Post-Petroleum: Fundamentals of Permaculture Design

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Living the Future, Now.

Permaculture Design Fundamentals
9-day Intensive Course

June 13-22, 2008 with Albert Bates and Andrew Goodheart Brown

Global production of petroleum per capita peaked in the 1970s. With the rise of the industrial economies of China and India, and the population growing by a third in two decades, liquid fuels production is steadily falling behind demand. Prices for gasoline, home energy, plastics, air travel, food, and many other consumer goods are now entering an upward spiral that will only get steeper. Financial institutions and instruments, predicated on access to unlimited energy and products backed only by paper values, are imploding. Suburbia is untenable.

At the same time, the release of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that was fueled by the century-long binge on cheap fossil fuels has now disrupted a balance in the Earth's climate that has held sway for longer than humans have walked her soil. We are within a degree or so of irreversable tipping points, and if those occur — and they may already be occurring — than the end of happy motoring is the least of our worries.

As Yeats wrote in 1920, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned

From here on, we need to how to live with less, and yet our profligate lifestyles are still expanding, still straining the web of nature. Temporary band-aids will not do. Permaculture is the answer.

This workshop combines the first half of the Permaculture Design Course with introduction to peak oil and climate change, and practical response strategies such as building with straw, cob, earthbags and other natural materials. Participants will learn ecology, energy and resource conservation, social and community skills, and the economics of environmental sustainability. Field trips will include visits to a bamboo nursery and local permaculture projects.

with Albert Bates, Andrew Goodheart Brown, Greg Landua, Cliff Davis, Jessi Ortiz, Jason Deptula, Adam Turtle, and more!

$1100 for 9 days with meals & lodging included. Discounts for multiple registrants, early registration, local participants, and those not lodging at our Eco-Hostel.

The second half of the Permaculture Design Course, the Ecovillage Design Practicum, is offered July 18-27. A full design course is offered at Maya Mountain Research Farm near San Pedro Colombia, Belize in March, 2009.

For all course dates in 2008 dates please see our Full Calendar.

Our instructors:

Albert Bates is one of the founders of the ecovillage movement. As an environmental attorney he represented scores of environmental organizations in fights over toxic wastes, deepwell injection, nuclear power and weapons systems, but he has been teaching permaculture, natural buildings, and appropriate technology worldwide since 1994. He is author of The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook and 10 other books.

Biologist, wilderness forester, gorilla counter, whale-watcher and artisan, Andrew Goodheart Brown is one of the best storytellers you will ever hear, even when he is not teaching permaculture. He is a founder of Earthaven, an ecovillage in North Carolina and teaches permaculture with Albert Bates in Belize, Peter Bane and Keith Johnson in Iowa, Patricia Allison in North Carolina and many others.
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Through hands-on sessions each day, students will gain practical experience in integrating a number of simple and valuable technologies into appropriate working solutions for any situation.

Permaculture---Designing for a Sustainable Future

An Earth Activist Training

Learn to create the world of tomorrow, a handful of dirt at a time.

Transform yourself, your community, and the political and economic system.


In June 2008, we will offer a skills course for planetary visionaries and community activists whose mission is global as well as local. Our objective is to develop practical, common sense strategies for cultural transformation after the Era of Petroleum based on observation of natural systems. This course integrates food production, housing, energy, forestry and economics with human aspirations, natural flows and principles of ecological design.

Those who complete this course and the Practicum offered in July earn the prestigious Permaculture Design Certificate.

This course teaches permaculture, with an attitude.

The instructors are biologists, botanists, agronomists, economists and natural builders, but they also include experienced community activists, protestors, legislative aides and draftspeople, labor organizers, conscientious objectors, and geopolitical strategists who have worked out a path from here to Utopia, and the methods needed to get there intact.

In the early 1970's, Australian Bill Mollison coined the word Permaculture from permanent agriculture. But don't think permaculture is just another fancy gardening method because it is much more than agriculture or gardening, it is about addressing the most serious issues of how we humans choose to live on this planet, how we use resources and whether we have any concern for future generations. Much of the discussion about permaculture focuses on gardening, horticulture or design issues, however, the foundation of the permaculture movement rests on deep philosophical questions about living sustainably, caring for the earth and the people.

Unless we begin to live what we believe in we are as hypocritical as the paradigm we are trying to subvert.

Permaculture is less a specific method than it is a broad based, holistic, interdisciplinary approach to the development of the human being. By allowing various aspects of our inner and outer development to compliment each other, and where this is done in a natural and interconnected manner, there is the potential for the whole planet to move towards self-regulation and self-organization, thereby providing a "cultivated" ecosystem.

A permaculturist is likely to study not only horticulture and botany but also geology, climatology, entomology, landscape architecture, hydrology, ichthyology, mycology, forestry, zoology, and just about any Earth science as well as ethics, sociology, political theory, economics, theology, and other aspects of the arts and humanities.

Successful permaculture-based models of land development have shown increased yield and productivity, more return for less work, less disruption of land in general, greater protection for wild lands and an overall healthier approach for people. Through ongoing evaluation and adjustments and a flexible, dynamic outlook, the permaculture approach provides outstanding benefits to the home gardener, commercial market gardeners, and full-scale agricultural operations in all types of climates from the desert to the tropics, alpine mountains to temperate plains.

 Permaculture Principles

  1. Work with nature, rather than against the natural elements, forces, pressures, processes, agencies, and evolutions, so that we assist rather than impede natural developments.

  2. The problem is the solution; everything works both ways. It is only how we see things that makes them advantageous or not (if the wind blows cold, let us use both its strength and coolness to advantage). A corollary of this is that everything is a positive resource; it is just up to us how we may use it as such.

  3. Make the least change for the greatest possible effect.

"Permaculture as a design system is nothing new," Bill Mollison writes in his book Permaculture : A Designer's Manual. "It arranges what was always there in a different way, so that it works to conserve energy or to generate more energy than it consumes." Permaculture uses nature's tools, from simple home gardening techniques to complicated, powerful methods of reversing erosion and desertification.

Many of permaculture's techniques are simple and common sense : recycling rainwater in your garden rather than letting it drain away as in a storm drains, recycling the leaves from your yard and kitchen "wastes" to nourish and build soil, making a place within your land for wild species of birds, insects, plants, and animals, and planting species of plants that are useful in your designed system such as shade trees that provide fruit and perhaps timber for the future.

Using permaculture strategies and techniques anywhere in the world will "dramatically reduce the area of agricultural environment needed by households and the settlements of people, and release much of the landscape for the sole use of wildlife and the re-occupation by endemic flora," Mollison writes.

For more on the science and philosophy, and prodigious links to Permaculture resources worldwide, visit the Permaculture Page at www.thefarm.org/permaculture/
 

Courses


 In the early 1970s Mollison and Holmgren designed a complete permaculture curriculum for the University of New South Wales. This has been refined by the original authors and others over the past 30 years and is now a standard 72-hour certification course.

"Permaculture" is trademarked by Bill Mollison and copyrighted in several contexts internationally. This means that individuals or business enterprises attempting to apply the mark in a commercial or educational setting will incur legal liabilities to the owners of the mark. The owners have set up a general policy to allow free licensing of the use of the mark to any graduate of an authorized permaculture design certification course. Authority to give such courses and bestow certificates rests with regional Permaculture Institutes.

Therer are today three ways that most people take a PDC course and obtain their certificate, which then allows them to use "Permaculture" professionally.
 

 1. A correspondence course

 2. A full Permaculture Design Course, usually conducted on 15 consecutive days.

3. Two partial design courses, Permaculture Fundamentals and Permaculture Practicum, each taking approximately 8 days.


For lists of currently authorized course providers and dates of forthcoming courses, visit the Permaculture Activist at www.pcactivist.org

For a list of the Permculture Course schedule for this year at the Ecovillage Training Center, see our calendar and our current course descriptions.

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Albert Bates and Goodheart Brown

Post-Petroleum : a Permaculture Immersion

Back to ETC courses

"Very adaptable/flexible program and schedule. I do not feel we missed out on any content at all."

"Excellent sharing of knowledge, experience and care to teach through hands-on work. Encouragement and individual attention were always provided, as were answers to questions."

"Very knowledgible about many different building styles. I appreciated the knowledge of world history and the history of civilizations."

"Great songs to help focus on the task at hand."

- participants in the May, 2004 Immersion

Here is an overview of available resources taken from Transition Culture, Powerswitch, and other open resources:

Recommended Books:

Peak Oil.

Top 5 Essential Peak Oil Books…

Heinberg, R. (2003) The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies. New Society Publishers.
Bates, A. (2006) The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times. New Society Publishers.
Mobbs, P. (2005) Energy Beyond Oil. Leicester, Matador Books.
Simmonds, M.R. (2005) Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. New Jersey, Wiley.
Hartmann, T. (1999) The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: waking up to personal and global transformation. London, Hodder & Stoughton.

and More...

Bakhtiari, A.M.S. (2004) World Oil Production capacity Model Suggests Peak by 2006-07. Oil and Gas Journal. 102(16), April 26th 2004.
Bentley, R.W. (2002) Global oil & gas depletion: an overview Energy Policy 30, pp 189–205.
Brown, L.R. (2006a) Plan B. 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. London, W.W. Norton & Co Ltd.
Campbell, C.J. (2005a) Oil Crisis. Brentwood, Multi-Science Publishing Co. Ltd.
Campbell, C.J. and Laherrere, J. (1998). The End of Cheap Oil. Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 3. pp. 78-83.
Chomat, P. (2004) Oil Addiction – the world in peril. Florida, Universal Publishing.
Deffeyes, K.S. (2001) Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage. Princeton University Press.
Deffeyes, K.S. (2005) Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert’s Peak. New York, Hill and Wang.
Fenderson, A. (2004) Peak Oil and Permaculture: David Holmgren on Energy Descent. Published on 7 Jun 2004 by Global Public Media.
Greene, G. & Silverthorn, B. (2004) The End of Suburbia – oil depletion and the collapse of the American Dream. Electric Wallpaper Company. A DVD Film.
Heinberg, R. (2004) Powerdown - Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World. New Society Publishers.
Hirsch, R.L. (2005a.) The Inevitable Peaking of World Oil Production. Atlantic Council of the United States bulletin. October 2005 XVI(3).
Hirsch, R.L. (2005b.) Supply and Demand. Shaping the peak of world oil production. World Oil, October 2005.
Hirsch, R.L. (2006) Robert Hirsch on Peak Oil Mitigation.. Interview at Global Public Media.
Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R Wendling, R. (2005a.) Peaking of World Oil Production – Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management. National Energy Technology Laboratory, US Department of Energy.
Klare, M. (2002) Resource Wars – the new landscape of global conflict. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Klare, M.T. (2004) Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (The American Empire Project). New York, Metropolitan Books.
Kraemer, T.D. (2006) Addicted to Oil: Strategic Implications of American Oil Policy Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College.
Kunstler, J.H. (2005) The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century. Atlantic Monthly Press. Leggett, J. (2005b.) Half Gone – oil, gas, hot air and the global energy crisis. London, Portobello Books.
Murphy, P. & Morgan, F. (2004) Cuba: Life After Oil. New Solutions. No. 2 May 2004. Ohio, The Community Solution.
Ruppert, M. (2004) Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island, New Society Publishers.
Savinar, M. (2004) The Oil Age is Over Life. After The Oil Crash Press.
Staniford, S. (2006) Why peak oil is probably about now. The Oil Drum.com. Retrieved from http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/3/1/3402/63420 on Friday, June 16, 2006.

Useful Weblinks:

Peak Oil

Energy Bulletin. Essential, make it the one website you visit every day (apart from this one of course!).
EnergyCrisisNow. Very good peak oil blog.
Community Solution. An excellent resource on community peak oil activism, and organisers of the Community Solution conference each year.
Portland Peak Oil group. A local peak oil group in the US.
The End of Suburbia Where it all started.
Powering Down An excellent blog site in a similar vein to this one.
Museletter. Richard Heinberg’s site.
Living on the Cusp. A British peakoiler, who is part of the TTT process.
The Archdruid Report (John Michael Greer)
The Community Solution
Beyond Oil - The View From Hubbert's Peak (Kenneth Deffeyes)
Life After The Oil Crash
Richard Heinberg: Museletter
James Howard Kunstler Clusterfuck Nation
The Oil Drum
Peak Energy
Peak Oil Anarchy
Population Awareness
Post Carbon Institute
Powerswitch
Transition Culture
Peak Oil Primer
Excellent overview of the oil crisis

Hubbert's Peak
A must visit! Named after the late Dr. M. King Hubbert, Geophysicist, this website provides data, analysis and recommendations regarding the upcoming peak in the rate of global oil extraction.
DKospedia Peak Oil
A good peak oil wiki
PeakOilAware - Peak Oil Promotional Material
Promote Peak Oil Awareness with products from PeakOilAware.
Kurt Cobb
Global resource wars: The Rosetta Stone What is the nature of the connection between an ill-planned war in Iraq; the steadily increasing pressure on dissent in the United States; the ongoing estrangement between the United States and its tradition
Alt-E
This site is intended as a virtual watering hole for Alaskans groping their way into a future characterized by increasing high-quality primary-energy-source scarcity, i.e., a "bottleneck" future.
Peakoil Blog
Blogging the global peak and delcine...
Peak Oil Crisis
PeakOil.org
Good Peak Oil site.
Wolf At The Door
The beginner's guide to oil depletion
DryDipStick
An excellent peak oil metadirectory
Dieoff.org
"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."


David Holmgren’s Design Principles, adapted from one of David’s presentations.

Holmgren, D. (2004) Permaculture- principles and pathways beyond sustainability. Holmgren Design Press. You can read my review of this book here.
Whitefield, P. (2005) The Earth Care Manual. Permanent Publications. You can see my review here.
Whitefield, P. (2000) Permaculture in a Nutshell. Permanent Publications. A good light introduction.
Also highly recommended is a subscription to the Permaculture Magazine.

There is also a great interview with David Holmgren here, and recent talks by him here and here.

You can hear in interview with Bill Mollison here. A useful overview of permaculture can be found on Wikipedia. A good article by David Holmgren looking at the principles we explored can be found on his site, click on ‘Writings’ and then the fourth section down, ‘Essence of Permaculture’.

Composting.

There are loads of books on garden composting. They each have their particular focus. These are the ones I always reach for on the shelf…

Roulac, J. (2003) Backyard Composting. Green Books.
Scott, N. (2003) Composting for All. Green Books.
Campbell, S. (1998) Let it Rot! Gardener’s Guide to Composting. Storey Books.
Pears, P. (2004) Compost: Green Essentials - Organic Guides. Impact Publishing.

handsA very thorough collection of resources to do with Humanure Composting. Here is a bit on how to build a Humanure toilet, and also how to use one. Some good advice on how to make good compost from the HDRA. There’s also a nice straightforward step-by-step guide to composting here. You might also find CompostGuide.com useful.

A range of good compost bins are available from the Green Shop near Stroud (they do mail order). Rainwater Harvesting Systems near Stroud sell all you need for rainwater harvesting, as do ISS Solutions for Water and FreeRain. I have always been disastrous at worm composting, but you might get it to work for you.

There is also a rather sweet video made by a community in London about how to build compost bins for a community composting scheme. You can also see “Martha” from US television teaching Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch how to make compost, which is silly but quite good fun.


 Climate Change:

Bates, A. (1990) Climate in Crisis: The Greenhouse Effect and What You Can Do. Ecovillage Training Center.
Dow, K and Downing, T.A. (2006) The Atlas of Climate Change. Earthscan Books. Mayer Hillman (2005). How to Save The Planet. Penguin Books.

The Climate Project

Stern Report
important report from the chief British government economist and former World Bank chief economist that concludes "there is still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we take strong action now" and that "the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of not acting"
Abrupt Climate Change
Extreme Weather
Global Warming
Human Health
Regional
Rising Sea Levels
Vegetation and Ecosystems
War for Oil

http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/ the BBC Weather Centre presents basic information regarding the evidence, impacts, policies and adaptation to climate change

Climate Change: United Nations Environment Programme GRID - Arendal

http://www.grida.no/climate/ provides high-quality climate graphics and maps that illustrate the basics regarding climate change

Economics of Climate Change: A Primer

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4171&sequence=0 a U.S. Congressional Budget Office study which presents an overview of issues related to the economic aspects of climate changeaspects

Global Warming and Your Mutual Fund

http://www.cookingyournestegg.org/ seeks to provide investors information they can use to assess the extent to which their mutual funds do or do not contain major holdings that are endangered by the financial risks posed by global warming

Special Report on Emissions Scenarios

http://sres.ciesin.columbia.edu/the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides this major report on their various emission scenarios; including their main characteristics, range of preductions, and their use

U.S. NA-- The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/default.htm analyzes and evaluates what is known about the potential consequences of climate variability and change for the nation, in the context of other pressures on the public, the environment, and the nation's resources

US National Assessment: Climate Change Impacts on the United States

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/nacc/ the final approved version of the report of the National Assessment Synthesis Team on the potential consequences of climate variability and change and mechanisms for adaptation; by experts drawn from government, universities, industry, and NGOs

http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ NASA provides a comprehensive directory about Earth science and global change data; containing descriptions of data sets of relevance to global change research

California Climate Change Portal

http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/ the California state government's primary source of climate climate change information of all types - including their leadership and initiatives on progressive climate change policies

Climate Change Education

http://climatechangeeducation.org/ dedicated to global warming science education, climate change science education and global warming solutions

Climate Change Information Network

http://unfccc.int/cc_inet/items/3514.php a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change clearinghouse for information sources on public information, education and training in the field of climate change

http://www.climatechangenews.org/climate-related news summaries from around the world with links to various NGO websites in the UK and the US

Earth Sciences Pages: Climatology

http://www.datasync.com/~farrar/clim.html Virtual Library on climatology; including academic institutions, data archives, projects, international organizations, publications, tutorials, and web indexes

Eldis - Climate change

http://www.eldis.org/climate/ a resource guide on climate change, monitoring news and science

Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Network (EREN)

http://www.eere.energy.gov/comprehensive resource for U.S. Department of Energy's energy efficiency and renewable energy information, plus access to more than 600 links and 80,000 documents

EOS-WEBSTER's Climate Change Resources

http://eos-webster.sr.unh.edu/climate_change.jsp a compendium of climate change resources providing easy access to climate change data, policy documents, concise summaries of specific climate change issues, and links to additional resources

Fuel Cell Today

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/index/ a comprehensive source for those interested in commercialisation of fuel cells; with free news, in depth articles, investment info, educational resources and industry directories

Global Warming

http://www.leprechaun.com/energy.html links to energy related sites and some environmental organizations

Northern Climate Exchange

http://www.taiga.net/nce/ an independent source of information on climate change in Northern Canada

Tiempo Climate Cyberlibrary: Global Warming and the Third World

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/ an electronic information service covering global warming, climate change, sea-level rise and related issues; with particular reference to the situation of the developing world

UNEP.Net Climate change portal

http://climatechange.unep.net/ a central source for substantive work and information resources regarding climate change, provided by the United Nations Environment Programme

What's New, US Global Change Research Program

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/new.htm a listing that is updated monthly to recent Internet scientific materials on climate change and related topics

Yahoo! Directory Climate Change

Water.

Clift, J & Cuthbert, A. (2006) Water: Use less, save more. 100 water-saving tips for the home. Green Books, Totnes. Simple and useful.
Ludwig, A. (1995) Create an Oasis with Greywater - Your Complete Guide to Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systems. Oasis Design Press. One of the classics on ways of using grey water.
Todd, J. & Todd, N. (1993) From EcoCities to Living Machines - principles of ecological design. North Atlantic Books. Amazingly visionary stuff…

Calculating the Potential Rainwater Harvest from Your Roof.

In order to do this, you need four different pieces of information;

  1. The Area of the Roof. Take this as being the floor area of the house.
  2. The Runoff Co-efficient. This allows for loss of rainwater, from evaporation or from overflows before it reaches the tanks. For pitched roofs you can have a figure of 0.7, flatter roofs are lower, at 0.5.
  3. The Efficiency of the Filter. These filter out leaves and dirt, and lose a small amount of water. Depending on the filter, insert a figure of 0.8 or 0.9.
  4. Annual Rainfall. At the Farm we have 1400 mm (55 inches) per year.

Using these, your formula is: roof area in m2 x runoff coefficient x filter efficiency x rainfall in mm = annual yield in litres.
So, for a house in Tennessee with a pitched roof, it’d be roof area in m2 x 0.7 x 0.9 x 1400 = ?

Energy:

The Energy Savings Trust. Offer independent advice and information about renewable energy options, and the availability of grants.
Energy Future . Aims to clear away the confusion and dispel the myths and misconceptions about topics such as climate change and DIY energy.

Recommended Reading.

Clift, J. & Cuthbert, A. (2006) Energy: use less – save more. Green Books. Just published, a pocket sized but very informative guide to energy saving.
Mobbs, P. (2005) Energy Beyond Oil. Matador Books. What are the energy options for the UK in the light of peak oil? One of the best books on the subject. Casten, T.R. & Downes, B (2005) Critical Thinking About Energy - The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity - January 2005. Simms, A., Kjell, P & Woodward, D. (2005) Mirage and Oasis – energy choices in an age of global warming New Economics Foundation, London.
Greenpeace. (2005) Decentralising Power - an energy revolution for the 21st century. A very thorough report on decentralised energy systems.

energy

You can read about Jean Pain composting here and here. Here is a link to an article about the excellent Ballytobin Anaerobic digestor in Ireland. You can watch an excellent film produced by Greenpeace about decentralised energy systems here. Some useful stuff about smallscale alcohol production can be found here. A recent article in the Guardian gave some useful information on the financial payback of various renewable options. You can buy the reflective panels that go behind radiators here. Energy from woodchips -- this website is a good place to start.

Water, Composting and Human Wastes:

Where does your water go in your house?

33% gets flushed, 25% is used washing ourselves, 18% is spent on drinking and in preparing food, 12.5% is used in our laundry, 8.5% is used when we do the dishes, and 3% is used to wash the car and water our vegetable gardens!

Recommended Reading on Composting Toilets.

Jenkins, J. (2006) The Humanure Handbook - A Guide To Composting Human Manure. (3rd Edition) Jenkins Publications. My favourite book on composting toilets, so simple, so effective. A wonderful mix of science, humour and common sense.
Harper, P & Halestrap, L. (1999) Lifting The Lid; An ecological approach to toilet systems. CAT Publications. A very thorough overview of the compost toilet options available to you, covered in typical CAT thoroughness.
Grant, N, Moodie, M & Weedon, C. (2005) Sewage Solutions - Answering the Call of Nature. (3rd edition). CAT Publications. In the same series as the above, but looks at water-based toilet systems and reed beds.
Del Porto, D & Steinfeld, C. (1999) The Composting Toilet System Book. Sustainable Strategies Publishing. A nice round up of different peoples’ compost loos in the US.
Van der Ryn, S. (1995) The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water. Chelsea Green Publishing. Slightly dated but timeless none the same. A compost toilet classic (yes, there are such things!).
Natural Building:

Evans, I, Smith, M & Smiley, L. (2002) Hand Sculpted House - a practical and philosophical guide to building a cob cottage. Chelsea Green. Quite simply the best book on natural building, and on the philosophy of ’small is beautiful’ as applied to houses.
Alexander, C. et.al. (1977) A Pattern Language. Oxford University Press. An essential book on design, identifying a number of subtle ‘patterns’ that make buildings either work or not work. A seminal piece of work, one of few books worthy of being called genius.
Magwood, C & Mack, P. (2000) Straw Bale Building - how to plan, design and build with straw. New Society Publishing. Probably the best strawbale building book around.
Clifton-Taylor, A. (1987) The Pattern of English Building (4th edition). Faber and Faber. An amazing book on the vernacular building traditions of the UK. A scholarly yet readable guide to all the elements (stone, timber, cob etc) that made up our architectural heritage.
Day, C. (2003) Consensus Design - socially inclusive process. Architectural Press. A wonderful book which offers an entirely new way of approaching building design, by starting with a detailed reading of the landscape and assessing what the land would ‘want’ to be built. Compassionate architecture at its finest.
Roy, R. (2003) Cordwood Building - state of the art. New Society Publishing. A very thorough guide to cordwood building.
Borer, P & Harris, C. (2000) The Whole House Book. CAT Publications. One of the best overview ‘what is green building’ books.
Kennedy, J., Smith, M. and Wanek, C. eds. (2002). The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources. Gabriola Island, BC. New Society Publishers. A very good overview of natural building approaches.
Woolley, T. (2006) Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques. The Crowood Press. A new and very thorough overview of natural building, in a more UK/Ireland context than many of the other books.

There is a nice article about cob here and a good overview of the Passive House concept here. Kevin McCabe is at www.buildsomethingbeautiful.com. The group’s thoughts on how to transition towards natural building can be found here.

Money and Economics:

Ithaca Hours..
Time Banks. E.F.Schumacher Society on Local Currencies. Berk Shares. An alternative currency from the US.
A History of Local Currencies.
Calgary Dollars.
The LETS System Design Manual
The Complementary Currency Resource Centre

Recommended Reading.

Boyle, D. (2002). The Money Changers - currency reform from aristotle to e-cash. Earthscan. A good ‘reader’ of short articles on different approaches.
Lietaer, B. (2001) The Future of Money - creating new wealth, work and a wiser world. Century Books.
Douthwaite, R. (1996) Short Circuit - Strengthening local economies for security in an unstable world. Green Books/ISEC. This book is now available online for free. If you read just one book on alternative economics, read this one.
Douthwaite, R. (2000) The Ecology of Money. Schumacher Briefing/ Green Books. This book is available free online here.
Johanisova,N. (2004) Living in the Cracks - A Look at Rural Social Enterprises in Britain and the Czech Republic. Green Books. An excellent overview of community scale social enterprise businesses. Very handy, and available free online here
Douthwaite, R. (1999) The Growth Illusion - How economic growth has enriched the few, impoverished the many and endangered the planet. Green Books
Greco, T. H. (2001) Money -Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender. Chelsea Green publishing.
Huber, J. & Robertson, J. Creating New Money - Monetary reform for the information age. New Economics Foundation. Available for free download here
Kennedy, M. (1995) Interest and Inflation Free Money: Creating an exchange medium that works for everybody and protects the earth. Seva International. Free download. Korten, D. (1996) When Corporations Rule the World. Berrett Koehler.
Macarov, D. (2003) What the Market Does to People - Privatization, Globalization and Poverty. Zed Books.
McIntosh, A. (2004) Soul and Soil - People versus Corporate Power. Aurum Press.
Bonner, W. & Wiggin, A. (2005) Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis John Wiley publishing.
Robertson, J. (1998) Transforming Economic Life: A Millennial Change (Schumacher Briefings). Green Books.
Rowbotham, M. (1998) The Grip of Death - modern money, debt slavery and destructive economics. Jon Carpenter books.
Rowbotham, M. (2000) Goodbye America - Globalisation, debt and the dollar empire. Jon Carpenter books.
Schumacher, E.F. (1993) Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered. Vintage.

Food without Oil:

The best report on the oil dependency of our food system was produced by Sustain and is called Eating Oil - food supply in a changing climate. Also an excellent article called The Food We Eat - following the food chain back to Iraq. A wonderful new book on rethinking our cities as farms is Andre Viljoen’s ‘Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes’. You can read Rob Hopkins' review of it here. There is also some great stuff about involving kids in growing food in schools.

Recommended Reading.

Hemenway and Todd (2001) Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, Chelsea Green Publications. The one gardening book we recommend above all others.
Whitefield, P. (2005) The Earth Care Manual. Permanent Publications. By now this should be your bible! You can see a review here.
Fern, K. (1997) Plants for a Future: Edible and Useful Plants for a Healthier World. Permanent Publications. Indispensible guide to unusual plants and their possibilities.
Jeavons, J. (2005) How to grow more vegetables than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine. Ten Speed Press. The guide to growing very high yields of food very intensively. A classic and rightly so.
Whitefield, P. (1996) How to Make a Forest Garden. Permanent Publications. Does everything it says on the tin really.
Larkcom, J. (1998) Grow Your Own. Frances Lincoln. One of the better ‘everything a gardener needs to know’ books. Fits in a (large) pocket.
Guerra, M. (2005) The Edible Container Garden: Fresh Food from Tiny Spaces. Gaia Books. An excellent permaculture guide to an abundant back yard.
Hickmott, S. (2003) Growing Unusual Vegetables: weird and wonderful vegetables and how to grow them Ecologic Books. A valuable guide to some of the more unusual plants that might grace a permaculture garden. You can read a review of this book here
Pullen, M. (2004) Valuable Vegetables: Growing for Pleasure and Profit. Ecologic Books. A very honest and practical guide to running a market garden. You can read a review of this here
Bartholemew, M. (2006) All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! Cool Springs Press. A simple approach for maximum output from very small spaces.
Fukuoka, M. The One Straw Revolution. Hard to find but available here
Stout, R. (1976) The No Work Garden Book. White Lion Publishers. Out of print but findable second hand.

The contents of the Zones:

Zone 0 - The house or other centre of activity.
Zone 1 - Herb spiral, pick’n’pluck vegetable beds, cut’n’come again vegetable beds, intensive annual beds, vines, container growing, wood store, workshop, small animals (rabbits, guinea pigs), compost, clothes line, rainwater harvesting, worm bin, greenhouse, pond, step-over cordon fruit trees
Zone 2 - Maincrop vegetables, forest garden, orchards, grain gardens, water storage, chicken forage, small livestock animals, tool shed, lawns (?), mushrooms
Zone 3 - unpruned and unmulched orchards, animal pasture, windbreaks, coppice woods, large nut trees and other animal forage trees
Zone 4 - semi-managed, semi-wild woodland managed for timber, wildlife and forage crops
Zone 5 - wilderness, where we are visitors, not managers

nuts

Woodland Management.

Brooke, A. (1980) Woodlands: a practical handbook. BTCV.
Evans, J. (1984) Silviculture of Broadleaved Woodlands - Forestry Commission Bulletin 62. HMSO, London.
Marsh, S. (1993) Nature Conservation in Community Forests. London Ecology Unit. Ecology Handbook 23.
Peterken, G. (1993) Natural Woodland. Cambridge University Press.
UK Forestry Commission. (1994) Creating New Native Woodlands. UK Forestry Commission.
UK Forestry Commission. (1992) Establishing Farm Woodlands. UK Forestry Commission.
Law, B. (2001) The Woodland Way: A Permaculture Approach to Sustainable Woodland Management. Permanent Publications.
Broad, K. (1998) Caring for Small Woods. Earthscan.

Nuts.

Crawford, M. (Various) Chestnuts: Production and Culture, Hazelnuts: Producton and Culture,
Walnuts: Production and Culture. Available from the Agroforestry Research Trust.
Simms, C. (2006) Nutshell Guide to Growing Hazelnuts. Orchard House Books.
Simms, C. (2003) Nutshell Guide to Growing Walnuts Orchard House Books.

Forest Gardening.

Hart, R. (1987) Forest Gardening. Green Books. Where it all started. Whitefield, P. (1997) How to Make a Forest Garden. Permanent Publications. The best beginner’s guide.
Jacke, D. (2006) Edible Forest Gardens (Volumes 1 & 2) Chelsea Green Publications. The master work on the subject. Brilliant, but not for beginners.

Growing Fruit.

Baker, H. (1999) Growing Fruit (Royal Horticultural Society’s Encyclopaedia of Practical Gardening). Mitchell Beazley.
Berry, S. (2004) Kitchen Harvest: A Cook’s Guide to Growing Organic Fruit, Vegetables and Herbs in Containers Frances Lincoln.
Simms, C. (2004) Nutshell Guide to Growing Figs: Everything You Need to Know in a Nutshell. Orchard House Books.
Simms, C. (2004) Nutshell Guide to Growing Grapes: Everything You Need to Know in a Nutshell. Orchard House Books.
Flowerdew, B. (2000) Bob Flowerdew’s Complete Fruit Book: A Definitive Sourcebook to Growing, Harvesting and Cooking Fruit. Kyle Cathie Books.
Guerra, M. (2005) The Edible Container Garden: Fresh Food from Tiny Spaces. Gaia Books. Where I got all the specifications on pot sizes for trees in small back gardens (or front gardens for that matter I suppose…).

Daily Schedule 2006

CDT
Friday 4/16
Sat 4/17
Sun 4/18
Mon 4/19
Tue 4/20
Wed 4/21
Thur 4/22
Fri 4/23
Sat 4/24
Sun 4/25
6:00
 
 
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
Coffee and snacks
6:30
 
 
 
 
 
Constructed
 
Breakfast
 
 
 
 
Sheet Mulch
Compost
Zacatlantiloli
Strawbale
Wetlands
Stone
Morning Chores
Mapping Exercise
FREE
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7:30
 
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast
Bamboo Field Trip
Breakfast
Breakfast
8:15
 
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
 
Morning Chores
Morning Chores
THEME OF DAY
WELCOME BEFRIENDING
FROM THE GROUND UP
THINKING LIKE NATURE
OBSERVATION and INTEGRATION
WORKING WITH NATURE
SPIRALS
HOLDING UP THE SKY
BONES & MUSCLES
TRANSITIONS
NEW BEGINNINGS
8:30
 
Getting to know you
Check In
Check In
Check In
Check In
Check In
 
Check In
Check In
9:00
 
Evidence
 
Mapping
Water:  Catch, Store,
Ecovillage
 
Bamboo Field Trip
Appropriate
Economics
 
 
Ethics
Site Analysis
Site
Use, Conserve
Design
Fuels
 
Technology
and Money
 
 
Empowerment
 
Measurements
 
Overview
 
 
 
 
10:30
Students arrive
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
 
    Morning Tea
    Morning Tea
10:45
Registration/
Permaculture
 
 
Water Cleaning
Catastrophe
Creating a culture
 
 
Where do we
 
Settling in
Design Principles
Intro to Soils
Swales
Aquaculture
Fire
of Cooperation
 
Design Process
Go from Here?
 
 
 
 
 
Ponds and Dams
Erosion
 
 
 
Networks
12:30
 
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
 
 
Chore Orientation
Chores
Chores
Chores
Chores
Chores
Chores
Chores
Closing
2:30
Walking tour of
Observation of
Ecological
Microclimate
Food Security
 
 
 
 
 
The Farm
Natural Systems
Systems
Forests & Trees
Nutrition, Storage
Urban PC
Home Orchard
Group Process
Design Charette
 
 
 
 
 
Peak Oil Preps
 
 
 
 
4:00
 
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea
4:15
INTRO-DUCTIONS 
Patterns
 
Gardening
Building and vernacular
 
 
 
 
 
in Nature
Cob/Adobe
 
design in Latin America
Home System
Orchard Pruning
Animals
Design Charette
 
 
and Design
 
Wastes
 
 
 
and Stacked Systems
Review
 
 
 
 
Humanure