Peter Bunyard, Lawellen Farm, Withiel, Bodmin, Cornwall, PL30 5NW, United Kingdom;
Tel: (44) 01208 831205; Mobile: 07740404819; email: pbecologist@gn.apc.org
26 March 2008
Well, now we have it; nuclear power is once again going to save the day. In the past it helped save us from coal, now it is going to save us, if the rest of the world follows our example, from global warming. On March 26th, 2008, John Hutton, Business Minister, announced to UNITE, a trade union with 26,000 members in the energy sector, that not only will we be replacing the existing 24 reactors, which give us some 20 per cent of our electricity, but we will go much further and presumably attempt to achieve what France has done, with more than three-quarters of its electricity coming from nuclear generation. We will, announced Hutton, create not just a £20,000 million industry, but also 100,000 new jobs. As a reference point, he referred to Sizewell B which, post 1994, took seven years to build and employed 4000 people in its construction, from some 3000 British companies.
Phew, problem over. We can forget our hand-wringing as to whether or not the ‘renewables’ will make it and all that discussion about unsightly wind turbines littering the landscape, especially given their unpredictability and whether or not the wind is blowing.
Were it as easy as that. We are again being deceived into thinking that nuclear power will somehow enable us to keep going with our consumer lifestyles without jeopardising our futures because of global warming or indeed because the world is running out of oil, with demand running ahead of new discoveries. As we shall see, it is a dangerous deceit and whatever the pros and cons, nuclear power can never be the panacea for the world’s energy problems and certainly not take on the role as the ‘green’, low-carbon-emitting answer to climate change.
And, we have been there before. Those of us, who, in the past, fought against the nuclear power programme on the basis of cost, safety, security, weapons proliferation and continued radioactive contamination, and who participated in public inquiries, ranging from the Windscale Inquiry of the 1970s to the Sizewell B Public Inquiry of the 1990s, and who saw sound, well-presented arguments brushed aside in the inspector’s final report, will have a sense of foreboding that we have gone back to square one. Same old concerns — safety, radioactive waste disposal, security against terrorism or aberrant states, the health impacts of permitted releases of radioactive fission products and transuranics — these are all going to surface again.
And, if we push ahead with a brand new nuclear power programme, can we self-righteously deny suspect countries such as Iran or North Korea the right to build their own ‘civilian’ nuclear reactor? Not that our hands are so clean. In the 1960s and 70s we extracted plutonium via reprocessing from our civilian Magnox reactors and dispatched the fissile material to the United States for their nuclear arsenal.
It is essential that we deconstruct the myth of nuclear power as an energy source which necessarily results in low greenhouse gas emissions. As William Keepin, energy analyst from the USA, remarked more than 25 years ago, an accelerated programme in OECD countries, to follow in France’s footsteps, and get nuclear power to generate 70 per cent of electricity by 2010, would bring carbon dioxide emissions down by 7 per cent at best in those self same countries. Furthermore, we need to put the UK’s attempts, so far feeble, to reduce carbon emissions, in the context of the overwhelming damage that we in the world are doing to our life-support ecosystems and in particular to tropical rainforests, where destruction may contribute between 20 and 30 per cent to total annual carbon emissions.
And, if we are going to be serious about substituting nuclear power for fossil fuel powered electricity generation in the world, so as to make a difference, we would need an urgent, production line programme to build at least 5,000 gigawatt-sized reactors by 2020. Every two days we would have to start on the construction of a new reactor, with the programme costing at least, £20 million million, or some thousand times the cost of the proposed nuclear construction programme over the next two decades in the UK. Moreover, after one generation of say 30 to 40 years, the whole cycle would have to start all over again.
Even if we could find enough suitable sites to put up all the reactors and enough water to cool them, the massive costs involved must surely put nuclear power well out of reach of all but a handful of nations. And where would nuclear power be without using fossil fuels for uranium mining, for processing the ore, for preparing reactor fuel, for constructing the reactor, the cooling ponds and the reprocessing plant, the electricity connection, let alone for the casks used in transporting spent fuel, whether by rail, sea or road? In effect, fossil fuels have subsidized nuclear power and will continue to do so. In that respect, the cost of nuclear power generation cannot be divorced from the costs of fossil fuel use, and as those costs rise, so too will the costs of nuclear power. Indeed, a carbon tax on fossil fuels would lead automatically to higher construction and maintenance costs for nuclear power.
Nor are carbon emissions so minimal, and as we will see, will exceed those from fossil fuel use once a major worldwide nuclear programme gets underway. In that context, the UK government’s efforts to promote nuclear power as a solution are creating a dangerous example. In France, where some 60 nuclear power stations generate 375 terawatt-hours (TWh = one million million watt-hours) annually, CO2 emissions amount to more than 13 million tonnes, or about 9 per cent of France’s total emissions, according to the Öko-Institute of Germany, which takes into consideration everything that goes into making nuclear power stations operate. That includes the mining of uranium, uranium enrichment to raise the proportion of fissionable material in the fuel, the construction of the reactor, the extraction and then reprocessing of spent fuel, the disposal and long-term safeguarding of radioactive waste, and finally the decommissioning of the reactor.
Nor is that the end of the story. The average household in an industrialised country such as the UK consumes two-thirds of the energy in the home for heating and just one-third for electrical appliances. Even in France with its subsidised nuclear power, consumers prefer to use natural gas-fired boilers and cookers for hot water, space-heating and cooking rather than resort to expensive electricity.
And were we to be persuaded to use electricity for everything in the house, including heating, we would push up demands on the electricity supply industry to the point where considerably more generating capacity would have to be built. To maintain the supply so that householders can get what they want at the flick of a switch, requires capacity to be built which may get used only at peak times. Meanwhile, to ensure an instantaneous response to demand, power stations need to be ticking over, as ‘spinning reserve’. France, for instance, has a total installed capacity of over 110,000 megawatts (electricity) of which 63,000 MW is from nuclear plants. A significant proportion of that capacity is now used inefficiently to meet peak loads. In fact, the daily peak load for electricity in winter reaches 70,000 MW which is more than three times the load that may be encountered in summer.
Currently we obtain uranium from the best ores, with an uranium content of about 0.2 per cent. At that concentration, about 96,000 tonnes of uranium-containing rock and shale have to be mined just to provide the fresh fuel for one large PWR — pressurized water reactor — such as Sizewell B. Even before getting to the ore, vast quantities of overburden have to be shifted. The ore is partially processed on site and what gets left behind as tailings is dangerously radioactive with thorium, radium and radon gas. Radon from a mine has been found as far as 1000 miles away. The radioactivity of fresh fuel to run a PWR for a year amounts to some 10 curies, the tailings some 60 curies. After a year in the reactor, the fuel becomes enormously radioactive, to the tune of 170 million curies, with all the potential to contaminate large swathes of countryside, as occurred following the Chernobyl accident in May 1986.
Just one such accident in the UK, or even across the Channel in France, could put paid to agriculture for a hundred years to come, let alone to the need to evacuate millions of people, at least for their lifetimes.
Today’s reactors, totalling some 350 GW(e) provide three per cent of the total energy used in the world, for which they consume some 60,000 tonnes of natural uranium each year. At that rate, economically recoverable reserves of uranium — some 10 million tonnes — would last less than 100 years. A worldwide nuclear programme of some 1000 nuclear reactors would consume the uranium within 50 years, and if all the world’s electricity, currently some 60 exajoules or 17,000 terawatt-hours (million million watt-hours), was generated by nuclear reactors such economic reserves of uranium would last just four years.
True, the world contains masses of uranium, millions upon millions of tonnes. The rub is that the average in the crust is 0.0004 per cent and in seawater 2,000 times more dilute. We would have to expend vastly more energy than could ever be gained extracting such uranium for use in a nuclear reactor — an exercise as fruitless as trying to gather wind in the Doldrums.
Even at much better concentrations, such as in the Tennessee shales in the United States, which has uranium concentrations between 0.1 and 0.01 per cent, the amount of electricity gained per unit mass of mined ore hardly makes the exercise worthwhile. Nuclear power on a grand-scale will not only cost us dear in economic terms, but will lead to greater greenhouse gas emissions than if we had never embarked on such a programme. In fact, below 50 parts per million, the energy extracted is no better than mining coal, assuming that the uranium is used in a once-through fuel cycle, and is not reprocessed, but is dumped in some long-term repository. Apart from the self-evident dangers of dissolving spent fuel in acid and keeping the bulk of radioactive waste in stainless steel tanks until a final disposal is found, reprocessing offers very little, if at all, in terms of energy gained through the extraction and re-use of uranium and plutonium in mixed oxide fuel (MOX).
Once the nuclear industry has to resort to poorer ores, a gas-fired combined cycle power station, or a cogeneration plant that simultaneously generates electricity and heat for domestic and industrial use, comes out better in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. And if we were to have a co-generation system that ran on biogas, then emissions of carbon dioxide would be seven times less than a nuclear power/natural gas combination, such as is currently used in the majority of French households. Indeed, if the consumer were to obtain both electricity and heating from a single co-generation system; the efficiency returns can amount to as much as 90 per cent of the original energy and, therefore, some three times better than if nuclear generated electricity were to be the sole source of energy in the home.
A proper evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions therefore demands that the method of production gets taken into account when estimating the total release of greenhouse gases. Both coal and fuel oil used in a co-generation plant are still inferior by a factor of two to a nuclear power/natural gas combination in terms of greenhouse emissions. But that figure is already far-removed from the 300 times advantage so heralded by the nuclear industry and its supporters when comparing nuclear power electricity generation with coal. Meanwhile, a natural gas co-generation system is level-pegging with the nuclear power/natural gas combination again in terms of emissions, while being far cheaper to the consumer simply because of the three fold better efficiency in delivering end-use energy.
Increasingly too, local ‘ embedded ’ generation, such as from a wind farm, or a co-generation plant, is a challenge to the notion of single large power plants attached to a central grid. In a world ever more competitive in terms of reducing cost, an inefficient, high capital cost nuclear power plant, requiring impregnable security in an increasingly turbulent world, is an anachronism, and especially so when we take into account the limitations imposed by the quality of the uranium ore.
The renewables will undoubtedly make a valuable contribution to our energy needs, especially when tied in with more efficient end-use and energy conservation practices. Were wind-machines to provide 20 per cent of UK requirements, therefore 80 TWh (terawatt-hours), they would cover just over 1 per cent of the total UK land area in terms of the space required between each machine. In principle, the UK could meet up to 20 per cent of its current electricity needs from the use of land-based wind-turbines. Add to that offshore wind-turbines and the proportion could go up significantly and certainly surpass nuclear power’s current contribution of 25 per cent of all electricity generated in the UK.
Critics of wind power in particular and the renewables in general make much of their intermittency — the fact that they do not deliver a steady source of electricity hour by hour throughout the year. But all these assessments are based on the notion that the electricity to the consumer, will be supplied through a central grid system, mainly from large power stations. We should instead going hell-bent for a system that relies increasingly on local, ‘embedded’ generation. For instance the use of efficient combined heat and power plants, or indeed of hydrogen burning fuel cells, tied in with intermittent generators such as wind, wave power, tidal power and photovoltaics, would significantly reduce the overall need for generating capacity without diminishing the quality of life one jot.
Systems that do just that have been in operation for at least 30 years and were part and parcel of small-scale generating systems used in isolated dwellings and communities, both in the UK and in countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka and Colombia. The idea is simple. A fluctuating source of electricity, such as from a mini-hydro scheme is sent to an electronic black box that divides the power into two streams, one to a heating circuit and the other to the fuse box for lights and power points. When the electricity is not being used to run appliances, what is left over goes to storage-heaters, immersion coils and even storage-heater cooking stoves. The amount of power available ultimately limits the number of appliances that can be switched on at any one moment.
Imagine the use of such black boxes throughout the UK: they could be set to allow in a set amount of electrical capacity. When the household was asleep and using minimal appliance power, the electricity entering the building would pass automatically through to heating circuits. In effect, each household would be granted base-load requirements that could be regulated from month to month, season to season, with all the electricity within that requirement being used up between the two circuits.
Were the demand to go above the set amount, then the consumer would pay heavily for the marginal costs of bringing in more electricity. Such a system would not only reduce the need for generating capacity but it could be made to work extremely well through the combination of intermittent sources and an embedded, highly efficient electricity generator such as a biofuel burning CHP plant. Essentially the back-up plant is there to take up the slack and once the levels of electricity supplied by the intermittent source, such as from wind turbines, approaches a set critical point, then the back-up system would automatically come on stream, levelling off as the wind came back and then switching off when the wind had reached full strength. The management of such a system could be left to electronic controls combined with self-responsibility to ensure that household electricity use remains within pre-determined limits.
But, we are going nuclear and the UK government is taking us back into a world of old-fashioned concepts that by now should have had their day. A nuclear power programme will cost us dear, if not the Earth.
'A Crude Awakening': The film and the science
Looking around, it is easy to get the feeling that nobody really knows how much oil is left - or at least, no-one who is willing to speak in earnest.
According to A Crude Awakening, a documentary about the impending energy crisis, to be released in the UK on 9 November, we have already reached peak oil production and face an imminent and dramatic change to the lifestyles that we in the West have become so accustomed to.
The film takes a little while getting to the point. It's not immediately obvious what story the directors are trying to tell. But the early clips of 1950s petroleum ads demonstrating in cartoons and stylish black and white that petrochemicals underlie every consumer good we know and love ??? from the telephone to the synthetic silk n??glig??e ??? are very amusing.
Gradually a narrative emerges, eloquently put by one professor who was asked by a student if his grandchildren would ever fly in a plane. The answer could very well be "no".
The point is our current lifestyle is unsustainable and the world is badly in need of politicians who will be brave enough to put research into alternative sources of energy at the top of their agenda.
The film misses a few tricks. How much longer oil reserves could last if appliances were made more energy efficient is not addressed.
There's little attempt to actually put a date on when peak oil will be or was reached. Every alternative energy solution is quickly brushed aside except possibly hydrogen, which we are told is "easily 40 years away".
We are left wondering what the answer to the problem is.The movie feels a bit one-sided with none of the interviewees challenging the theory that there is virtually no or very little oil left to be extracted. But overall, it's compelling viewing and definitely serves its purpose: to help those who remain unaware of the problem wake up and smell the coffee.
Since watching A Crude Awakening last night, I've had a quick scan around to see what various groups say about the peak oil hypothesis. This is the theory, first put forward by Shell geologist M. King Hubbert in the 1950s, that at some point global oil production will peak and start an interminable descent as the last remaining reserves are sucked dry.
A report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2005 declared that "There is no shortage of oil and gas in the ground" and "the hydrocarbon resources in place around the world are sufficiently abundant to sustain likely growth in the global energy system for the foreseeable future".
Shortly after the IEA report came out, the Peak Oil Netherlands Foundation issued its own version of the story, which was supported by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands. Their conclusion was in stark contrast to the IEA's: peak oil, they said would be reached sometime between 2012 and 2017, possibly before.
Then, in July this year, the IEA released its Medium Term Oil Market Report. This time, it didn't look so sure:"Certainly our forecast suggests that the non-OPEC, conventional crude component of global production appears, for now, to have reached an effective plateau, rather than a peak. [...] While hydrocarbon resources are finite, nonetheless issues of access to reserves, prevailing investment regime and availability of upstream infrastructure and capital seem greater barriers to medium-term growth than limits to the resource base itself."
The conclusion, as Salon pointed out, seemed to be that oil reserves are still plentiful but our capacity to extract it is reaching its limits. Part of the problem lies in the fact that companies are increasingly looking towards unconventional sources of oil, such as tar sands, which are more difficult and require more energy to "mine".
According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, production of conventional oil has already peaked ??? that happened two years ago in 2005.There's no room here to go into more detail, but if you're interested, the Energy Bulletin has got an interesting expose of the issue. Obviously, it's important to remember that many people ??? not least the oil-producing OPEC nations ??? have a vested interested in demonstrating that reserves are still plentiful.
A Crude Awakening is produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack.
According to A Crude Awakening, a documentary about the impending energy crisis, to be released in the UK on 9 November, we have already reached peak oil production and face an imminent and dramatic change to the lifestyles that we in the West have become so accustomed to.
The film takes a little while getting to the point. It's not immediately obvious what story the directors are trying to tell. But the early clips of 1950s petroleum ads demonstrating in cartoons and stylish black and white that petrochemicals underlie every consumer good we know and love ??? from the telephone to the synthetic silk n??glig??e ??? are very amusing.
Gradually a narrative emerges, eloquently put by one professor who was asked by a student if his grandchildren would ever fly in a plane. The answer could very well be "no".
The point is our current lifestyle is unsustainable and the world is badly in need of politicians who will be brave enough to put research into alternative sources of energy at the top of their agenda.
The film misses a few tricks. How much longer oil reserves could last if appliances were made more energy efficient is not addressed.
There's little attempt to actually put a date on when peak oil will be or was reached. Every alternative energy solution is quickly brushed aside except possibly hydrogen, which we are told is "easily 40 years away".
We are left wondering what the answer to the problem is.The movie feels a bit one-sided with none of the interviewees challenging the theory that there is virtually no or very little oil left to be extracted. But overall, it's compelling viewing and definitely serves its purpose: to help those who remain unaware of the problem wake up and smell the coffee.
Since watching A Crude Awakening last night, I've had a quick scan around to see what various groups say about the peak oil hypothesis. This is the theory, first put forward by Shell geologist M. King Hubbert in the 1950s, that at some point global oil production will peak and start an interminable descent as the last remaining reserves are sucked dry.
A report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2005 declared that "There is no shortage of oil and gas in the ground" and "the hydrocarbon resources in place around the world are sufficiently abundant to sustain likely growth in the global energy system for the foreseeable future".
Shortly after the IEA report came out, the Peak Oil Netherlands Foundation issued its own version of the story, which was supported by the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands. Their conclusion was in stark contrast to the IEA's: peak oil, they said would be reached sometime between 2012 and 2017, possibly before.
Then, in July this year, the IEA released its Medium Term Oil Market Report. This time, it didn't look so sure:"Certainly our forecast suggests that the non-OPEC, conventional crude component of global production appears, for now, to have reached an effective plateau, rather than a peak. [...] While hydrocarbon resources are finite, nonetheless issues of access to reserves, prevailing investment regime and availability of upstream infrastructure and capital seem greater barriers to medium-term growth than limits to the resource base itself."
The conclusion, as Salon pointed out, seemed to be that oil reserves are still plentiful but our capacity to extract it is reaching its limits. Part of the problem lies in the fact that companies are increasingly looking towards unconventional sources of oil, such as tar sands, which are more difficult and require more energy to "mine".
According to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, production of conventional oil has already peaked ??? that happened two years ago in 2005.There's no room here to go into more detail, but if you're interested, the Energy Bulletin has got an interesting expose of the issue. Obviously, it's important to remember that many people ??? not least the oil-producing OPEC nations ??? have a vested interested in demonstrating that reserves are still plentiful.
A Crude Awakening is produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack.
What is Geothermal Energy
Geothermal Energy is energy from heat inside the Earth.
The centre of the Earth is around 6000 degrees Celsius - hot enough to melt rock. Even a few kilometres down, the temperature can be over 250 degrees Celsius.
In general, the temperature rises one degree Celsius for every 36 metres you go down.
In volcanic areas, molten rock can be very close to the surface.
In volcanic areas, molten rock can be very close to the surface.
Geothermal energy has been used for thousands of years in some countries for cooking and heating.
The name "geothermal" comes from two Greek words: "geo" means "Earth" and "thermal" means "heat".
How it works
Hot rocks underground heat water to produce steam. We drill holes down to the hot region, steam comes up, is purified and used to drive turbines, which drive electric generators.
There may be natural "groundwater" in the hot rocks anyway, or we may need to drill more holes and pump water down to them.
The first geothermal power station was built at Landrello, in Italy, and the second was at Wairekei in New Zealand. Others are in Iceland, Japan, the Philippines and the United States.
In Iceland, geothermal heat is used to heat houses as well as for generating electricity.
If the rocks aren't hot enough to produce steam we can sometimes still use the energy - the Town Hall in Southampton, England, is partly heated this way.
How it works
Hot rocks underground heat water to produce steam. We drill holes down to the hot region, steam comes up, is purified and used to drive turbines, which drive electric generators.
There may be natural "groundwater" in the hot rocks anyway, or we may need to drill more holes and pump water down to them.
The first geothermal power station was built at Landrello, in Italy, and the second was at Wairekei in New Zealand. Others are in Iceland, Japan, the Philippines and the United States.
In Iceland, geothermal heat is used to heat houses as well as for generating electricity.
If the rocks aren't hot enough to produce steam we can sometimes still use the energy - the Town Hall in Southampton, England, is partly heated this way.
More details
Geothermal energy is an important resource in volcanically active places such as Iceland and New Zealand.How useful it is depends on how hot the water gets. This depends on how hot the rocks were to start with, and how much water we pump down to them.
Water is pumped down an "injection well", filters through the cracks in the rocks in the hot region, and comes back up the "recovery well" under pressure. It "flashes" into steam when it reaches the surface.
The steam may be used to drive a turbogenerator, or passed through a heat exchanger to heat water to warm houses. A town in Iceland is heated this way.
The steam must be purified before it is used to drive a turbine, or the turbine blades will get "furred up" like your kettle and be ruined.
Geothermal energy is an important resource in volcanically active places such as Iceland and New Zealand.How useful it is depends on how hot the water gets. This depends on how hot the rocks were to start with, and how much water we pump down to them.
Water is pumped down an "injection well", filters through the cracks in the rocks in the hot region, and comes back up the "recovery well" under pressure. It "flashes" into steam when it reaches the surface.
The steam may be used to drive a turbogenerator, or passed through a heat exchanger to heat water to warm houses. A town in Iceland is heated this way.
The steam must be purified before it is used to drive a turbine, or the turbine blades will get "furred up" like your kettle and be ruined.
Advantages
Geothermal energy does not produce any pollution, and does not contribute to the greenhouse effect.
The power stations do not take up much room, so there is not much impact on the environment.
No fuel is needed.
Once you've built a geothermal power station, the energy is almost free. It may need a little energy to run a pump, but this can be taken from the energy being generated.
Disadvantages
The big problem is that there are not many places where you can build a geothermal power station. You need hot rocks of a suitable type, at a depth where we can drill down to them. The type of rock above is also important, it must be of a type that we can easily drill through.
Sometimes a geothermal site may "run out of steam", perhaps for decades.
Hazardous gases and minerals may come up from underground, and can be difficult to safely dispose of.
Is it renewable?
Geothermal energy is renewable. The energy keeps on coming, as long as we don't pump too much cold water down and cool the rocks too much.
Geothermal energy is renewable. The energy keeps on coming, as long as we don't pump too much cold water down and cool the rocks too much.
'Who Killed the Electric Car? Film Review
Magazine NOW talks to director Chris Paine about his upcoming documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
The film looks at the hopeful birth and untimely death of the electric car, an environmentally-friendly, cost-saving salvation to some, but a profit barrier to others.
In a film that has all the elements of a murder mystery, Paine points the finger at car companies, the oil industry, bad ad campaigns, consumer wariness, and a lack of commitment from the U.S. government."[The film] is about why the only kind of cars that we can drive run on oil. And for a while there was a terrific alternative, a pure electric car," Paine said.
In 1996, General Motors (G.M.) launched the first modern-day commercially available electric car, the EV1. The car required no fuel and could be plugged in for recharging at home and at a number of so-called battery parks.Many of the people who leased the car, including a number of celebrities, said the car drove like a dream."...the EV1 was a high performer. It could do a U-turn on a dime; it was incredibly quiet and smooth. And it was fast. I could beat any Porsche off the line at a stoplight. I loved it," Actress, Alexandra Paul told NOW.
After California regulators saw G.M.s electric car in the late 1980s, they launched a zero-emissions vehicle program in 1990 to clean up the state's smoggy skies.Under the program, two percent of all new cars sold had to be electric by 1998 and 10 percent by 2003.
But it was not to be. A little over 1,000 EV1s were produced by G.M. before the company pulled the plug on the project in 2002 due to insufficient demand. Other major car makers also ceased production of their electric vehicles.In the wake of a legal challenge from G.M. and DaimlerChrysler, California amended its regulations and abandoned its goals. Shortly thereafter, automakers began reclaiming and dismantling their electrics as they came off lease.
Actress Alexandra Paul in her EV1, G.M.'s electric car.Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M. intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these claims.
Actress Alexandra Paul in her EV1, G.M.'s electric car.Some suggest that G.M. -- which says it invested some $1 billion in the EV1 -- never really wanted the cars to take off. They say G.M. intentionally sabotaged their own marketing efforts because they feared the car would cannibalize its existing business. G.M. disputes these claims.
For more on the film, visit Who Killed the Electric Car?
Buy now, Pay later: an insight into ethical consumerism
With the planet dying of consumption, can a shift in our shopping habits save the day? If only it were that simple, sighs Jess Worth.
When I was growing up, I remember my parents used to drink something called ‘Campaign Coffee’. Its name was always accompanied by a slight shudder because it was: a) quite expensive and b) pretty foul. Heroically purchased by a committed clique of clergy, NGO workers and the ‘loony left’, it was one of the very first attempts at trading with the Majority World in a way that was less exploitative.
Things have definitely changed since then. ‘Ethical’ shopping is all the rage these days. Consuming with a conscience – once seen as the preserve of beardy-weirdy tree-hugging freaks and barely registering on the radar of corporate execs and politicians – has suddenly burst noisily into the mainstream. You can now buy a more socially or environmentally responsible version of just about anything: clockwork mobile phone chargers, organic anti-wrinkle cream, recycled silk designer handbags, solar-powered bird baths…
Green shopping websites abound. Ethical consumer guides are dropping out of the most surprising magazines. Fair trade coffee tastes good these days, there’s an abundance of brands to choose from and you can drink it in Starbucks in 23 different countries, or – if you live in New England – even in McDonald’s.
Earlier this year Nestlé launched a fair trade coffee line. In May, long-time animal-tester L’Oréal (also part-owned by Nestlé) bought the Body Shop. In June, pile-‘em-high sell-‘em-cheap pioneer Wal-Mart announced it is switching much of its fruit and veg to organic. Ebay is even setting up a special ‘artisans’ site’ for fair trade producers. Welcome to the moral mainstream!
Green futures
Green futures
The so-called ‘ethical consumerism’ phenomenon is nothing new. I expect that, like me, many NI readers have been boycotting Nestlé – and other notorious transnationals – for years. I also suspect that, given you are reading this magazine, many of you also partake in the more positive pastime of trying to buy things that don’t cause harm to people and the planet. Depending on your circumstances, this could include buying fair trade and organic food and drink, supporting local independent shops and farmers’ markets, buying energy-efficient appliances, or shopping online for sweatshop-free clothes.
But we seem to have reached a tipping point. Although ‘ethical’ sales still only account for a tiny part of the global economy, analysts and companies firmly believe the future of retail will be green, and are rebranding and repositioning themselves accordingly. Rob Harrison from Ethical Consumer magazine has been charting this trend: ‘The big companies have moved into the ethical market defensively. They seem convinced it will become dominant in developed economies – there’ll be a broad ethical mainstream with most players guaranteeing basic ethical standards, with a super-ethical niche sitting on top.’
So what are we to make of this enthusiastic encroachment on to ‘our’ territory by the brands we love to hate? Are we witnessing the final triumph of progressive values over naked corporate greed? Should we junk the boycott and start buying Nestlé’s fair trade coffee in order to encourage them to do more? Are consumers becoming the de facto regulators of industry, curbing corporate abuse more effectively than any government has yet managed? Is this part of the answer to the world’s problems?
A dangerous diversion
A dangerous diversion
We should certainly celebrate where we have got to. Those of us who have been campaigning for years against grinding global poverty, corporate carnage and ecological meltdown have started to win some important arguments. But though sustainable shopping is becoming big business, we shouldn’t pop the organic champagne corks just yet.
For a start, we should be wary of the claims being made. Irish rocker Bono, ever the self-appointed spokesperson for charitable causes, recently pontificated that: ‘Shopping is politics. You vote every time you spend money.’
The view that you can spend your way to a sustainable world is echoed in much of the ethical shopping sector’s marketing. New Consumer, which purports to be the ‘ultimate ethical lifestyle magazine’, enthuses that: ‘creating a world that works for everyone has never been easier. It lies in your simple shopping decisions and lifestyle habits!’ Steady on now. It would be great if this were true; but it isn’t.
In fact, what ethical consumerism can accomplish is limited in many different ways. Of course no-one wants to undermine the hard work, dedication and real progress of the many pioneers who have made consuming with a conscience possible. What they have achieved is amazing. But if we do not face up to the limitations of a consumer-driven approach to solving the world’s problems, openly debate the contradictions and shortcomings that are becoming increasingly clear, and refocus our attentions on collective political action, we risk heading down a very dangerous diversion that takes us away from the route towards genuine global justice.
The problem with the concept of ‘ethical consumerism’ is that it’s something of an oxymoron. The dictionary definition of ‘consume’ is ‘to destroy by or like fire or disease: to cause to vanish’. A consumer is ‘a person who squanders, destroys, or uses up’. So we may be trying to do it in an ‘ethical’ way (what’s ‘ethical’ is of course subjective, but let’s not even go there right now) but often we are still engaged in a destructive activity.
Shop till we drop
And consumerism is indeed destroying the planet. The fatal flaw in treating consumer-led growth as the main indicator of economic success in industrialized countries is that it assumes infinite growth is possible, and doesn’t take into account environmental and social limits. As a result, we are already well into the red, ecologically. The oil, water, land, soil, clean air and mineral resources we depend upon are under severe pressure or actively running out. It would take more than five planets to sustain the world’s current population at US consumption levels. Climate change, which is directly caused by human overconsumption, is already upon us and we in the industrialized world need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60-90 per cent to have any hope of averting its worst effects.
And consumerism is indeed destroying the planet. The fatal flaw in treating consumer-led growth as the main indicator of economic success in industrialized countries is that it assumes infinite growth is possible, and doesn’t take into account environmental and social limits. As a result, we are already well into the red, ecologically. The oil, water, land, soil, clean air and mineral resources we depend upon are under severe pressure or actively running out. It would take more than five planets to sustain the world’s current population at US consumption levels. Climate change, which is directly caused by human overconsumption, is already upon us and we in the industrialized world need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 60-90 per cent to have any hope of averting its worst effects.
We need to change the entire structure of our exploitative, wasteful, resource-intensive economy; and that includes buying much less stuff. Of course, purchasing more sustainable versions of the things we actually need has to form part of the solution. No-one’s arguing against low-energy lightbulbs (unless they are being used to offset short-haul air flights, that is).
But so much of the ethical consumption boom focuses on luxury goods: fair trade roses grown in huge hothouses next to Kenya’s Lake Naivasha, sucking up precious water resources and then being air-freighted to Northern supermarkets; pointless gadgets such as solar-powered cappuccino whisks; silver cufflinks handmade in Mexico, screaming ‘gilt without the guilt!’. Their main impact is to make the shopper feel good – ‘I’m doing something for the planet!’ – without having to change their lifestyle one bit, while the companies laugh all the way to the bank.
But so much of the ethical consumption boom focuses on luxury goods: fair trade roses grown in huge hothouses next to Kenya’s Lake Naivasha, sucking up precious water resources and then being air-freighted to Northern supermarkets; pointless gadgets such as solar-powered cappuccino whisks; silver cufflinks handmade in Mexico, screaming ‘gilt without the guilt!’. Their main impact is to make the shopper feel good – ‘I’m doing something for the planet!’ – without having to change their lifestyle one bit, while the companies laugh all the way to the bank.
This frustration is keenly felt by British environmentalist and writer George Monbiot. ‘We all deceive ourselves and deceive each other about the change that needs to take place. The middle classes think they have gone green because they buy organic cotton pyjamas and handmade soaps with bits of leaf in them – though they still heat their conservatories and retain their holiday homes in Croatia. The people who should be confronting them with hard truths balk at the scale of the challenge. And the politicians won’t jump until the rest of us do.’3
Corporate self-defence
In fact, the rapid conversion of big business to all things ethical is not just about exploiting a lucrative new market and making efficiency savings – it is also a self-preservation strategy. As the science of climate change and evidence of shocking corporate practices in the Majority World have become undeniable, the writing is slowly materializing on the boardroom wall. How to avoid being broken up, regulated, eco-taxed, boycotted? Be one step ahead of the game and show you’re doing the right thing without the need for governments to resort to any extreme, potentially profit-curbing measures.
In fact, the rapid conversion of big business to all things ethical is not just about exploiting a lucrative new market and making efficiency savings – it is also a self-preservation strategy. As the science of climate change and evidence of shocking corporate practices in the Majority World have become undeniable, the writing is slowly materializing on the boardroom wall. How to avoid being broken up, regulated, eco-taxed, boycotted? Be one step ahead of the game and show you’re doing the right thing without the need for governments to resort to any extreme, potentially profit-curbing measures.
‘Our customers know that, if they shop at M&S, we’ll have done all the hard work for them,’ explains Mike Barry, head of corporate social responsibility at UK department store Marks & Spencer. ‘They’re interested in ethical issues, but they just want us to get on and manage them... What we’ve done is look at the market research, the focus groups, the way the media is playing it, the way the NGOs are playing it, and then transected all those issues. We’ve worked out what customers are beginning to tell us, anticipated it, then gone out and given them what they want.’
This is what is known as ‘choice editing’ and it’s the new industry buzzword. Quite simply, unethical options are removed from the market, ‘edited out’ by the company, reducing consumer choice in pursuit of the greater good. How do you stop people buying energy intensive incandescent lightbulbs? Just don’t offer them as an option to consumers. It’s as simple as that.
The problem is that this approach relies on the company to really do what is most ethical, which from time to time will inevitably contradict what will make them money. So it’s possible that the best option for the environment would be not to buy a particular item from Marks & Spencer at all, but to buy it second-hand, or maybe borrow it, or even – are you sitting down for this? – to go without it completely. Given that the company exists to sell stuff, it’s hard to imagine ‘don’t buy this’ appearing as one of the edited options.
The voluntary nature of ‘responsible’ business is another severe limitation. How do you enforce it? How do you know whether what you’re being told is true, or just ‘cleanwash’? One of the depressing things about researching this magazine has been the discovery that, as soon as you scratch the surface, almost nothing is as ‘ethical’ as it seems, especially if you look at the whole picture rather than squinting through specific ‘environment’ or ‘labour’ or ‘fair trade’ lenses.
Chipping away the ‘cleanwash’
It turns out that the boom in organics, far from boosting small-scale sustainable farming around the world, is industrializing the sector, squeezing the small farmers out and watering down organic standards.
Fair trade is increasingly driven, not by the needs of poor producers, but the demands of big business. ‘When fair trade cotton came on the market, you couldn’t get the bloody stuff,’ reveals Paul Monaghan, head of ethics and sustainable development at the Co-operative Group. ‘M&S went out and bought the whole lot. When fair trade roses came out, Sainsbury’s got them. We were all fighting over the roses.’
‘Lifestyle’ magazines revel in the feelgood factor.
Apparently the fair trade labelling organizations were put under so much pressure to deliver these new products that corners were cut and compromises made. They began to certify huge privately owned flower plantations rather than small co-ops, and certifying only the way the cotton is grown as fair trade – allowing the shocking possibility that, further down the supply chain, a garment made from fair trade cotton could be put together in a sweatshop and still marketed as ‘fair trade’ to oblivious consumers…
It turns out that the boom in organics, far from boosting small-scale sustainable farming around the world, is industrializing the sector, squeezing the small farmers out and watering down organic standards.
Fair trade is increasingly driven, not by the needs of poor producers, but the demands of big business. ‘When fair trade cotton came on the market, you couldn’t get the bloody stuff,’ reveals Paul Monaghan, head of ethics and sustainable development at the Co-operative Group. ‘M&S went out and bought the whole lot. When fair trade roses came out, Sainsbury’s got them. We were all fighting over the roses.’
‘Lifestyle’ magazines revel in the feelgood factor.
Apparently the fair trade labelling organizations were put under so much pressure to deliver these new products that corners were cut and compromises made. They began to certify huge privately owned flower plantations rather than small co-ops, and certifying only the way the cotton is grown as fair trade – allowing the shocking possibility that, further down the supply chain, a garment made from fair trade cotton could be put together in a sweatshop and still marketed as ‘fair trade’ to oblivious consumers…
We know flying food around the world is environmental idiocy, but there are ethical issues raised by its more sustainable alternative – shipping. Seafarers are some of the most brutally exploited and abused workers in the world.
And what about the people who work in sectors not currently influenced by consumer power? Communities devastated by copper mines in Peru, palm oil growers in Indonesia thrown into jail for forming a union... The sources of their suffering are ubiquitous ingredients in Northern consumer goods. Must we really rely on NGOs to orchestrate costly campaigns on each and every one in order to mobilize consumer power to reform them? This is far too circuitous a route to bring about change.
And what about the people who work in sectors not currently influenced by consumer power? Communities devastated by copper mines in Peru, palm oil growers in Indonesia thrown into jail for forming a union... The sources of their suffering are ubiquitous ingredients in Northern consumer goods. Must we really rely on NGOs to orchestrate costly campaigns on each and every one in order to mobilize consumer power to reform them? This is far too circuitous a route to bring about change.
Sugar coating on a bitter pill?
Of course there are many visionary people around the world who are really trying to make alternative business models work – and it’s worth taking the time to seek them out. For example, one of the first fair trade companies, Cafédirect, has two Southern coffee and tea producers sitting on its Board. They recently issued ‘ethical’ shares for investors to buy on the understanding that they would not require the company to maximize profits at the expense of its values – an unheard-of stipulation in most of the corporate world.
Of course there are many visionary people around the world who are really trying to make alternative business models work – and it’s worth taking the time to seek them out. For example, one of the first fair trade companies, Cafédirect, has two Southern coffee and tea producers sitting on its Board. They recently issued ‘ethical’ shares for investors to buy on the understanding that they would not require the company to maximize profits at the expense of its values – an unheard-of stipulation in most of the corporate world.
But by and large, producer power is conspicuously absent even in the ethical business arena. Consumer power still rules and Northern consciences seem to be the main beneficiaries of ethical consumerism so far. Indeed, it is difficult to find much that has been said and written about the phenomenon amongst Majority World commentators. Those I have spoken to have been dismissive. ‘It’s sugar coating on a bitter pill that can prevent us from focusing on real structural issues,’ argues Indian activist and academic Anuradha Mittal, a fierce critic of ‘corporate social responsibility’ initiatives that mask the misdeeds of the companies who signed up. It’s just a way for ‘middle-class NGOs to get a piece of the capitalist action,’ declares Firoze Manji from African social justice network Fahamu.
Others see this as yet another way in which the poor are being disenfranchised. If exercising consumer power is the way to bring about political change, then if you are not a consumer, you are excluded from the process. This is equally true within rich countries, where the ethical marketplace is largely a playground for the middle classes. If shopping is politics, then the rich and privileged get to hog all the votes.
Drowning out the mood music
So as a means to change the world, the ethical consumerist approach is a blunt and imprecise tool. It is most effective when used collectively and strategically. Fair trade would not have got into the public consciousness – and the supermarkets – without dedicated campaigning by thousands of people in their local communities. Many small producers in the Majority World are certainly benefiting even if they are a drop in the ocean compared to those whose livelihoods have been jeopardized by the trading system as a whole.
So as a means to change the world, the ethical consumerist approach is a blunt and imprecise tool. It is most effective when used collectively and strategically. Fair trade would not have got into the public consciousness – and the supermarkets – without dedicated campaigning by thousands of people in their local communities. Many small producers in the Majority World are certainly benefiting even if they are a drop in the ocean compared to those whose livelihoods have been jeopardized by the trading system as a whole.
But if we give ethical consumers too much power, if we believe that the moral issues are black and white, if we get seduced by the idea that the market will respond to our ethical and environmental concerns, adapt accordingly and somehow the woes of the world will be solved, then we are making a huge mistake.
The mistake is partly to trust the market and ignore the central role governments must play in ending unsustainable patterns of consumption. Surely an important tool in curbing corporate abuse is to regulate against it. Governments can use taxes and other economic instruments to reshape economies and control markets, and can introduce and enforce ethical and environmental standards. Trade will not be made fair, paradoxically, by buying fair trade.
Governments must engage with changing the international rules that currently regulate it. None of these things are easily done, but we won’t achieve them by going shopping.
Perhaps an even bigger mistake is not to face up to the scale of change that’s required. Surviving the multiple impending catastrophes that our throwaway lifestyles have triggered will involve a seismic shift in the way we live our lives.
Perhaps an even bigger mistake is not to face up to the scale of change that’s required. Surviving the multiple impending catastrophes that our throwaway lifestyles have triggered will involve a seismic shift in the way we live our lives.
We must move away from limitless consumer-driven growth and towards a sustainable, low-carbon model that meets everyone’s needs through more connected communities rather than gleaming shopping malls. Sometimes our most ethical shopping choice will be to buy nothing; to embrace the idea that less can be more. But this is the one message that is not coming through clearly – from NGOs, governments, business and the media. And this particular eco-bullet is one we now have to bite.
We should not get too obsessed by whether we as individuals are consuming as ethically as possible. It’s important and rewarding to do what we can, but the achievement of moral purity is an impossible dream in such an imperfect world. As Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation puts it: ‘Ethical consumerism is mood music, rather than a re-engineering of the economy in a meaningful way. It feels palliative – a passive observer, not an active agent of change. We’ve got to get away from the passivity of being defined as consumers, and start making things happen.’
Ethical consumerism offers attractively simple answers when these do not exist. Buying a different brand of detergent is easy. But effecting social change is hard. Becoming more politically engaged with the impacts of everything we do in our lives is daunting. But this rise in ethical concerns is a huge opportunity, showing that more and more people are willing to act on the most pressing issues facing the planet. The challenge now is to find a way to harness and channel all this energy into something far more ambitious than getting fair trade kumquats on to the world’s supermarket shelves.
The Importance Of Alternative Energy Sources
One of the biggest challenges the human race faces today is finding and using alternative energy sources. The push for means of generating electricity has been around for over 100 years, but when oil and coal-fired generators produced power inexpensively, the world put the search for alternative energy sources on the back burner for a number of years.
We cannot procrastinate any longer, however, as many of the earth's natural resources, such as oil, are depleting.
A Short History Lesson on Alternative Energy Sources
The need for an alternate energy source was rekindled in the 1970's with the oil shortage that created lines at gas stations and produced critical shortages throughout the United States. The search for alternate power generation is not limited to finding new ways of powering vehicles, as supplying cheap power for homes and industries is a continuous endeavor. There have been many advances in the search for alternative energy sources, but the price of the power produced still remains too high.
Wind, water and sun are touted as renewable energy resources with claims that once the technology is perfected, making it more cost effective, they can replace the need for oil and natural gas to turn turbines in the generation process. Even geothermal power production is one of the alternate energy sources being researched.
The Source Of The Energy Depends on The Location
For many people the switch to alternative energy sources is a matter of finding the type of alternative power that works the best in their particular geographical location. Persons who live in areas that have limited exposure to the sun for example, may not be too excited about using solar panels to supply power. When the sun goes down for an extended number of days, the town can go dark.
In some of those areas, wind is not a problem as it seems to blow nearly every day. Using wind power to turn turbines to generate electricity can work there, but may not work in other areas that experience less windy conditions. Another of the alternative energy sources, hydropower uses the power of rivers to turn generators, but the cost of the infrastructure to get power to the people from the generator may still be high for long range use.
With the three major alternative energy sources continuing to be researched and advanced, the need for an answer to out problem becomes more evident every time a person receives their electric bill, or fills their car with gas.
The resources that we have left on the planet are running out. Do your part to keep educated on the latest changes in technology and any up to date with the issues at hand to learn what you can do to help solve the energy crisis.
Learn how you can save money and the planet by visiting: http://www.learntomakebiodiesel.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Madison_Greene
Injustices by Shell Oil are the focus of 'Nobel Prize' for the Environmental Movement
On Monday, 23 April 2007 William Corduff, a lifetime resident of Rossport, a sparsely populated farming community in North Mayo County, Ireland was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in recognition of his resistance, along with his local community, against Shell Oil’s illegally-approved pipeline through their land.
What is significant about this award is that it once again, awards community resistance against Shell Oil.
On two previous occasions Shell Oil was the focus, first in Nigeria, when Ken Saro Wiwa received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1995 and then in 1998 when Margie Richards was awarded the prize for her work in Louisiana, in the United States.
In 1998 Bobby Peek, a resident of Durban, received the award for his work with the south Durban community, resisting multinational corporations in south Durban, where Shell Oil operates the biggest South African oil refinery.
groundWork (Friends of the Earth, South Africa – www.gorundwork.org.za) and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA – www.sdcea.org.za) have been part of the global Shell Accountability Campaign because of Shell Oil’s activities in south Durban which have resulted in Shell Oil’s pipelines leaking more than one million litres of petrol under community homes.
The Shell Accountability Campaign was started in 2002 with the release of the book ‘Riding the Dragon’ which documents Shell Oil’s impacts globally.
Since 2002, the Campaign has grown to include community groups from four continents and non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth International and, in the US, Global Community Monitor and Environmental Health Fund.
Shell Oil planned to start off shore gas production in 2003 near Rossport, bringing toxic, unrefined gas ashore at Rossport via a high pressure pipeline stretching six miles to a refinery which was to be constructed in neighbouring Bellanaboy. Despite objections by many Rossport citizens, Shell was granted permission by the Irish government to run the pipeline across the property of more than two dozen farmers and landowners.
In response, William Corduff and his neighbours began a grassroots campaign to rally the support of their fellow Rossport residents in challenging the pipeline. In June 2005, after refusing Shell access to their property, William Corduff and four other men were jailed. Known as the “Rossport Five,” they were released after spending 94 days in jail.
William Corduff:
“The bottom line is we will not lie down. We can not. There is too much at stake. We’d have to leave our homes if we were to accept this. We have to protect ourselves, because no one else will.”
You can also watch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLpDmh4BU8w
What is significant about this award is that it once again, awards community resistance against Shell Oil.
On two previous occasions Shell Oil was the focus, first in Nigeria, when Ken Saro Wiwa received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1995 and then in 1998 when Margie Richards was awarded the prize for her work in Louisiana, in the United States.
In 1998 Bobby Peek, a resident of Durban, received the award for his work with the south Durban community, resisting multinational corporations in south Durban, where Shell Oil operates the biggest South African oil refinery.
groundWork (Friends of the Earth, South Africa – www.gorundwork.org.za) and the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA – www.sdcea.org.za) have been part of the global Shell Accountability Campaign because of Shell Oil’s activities in south Durban which have resulted in Shell Oil’s pipelines leaking more than one million litres of petrol under community homes.
The Shell Accountability Campaign was started in 2002 with the release of the book ‘Riding the Dragon’ which documents Shell Oil’s impacts globally.
Since 2002, the Campaign has grown to include community groups from four continents and non-governmental organisations such as Friends of the Earth International and, in the US, Global Community Monitor and Environmental Health Fund.
Shell Oil planned to start off shore gas production in 2003 near Rossport, bringing toxic, unrefined gas ashore at Rossport via a high pressure pipeline stretching six miles to a refinery which was to be constructed in neighbouring Bellanaboy. Despite objections by many Rossport citizens, Shell was granted permission by the Irish government to run the pipeline across the property of more than two dozen farmers and landowners.
In response, William Corduff and his neighbours began a grassroots campaign to rally the support of their fellow Rossport residents in challenging the pipeline. In June 2005, after refusing Shell access to their property, William Corduff and four other men were jailed. Known as the “Rossport Five,” they were released after spending 94 days in jail.
William Corduff:
“The bottom line is we will not lie down. We can not. There is too much at stake. We’d have to leave our homes if we were to accept this. We have to protect ourselves, because no one else will.”
You can also watch video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLpDmh4BU8w
Permaculture explained
There is an old saying: 'Civilised man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints.' (Carter and Dale, Topsoil and Civilization, p.6)
Today, worldwide, on land once rich with natural vegetation, we see deserts denuded of their topsoil, deserts of salt-encrusted soil from years of irrigation, deserts due to widespread deforestation having altered the regional climate.
The problem from a permaculture perspective has been a lack of design. Agriculture, from its invention and reinvention from some 10,000 years ago onwards, has generally involved a crude process of clearing the wilderness and establishing a cycle of digging or ploughing, then seeding with a few useful species, primarily grasses,then harvesting the crop to feed humans and livestock - and the cycle begins again year on year until the land is exhausted - after which a new area of wilderness is cleared.
Perhaps humans devised this system after surviving for a million years or so by hunting and gathering, and learning that regular firing of the undergrowth encouraged fresh sprouting pioneer species which were more nutritious for people and the grazing herds we hunted than did the stable, mature forest.
The solution from a permaculture perspective is to introduce design into agriculture in order to create permanent high-yielding agricultural ecosystems, so that humans can thrive on as little land as possible, thus leaving as much land as possible as wilderness, if necessary helping the wilderness re-establish itself. This visionary global mission is encapsulated in the word 'permaculture', a shortened form of 'permanent agriculture'.
In order to implement this global vision, we need local solutions, because every place on earth is different in local climate, land form, soils, and the combinations of species which will thrive. Not only does the land and its potential vary from place to place, but so do the people vary in their needs and preferences and their capacities. Every place and community requires its own particular design. Hence at the local level, permaculture designers often refer to permaculture as being about designing for 'permanent culture'.
The global vision can be lost sight of in the nitty-gritty of 'permanent culture' designing for local sustainability. But the vision is vital and can inspire us to keep going in the face of obstruction and apathy.
Bill Mollison explainsBill Mollison explains why freeing land for wilderness matters even for those who think only people matter:
'Even anthropocentric people would be well-advised to pay close attention to, and to assist in, the conservation of existing forests and the rehabilitation of degraded lands. Our own survival demands that we preserve all existing species, and allow them a place to live.
We have abused the land and laid waste to systems we need never have disturbed had we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:
We have abused the land and laid waste to systems we need never have disturbed had we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:
Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining natural forests, where most species are still in balance;
Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems to stable states;
Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use for our existence; and
Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.
Permaculture as a design system deals primarily with the third statement above, but all people who act responsibly in fact subscribe to the first and second statements. That said, I believe we should use all the species we need or can find to use in our own settlement designs, providing they are not locally rampant and invasive.
Whether we approve of it or not, the world about us continually changes. Some would want to keep everything the same, but history, palaeontology, and common sense tells us that all has changed, is changing, will change. In a world where we are losing forests, species, and whole ecosystems, there are three concurrent and parallel responses to the environment:
CARE FOR SURVIVING NATURAL ASSEMBLIES, to leave the wilderness to heal itself;
REHABILITATE DEGRADED OR ERODED LAND using complex pioneer species and long-term plant assemblies (trees, shrubs, ground covers);
CREATE OUR OWN COMPLEX LIVING ENVIRONMENT with as many species as we can save, or have need for, from wherever on earth they come.
We are fast approaching the point where we need refuges for all global life forms, as well as regional, national, or state parks for indigenous forms of plants and animals.
While we see our local flora and fauna as "native", we may also logically see all life as "native to earth".
While we try to preserve systems that are still local and diverse, we should also build new or recombinant ecologies from global resources, especially in order to stabilise degraded lands.'
Permaculture in PracticePermaculture is about creating sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns." It uses the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems to provide a framework and guidance for people to develop their own sustainable solutions to the problems facing their world, on a local, national or global scale.
It is based on the philosophy of co-operation with nature and caring for the earth and its people.
A system of design"Maximum contemplation; minimum action"
Permaculture is about thinking before you act.
Permaculture is not a set of rules; it is a process of design based around principles found in the natural world, of co-operation and mutually beneficial relationships, and translating these principles into actions.
This action can range from choosing what you eat, how you travel, the type of work you do, and where you live, to working with others to create a community food-growing project. It's about making decisions that relate to all your other decisions; so one area of your life is not working against another. For example, if you are planning a journey, consider other tasks that can be completed on the way to your destination (combining a trip to the leisure centre with buying food on the way home, for example).
It means thinking about your life or project as a whole system - working out the most effective way to do things that involves the least effort and the least damage to others, and looking for ways to make relationships more beneficial.
It is essential to observe your surroundings before making choices. Taking stock at the beginning of a project (whether it be building a house or planting a window box) of the available resources in terms of time, materials, skills, money, opportunities, land etc, and thinking about how these resources can relate to each other is a useful basis for designing a sustainable and effective system. To take the example of a garden - careful observation over the course of a few months can give information about the sunniest spots, the path of a neighbourhood fox, which areas are sheltered from the wind. Such information is not always immediately available, but can ultimately be very important.
A key feature of the design process in permaculture is "zoning". This is about placing things appropriately in relation to each other, and works on the principle that those things which require frequent attention are placed closest to the home. It is about using time, energy and resources wisely, which can be as simple as planting your most used herbs nearest to your kitchen, or as complex as planning a community.
Ethics and Principles"If we want to move on and create sustainability and a more fulfilling quality of life, the best way to do this is to understand the nature of the world and to live harmoniously and creatively with it - to understand that we are a part of the web of life, not separate from it."
Permaculture embodies a system of ethics and principles that we aim to put into practice. These focus around sustainability and fairness, and are generally divided into three main categories:
Earth CarePermaculture as a design system is based on natural systems. It is about working with nature, not against it - not using natural resources unnecessarily or at a rate at which they cannot be replaced. It also means using outputs from one system as inputs for another (vegetable peelings as compost, for example), and so minimising wastage.
People CarePeople care is about looking after us as people, not just the world we live in. It works on both an individual and a community level. Self-reliance, co-operation and support of each other should be encouraged. It is, however, important to look after ourselves on an individual level too. Our skills are of no use to anyone if we are too tired to do anything useful! People care is also about our legacy to future generations.
Fair SharesThe fair shares part of the permaculture ethic brings earth care and people care together.
We only have one earth, and we have to share it - with each other, with other living things, and with future generations.
This means limiting our consumption, especially of natural resources, and working for everyone to have access to the fundamental needs of life - clean water, clean air, food, shelter, meaningful employment, and social contact.
Permaculture does not provide prescriptive solutions to the problems facing the world - nobody is going to demand that you put an herb spiral in the bottom left corner of your garden, or wear only hand knitted recycled non-bleached organic fair trade clothes. It is about allowing you the freedom to observe your surroundings, and make decisions that will work for you, in your situation, using the resources you have.
Self-Reliance and Community Sufficiency "We try to empower people to take control of their own lives. If you can see something needs doing, then give yourself permission to do it"
Permaculture seeks to foster the skills, confidence and imagination to enable people to become self-reliant, and to seek creative solutions to problems on a global or local scale. While the individual has a part to play, in most places it is not realistic for an individual household to provide for all of their own needs in terms of food, clothing, work etc, and the emphasis is more on self-reliance and increased sufficiency within the community, rather than individual self-sufficiency.
In practice, this does not mean each person growing enough food to feed themselves in their back garden; it means that as many as possible of the inputs for a community (food, skills etc) come from within that community - perhaps in the form of community food growing schemes, Local Exchange and Trading Systems to exchange skills and produce etc.
Permaculture means different things to different people. One person may interpret it in a practical sense in terms of growing food, perhaps, while another will focus on a more spiritual side. This diversity is important; it helps to keep a sense of balance, and encourages people to share their resources and knowledge with others.
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