The system is broken. Absolutely buggered. Two bit tin-pot companies with absentee directors and no money are allowed to take out exploration licenses over vast areas of land that they don’t own, and have no sense of responsibility for. Doesn’t matter if it is prime agricultural or watershed or rural residential or ecologically significant or if the owner disagrees.
There’s a permaculture principle called “Obtain a Yield”. One of the interpretations of it is that if you are never getting to harvest anything from a system, then why are you doing it? If we never get to harvest any labour saving from labour saving devices, then you’d have to think there’s a giant pea and thimble game going on.
The quilt was made for the “350 Day” in late 2009. Squares for the quilt were made by a huge number of individual people, young and old, from around the Northern Rivers region of NSW, Australia, most from the tiny rural town of Kyogle. The quilt was sewn together using solar power.
LPG, LNG, CSG – I don’t blame you if you are totally confused. That’s what the mining companies are relying on. A quick pea shuffle and they will be allowed to extract a quick, large profit and leave a fracked countryside. There is a very, very well funded PR campaign of misinformation going on to rename coal seam gas as “natural gas from coal seams”, shortened to “natural gas”, and…
I feel so much for those who have lost homes, but also, I feel powerless. I’ve had enough years in the Rural Fire Service to know: there are fires you can fight successfully on the ground, and there are fires that you can only fight politically, and it seems we are going backwards in fighting them politically. There are the heroic people who are out there with fire hoses, and…
Let me count the ways:
It’s not a very interesting photo till you know what it is. This is the culvert crossing our creek after over a month now of pretty non-stop rain and several floods. The next crossing down is so brown that you cannot see the bottom and the river as it runs through town is the colour of cocoa. But this one is clear.
Isn’t this stunning. It’s the seed end of a tromboncino, a cross section slice. The seeds are not developed yet. I was about to cook it, but couldn’t resist a photo first.
Our new solar system. So exciting, and it has been surprisingly affordable – solar technology is moving ahead so fast now. Eighteen 250 watt panels – way more power than we will ever use in the house, but enough, so the plan is, to run an electric car.
Kirsten at Milkwood wrote a post this morning about the cost of producing good, clean food. I started to reply in the comments, and got carried away. This is something that I have been thinking on for many years. In fact, this article is an edited version of one I wrote for Permaculture International Journal over a decade ago.