A 2023 preface to DEEP GREEN book

February 2023.

How time flies. I first published this book DEEP GREEN in August 2017, during a hurricane evacuation. I wrote about climate change and weather extremes in my book at that time. Now, how many floods and droughts and hurricanes and snow-pocalypses have we had since 2017? Can any of us keep track?

Starting in 2020, we’ve also had a worldwide pandemic. In DEEP GREEN, I talk about how I used to wish the governments of the world would get together and launch a green mobilization, uniting us all against our common enemy: the destruction of our home planet — the forests and rivers; the oceans and mountains; the life support system we all depend on.

But I didn’t and don’t envision governments getting organized to unite us all against this common enemy of ecocide. So I decided to write a book for all of us everyday people to do our own, voluntary mobilization. A grassroots green mobilization!

During the Covid shutdowns, we ended up having an unintentional green mobilization, when governments shut down most air travel and manufacturing, as well as commuting to offices and what they considered nonessential businesses. Within weeks, the shutdown had a noticeable beneficial impact on ecosystems all over the world. Clearer water; cleaner air; birds and wildlife appearing in our yards and parks. (Dolphins returning to Venice!)

The pandemic shutdowns also had far-reaching beneficial impacts socially and economically (not to deny the widespread economic hardships). Many people realized they liked staying home; getting to meet their neighbors; spending more time with their children and families.

Even after the world started to “open back up,” many people chose to keep staying home and to have micro businesses instead of going back to the office, even if it meant accepting a significant reduction in income. Many people also chose to embark on education and training for jobs that were more in line with their inner sense of purpose. All of this can continue! Along these lines, DEEP GREEN is as much a practical manual about how to get your household costs under control so you can have occupational freedom, as it is about how we can get our eco-footprint in line with our planet’s carrying capacity. In fact the two go hand in hand.

If we could do this kind of government-prompted mobilization for a pandemic, maybe we, everyday people, could do it for Mother Earth too. Our daily actions add up fast to make a big difference.

And once again, if governments can’t or won’t unite us in the task of saving our home planet from destruction, we ourselves can. You and I, voluntarily. Where we spend our money, or don’t, and what we spend it on, or not, matters.

I envision a world of mutual aid and cooperation: us all supporting each other instead of being at the mercy of energy megacorporations, big banks, and other distant impersonal institutions that don’t have our best interest at heart.

DEEP GREEN started out as a manual for eco-friendly living, but I soon realized it was many other things as well. A guide to empowering local businesses. A guide to addressing extreme wealth inequality and taking back control of our household finances. A guide to disengaging from hyperconsumerism. A guide to building community resilience. And maybe most of all, a guide to each of us attaining creative and occupational freedom; living in accordance with our highest dreams and sense of inner purpose.

At the root, DEEP GREEN is about all of us having more peace and joy in our lives, while taking better care of ourselves and each other.

Important note: There is no such thing as environmental sustainability without social justice and economic equity. We learned this in my permaculture design classes, but the paradigm shift many of us experienced in the classroom can get suppressed by the dominant paradigm. The only way to be truly in harmony with Mother Earth is to decolonize our minds. Consumer culture and unbridled capitalism are subsets of colonizer culture (also known as white supremacy culture). As I embarked on my path of antiracism studies in the summer of 2019, I began to understand that dismantling white supremacy culture is the only way to really be green.

Response to person offended by Cop City post in a permaculture FB group

“In my opinion this post is inappropriate for this site. As a retired police officer I can tell you that, from my experience, most of the statements about law enforcement made in this post are dangerously inaccurate. They seem entirely political. I will be leaving this group because I don’t want to look at a gardening site and see political posts, whether I agree with the politics or not.”

My response:

Hi [name] –

1) I understand. Sometimes (many times) I see posts I don’t like; posts I disagree with. And I always have to decide whether to leave a group or stay.

2) This isn’t a gardening group – permaculture is about much more than gardening. And it DEFINITELY includes politics; Mollison & Holmgren said so right off the bat.

3) The information in this article has been reported by multiple sources, including various publications and also including people who are right there.

4) You are of course welcome to offer your own comments on this post.

5) And, of course you are always welcome to make posts about permaculture aspects that interest you! I hope you will stick around and I hope you will do that — there are so many aspects of permaculture.

tagging my fellow admins, and some fellow permaculture design educators/activists, for my accountability [names]

*******

More thoughts later … As a longtime member and co-leader of various permaculture groups (both online and offline), I am often offended by certain types of posts and comments. Some of these posts violate group rules and require admin action, but in many of the cases no actual rule is violated. In such cases I try to dialogue with the person or add comments of my own; sometimes I just scroll past.

Types of posts or comments I find offensive in permaculture groups:

Comments admonishing the OP to “stick to permaculture” (when they mean “stick to gardening)

Broadly, any post or comment indicating that the person doesn’t really know what permaculture is; thinks it’s just a fancy form of gardening or “homesteading”

Posts about buying acreage without knowing the community one is moving into

Along those lines, posts about moving to other countries to take advantage of their lower cost of living, natural beauty, etc. (that’s called “gentrification” or “colonizing”)

— Yes, I find many types of posts and comments offensive. And sometimes I do just scroll past them and try to forget about them. But part of the work of permaculture is trying to engage with different viewpoints and build community, so I try to stick around; avoid taking the easy escape route too often.

Stop Cop City

Andrew Lee of Anti-Racism Daily, on why the fight to #StopCopCity means so much:

“In the upcoming weeks, The ARD will continue our coverage of Stop Cop City, one of the most crucial social justice fights underway in the U.S. Hundreds of acres of urban forest next to a working-class Black neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia, are slated to be clear-cut for the construction of a law enforcement training facility. If built, ‘Cop City’ would produce water pollution while destroying the city’s largest remaining contiguous green space. The residents surrounding the site would be unable to escape the sounds of grenades, bombs, and police helicopters. And Cop City would be used to train law enforcement officers from around the country and the world to execute military raids and police brutality in oppressed communities.

“Cop City has received support from Atlanta’s political class as well as from many profitable and powerful institutions, like Home Depot, Bank of America, Delta Airlines, and Chick-fil-a. Yet, Atlanta residents overwhelmingly oppose the project, and community members have vowed not to back down without a guaranteed termination of Cop City. For two years, activists have physically put their bodies on the line by living in the forest to stop construction, facing political repression and police violence. …

“U.S. residents occasionally engage in the pastime of imagining the heroics we’d have performed in the now-acclaimed social justice movements in the past. We envision ourselves marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Martin Luther King, Jr. or rallying against the injustices of the Vietnam War, content in the belief that if we were to find ourselves with the opportunity to intervene in the struggle for freedom and dignity at a crucial juncture, we would surely do what was needed. The summer of 2020 was one such crucial juncture. The fight against Cop City is another one. Those able to go to Atlanta for the week of action should go. We can all support the struggle, no matter where we are. …

TAKE ACTION:

Come to Atlanta March 4-11. Bring a tent. Follow @defendatlantaforest for more information.

Donate to Community Movement Builders (@communitymovementbuilders).

Sign the petition to oppose subsidized housing for Atlanta police officers in a working-class Black neighborhood.

• Call Georgia State University professor Deepak Raghavan at (404) 413 6044and demand he resign from the Atlanta Police Foundation Executive Board. His email is Raghavan@astro.gsu.edu.

• Contact GSU Astronomy Department Chair Sebastien Lepine at (404) 413 6020and Provost Nicolle Parsons-Pollard at (404) 413 2688 to express your opposition to Dr. Raghavan’s active support of the Cop City urban warfare training center.

• Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund (@atlsolfund) to fight political repression and support incarcerated activists.”

**** (following is my addition) — Additionally, through a permaculture movement lens, it occurs to me that we as Florida permies could:
1) contact Atlanta permaculture people to offer our help; and
2) team up with our fellows in permaculture guilds, bioregional orgs, etc., across the USA to form a web of resistance, compassion, and common sense to stop this insane & dangerous plan.

Visit the link to read the rest of the article, including more info and ways we can all help. And bookmark ARD’s website and subscribe to their newsletter to keep up with coverage and action steps.

Stop War Already

By traveling into a war zone, how many people did he jeopardize needlessly; how many resources were commandeered to protect him — etc etc etc.

To me this is just more U.S. hubris, vanity, self-serving. It’s easy to point the finger at the “bad guy” — but we the USA expanded NATO after pledging not to, so … (Added later: Actually there’s disagreement as to whether we broke a pledge. Some say yes, others say no. BUT, I tend to trust what Veterans for Peace says; admittedly I am biased.)

War serves governments & corporations.

The USA needs a true progressive candidate but I am skeptical that can happen. (Although I myself have anarchist leanings, I also find a lot of common ground with progressives.)

Democrats are as entrenched in vested interests as Republicans, in their own way.
Dems nowadays are conservative & authoritarian, while Repubs are reactionary & totalitarian. Less-entrenched is still not desirable.

And they’re all burning a lot of jet fuel and other resources (cognitive as well as fossil). I wish we (humans) could unanimously declare war on the destruction of the biosphere. Our life-support system.

Back to war tho — it’s just so sad that in our lifetimes we are back to the same old same old. Things were good w Russia; the USSR had dissolved but Russia seemed OK, we had peace, no more Cold War “scary Russia” thing … “Duck and cover” under our elementary-school desks back in the 60s; constant sense of nuclear dread as a kid in the 70s … but then an era came when the threat receded or vanished.

But now we are back to this old pattern. “Scary Russia”; looming threat of massive war between US and Russia. What set Russia off, I wonder; what got them scared again if not something we did to make them feel threatened?

How To Make Fun of White Supremacists

Hey everyone! Found this gem while searching for “how to make fun of white supremacists”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/how-to-make-fun-of-nazis.html

“Germany is not America. For one, neo-Nazis aren’t allowed to carry assault rifles through the streets there, let alone display swastikas. But we do have similar examples of humor being used to counteract fascists in the United States. In 2012, a “white power” march in Charlotte, N.C., was met with counterprotesters dressed as clowns. They held signs reading “wife power” and threw “white flour” into the air. … By undercutting the gravitas white supremacists are trying to accrue, humorous counterprotests may blunt the events’ usefulness for recruitment. Brawling with bandanna-clad antifas may seem romantic to some disaffected young men, but being mocked by clowns? Probably not so much.”

And let’s be clear: The anti-Semitic demonstrations seen most recently in Ormond & Daytona are WHITE SUPREMACY. Anti-Semitism is a subset of white supremacy. BTW there was a “white power” rally in Deleon Springs last year. (The sheriff & police chiefs were alerted of the event & kept close watch to ensure there was no physical violence. BUT, hate speech IS violence. And white supremacy IS violence.)

#DismantleWhiteSupremacy

PS. I just got an idea. What if we started organizing comedy shows that make fun of white supremacy? Standup comedy; skits; improv. Hmm …

FRESH Book Festival

My table at the FRESH Book Festival this weekend will include a carefully curated browsing library of a very select few of my top favorite books on DEEP GREEN living!

I will also be offering a limited-edition special printing of 50 copies of DEEP GREEN for sale — had not planned to print more, but it seems like people still want the print version even though I made the text available to read for free on my blog (which i did after the Covid shutdowns, to support people in navigating the challenging economy with creativity & joy).

And, I will also have available for sale, fresh off the presses, five copies of the Growing FREE book (Financial Resilience & Economic Empowerment), authored by Mike Hoag and Laura Oldanie, with myself and Eric Brown and Jason Padvorac as contributors.

The book festival is this coming Friday & Saturday! And the film festival is tomorrow evening – Thurs! Locals, Get your tickets & make plans to attend this incredibly rich, WORLD-CLASS festival!
💚💚💚🌏🦋

Example of landscaping award post

(Feel free to use any of this to promote natural landscaping in your community; adapt my wording as needed.)

The three latest recipients of the “Eco Beauty Landscape Star Award” from Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild. One commercial property (thanks Will Bittorf!!!), and two private residents.

What they all have in common is that they have taken the SIMPLEST approach to achieving natural beachside BEAUTY, plus pollinator support /biodiversity, heat mitigation, & stormwater mitigation on their properties.

Known as the “Managed Meadow,” this approach helps restore our natural beachside beauty & ecology, while saving greatly on water and maintenance.

All of the properties have an array of flowers, shrubs, & other dune plants that vary with the seasons and offer sustenance to the bees, butterflies, & other more-than-human species on which we all depend in the web of life!

One of the properties, additionally, constitutes a slope restoration of truly heroic magnitude (belying its small physical area). Excess mowing, unnecessary blowing, and other mainstream practices not appropriately customized to our beachside environment had turned the sloped part of the yard into a bare sand dune! Now plants are covering the slope, and the erosion which had started to pose structural dangers has been arrested.

A Managed Meadow can have a more deliberate, formal appearance if desired, with the addition of rocks, logs, or other border materials; sculptures or other outdoor art; benches and birdbaths.

Thank you to these 3 latest award recipients and to all the other beachside neighbors whose natural yards are helping to mitigate our city’s flooding & heat, while also adding to the beauty of Beachside!!!