anyone who is working with or writing about the emotional aspects of coming to terms with climate change and peak oil.

Perhaps it is also a question of how much this has been a concern in your own work, with regard to sustaining your own activism and that of others. (I totally understand, should you feel that this isn't the forum to discuss such thoughts and feelings.)

Once again, thanks for your work, and thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this,
Jonathan

Some pretty compelling and well-reasoned thoughts. Be interesting to put these scenarios in the contet of life in the American West in the turn of the 19th century.

I'd be interested to find out more about permaculture in mountain environments. We cannot grow foods (fruits, vegetables, and grains) without shelters to protect for frost. Not to mention how to manage humanure and other composting/ recycling efforts.

Any info appreciated.

I live in an area of the world where pollution was unheard of until just a few years ago. The color of the sky has gradually changed from blues and whites to yellow, green, orange, purple and red. The clouds are gray and the entire horizon turns red at dawn and dusk. This is completely wrong. We live about 1000km downwind from the Athabasca Tar Sands and it is beginning to show. It might already be too late to stop most of the change that has started, but hopefully people wake-up to the nonsense of infinitely growing industrial economies and the absolute need for economic growth. Sustainability should be our focus now. Let's look at Denmark, Iceland, and Germany for examples of how to build renewable and sustainable energy systems. Stop this insanity before all hope is lost... for our children and theirs beyond.

Thanks for the great site. It's very informative. I'll pass the word around.

in solidarity; gnomædh

olá pessoal!!!
sou brasileiro e passei só para dizer que aqui em ilheus sul da Bahia fazemos tambem Permacultura na universidade estadual de santa cruz- UESC.

hello people!!! I´m live in Brazil and I just want say in Brazil we make Permacultura too, here in ilheus south of Bahia on universidade estadualo de santa cruz -UESC. welcome everyone!!!

I really like your site. It has a lot of great and extremely relevant information. I had not heard of permaculture before, but I look forward to learning more about it. I am glad to have found this wonderful site.

beneath the utmost mountains

where the mother casts the spaces

by rocky streams and fountains

we stewards of such places

taste bounty at her table

from the tilling of the morning

and truths dissolve like fable

as a mist deserts a dawning

indeed our moment beckons

to assess our recompenses

may the egress of attachment

be the coming of our senses
****
goodonyamate
koala stamps!

Hello everybody,

Constantly now and unfortunelly we've been surrounded by all of the concept of sustainable development, circular ecologic systems, renewable resources, etc...I agree with all of this for sure, i agree some times we have to made some decisions to a transition to other life styles and resources, its natural in some way, its the evolution that obbey some cyclic patterns around the civilizations,ok.

My question is, the real limit of the oil peak... Im from Brazil and working now on arrange some support on biogas projects. In some part of the view the big obstacle is the recents discoveries of oil resources off-shore, and the geologists says oil its like plague on-shore...and in some instance petrobras didnt tell all the capacity of the resources to maintain the prices of the barrel. Its very clear to all the people now..

So, whats the limit af all of this? It will drown some day if the level of consumption stays remain, but today someone can tell the real capacity of the oil resources on the world, and give it to numbers, how much time we have? Sometimes its more expensive for people work with renewables to the coast of implementation of some projects...

We have to think on the transition and other lifestyles but there are so much people on the world who depends of the oil production and renewable sources wont give the support to them by now...not all of them, but i think the its a slowly process.

I wanna know if you can gimme some contacts who works with biogas projects in Australia or other place who give more support. Im using the concept of dust-to-dust to generate energy.

Warmly Regards,
Rafael Freire Neira

Dear Balint,
I was aware that Shell had produced their public scenarios paper but have only just now had a quick scan read stimulated by your reference.I agree there are some remarkable similarities between Scramble and Brown Tech and between Blueprints and Green Tech, especially how in Scramble, strong national actions drive the scenario and how in Blueprints a wider range of co actors including at the local level are more important. However it is important to remember that the Shell Scenarios both involve continued economic and energy growth nationally and globally through to 2050 with resource and environmental constraints coming on very slowly. Neither of the Shell scenarios consider the possibility that economic growth could be other than strong. They are not energy descent scenarios. They fit into my larger scale Techno Stability futures that I see as highly unlikely. The strength of the Shell Scenarios are all the nice stats that shows the changes in energy mix and quantities but I think their assumptions are wildly optimistic about avoiding massive resource constraints and severe environmental impacts in the time frame to 2050. While these scenarios are for public consumption, I am sure the top people in Shell have access to in-house scenarios that consider a much wider range of possibilities.

regards
David