Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Sustainable Life

First, I must apologize for being absent for so long. As they say, life happens. In the last few months I have taken a Permaculture Design Course and begun putting things in gear for yet another move. For those of you who have never heard of Permaculture, I will provide an explanation.

Permaculture is a term that was coined by Bill Mollison as a combination of the words "permanent" and "culture" or "permanent" and "agriculture". It is a design system for creating human habitats that mimic the systems found in nature. In this way we are able to live with nature, not against it. There are many aspects to Permaculture but some of the things that are addressed are rain water catchment, repairing soil, composting, alternative building, alternative energy sources, organic gardening and local food, and creating redundant systems.

It is my humble opinion that we cannot continue to live as we have for the last hundred or so years. We have lived as though there is no end to the resources that we consume every day when in fact there is. There are many reasons why we should live more lightly on the planet and we must each choose our own reason for doing so. No matter what your reasoning may be, Permaculture serves as a blueprint for achieving a more sustainable lifestyle.

I have had some things on my mind lately that I would like to talk about in future posts. For anyone who is interested, I will try to expound on various Permaculture topics. I also want to go into Peak Oil. Peak Oil is a very serious topic that I feel falls right in line with Permaculture. If you haven't heard of Peak Oil either look it up. It'll knock your socks off. In the meantime, enjoy this fine winter weather and remember to try and tread a little more lightly on our Mother.