Living Lightly in our Environment Applying the lessons of permaculture to our thinking about the economy Structure of the presentation •The importance of embedding •Three principles •Ending economic growth •Rethinking economic systems •Bioregional economics http://images.word-power.co.uk/images/product_images/9780415500821.jpg Radical change to our relationship with our environment •Everything we consume and every action we take impacts on our environment: mostly negatively •We need to learn the lessons of ecology and take practical steps towards being a species inhabiting our environmental niche, rather than a parasitic invader •We need to work with the systems of nature and the energy of life. http://www.permaculture.co.uk/sites/default/files/images/longthingplan.standard%20460x345.jpg Immanence gaia •Gaia: Suddenly, as a revelation, I saw the Earth as a living planet. The quest to know and understand our planet as one that behaves like something alive, and which has kept a home for us, has been the Grail that beckoned me ever since. Interconnectedness badger-photo Unity-in-diversity eaglefly •Wings of the Eagle: a story from the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en UK growth in economic surplus, 1948-2008 A steady-state economy •An end to economic growth •Rate of throughput of resources slower than the ability of the planet to regenerate » [polyp_cartoon_Economic_Growth_Ecology.jpg] •Evolution rather than growth Replacing Progress with Balance •The shark or the steady state •The cowboy or the spaceman •From a linear to a circular economy – you can’t make pots back into clay •More isn’t always better • spaceman Closing the loop •All activities should be based on the closed loop. –We need an economy that follows the cyclical pattern of nature rather than the linear progress model, e.g. the carbon cycle –Biofuels on the farm –Reducing the flows in and out of our household, e.g. rainwater harvesting. Prosperity without Growth •Report from SDC •Flourishing within limits •Reducing the carbon intensity of our production •Improving macroeconomic accounting •‘Alternative hedonism’ Trust and belonging in Europe Questions? http://fresh-flow.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1.jpg What permaculture says about economics Observe and Interact •Observe well before taking action—this applies to our whole approach to economic life •We need to consider deeply all our decisions and then change gradually towards a more sustainable style of life •At the industry level--the Passivhaus which reduces energy use by fitting into its environment •At the personal level we can find ways of gardening our own outside spaces that work with nature. What is a bioregion? •‘a unique region definable by natural (rather than political) boundaries’ •A bioregion is literally and etymologically a ‘life-place’—with a geographic, climatic, hydrological and ecological character capable of supporting unique human and non-human living communities. Bioregions can be variously defined by the geography of watersheds, similar plant and animal ecosystems, and related identifiable landforms and by the unique human cultures that grow from natural limits and potentials of the region •[We] have ‘forgotten’ that the economy and all its works is a subset and dependent upon the wider ecosystem. . . Modern citizens have not only lost contact with the land, and their sense of embeddedness in the land, but at the same time they have lost those elemental social forms of more or less intimate and relatively transparent social relations. Thus a basic aim of bioregionalism is to get people back in touch with the land, and constitutive of that process is the recreation of community in a strong sense. (Barry, 1990: 9). • • •Locality •Accountability •Community •Conviviality P1010044.JPG Key characteristics of a bioregional economy Locality and self-reliance •Cultural openness and maximisation of exchange that can be achieved in a world of limited energy, within a framework of self-sufficiency in basic resources and the limiting of trade to those goods which are not indigenous due to reasons of climate or local speciality. C:\Users\Molly\Documents\green economics\pictures\P9_1_farmmart.JPG Accountability as reconnection •Each bioregion is the responsibility of its citizens •Every local community protects its own backyard •Bioregional resources belong to the region’s citizens http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2313/2437843001_0fee45aedb.jpg?v=0 Community not markets žReclaiming of public space for citizenship and relationship. ž‘putting the economy back in its place’ ž‘The agora is first and foremost a place of public life and civil society’ c:\Users\Molly\Documents\farmstuff\farmpix\Stroud CSA Launch - Bean Sticks 2.jpg Conviviality instead of productivity C:\Users\Molly\Documents\green economics\pictures\P6_3_conviviality.JPG •I choose the term ‘conviviality’ to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment •I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society's members. (Illich, 1974).