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I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
Archive for “Permaculture” category
Showing results 71 - 75 of 105 for the category: Permaculture.
1 Jun 2006
Global Public Media have just posted a talk by the great David Holmgren, the co-founder of permaculture, just after Hurricane Katrina, which explores peak oil, energy descent and permaculture. He sets out the history of the permaculture movement, its place in the larger sustainability movement, the concept of energy descent and our options forward from here. David is really at the cutting edge of thinking about solutions to peak oil and energy descent, his approach is practical, and his solutions are realistic, positive, but also address the profundity of the challenge. David has been a huge inspiration to my work, do have a listen.
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24 May 2006
**Peter Harper** has been at the Centre for Alternative Technology for over 15 years as a landscape designer, director of biological research and now as Head of Research and Innovation. He is author of many articles and of the classic “Natural Garden Book”, which I think is now tragically out of print. He lives in Machynlleth has done a great job of renovating his traditional cottage as ‘greenly’ as possible, as well as creating a beautiful and productive garden.
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3 Apr 2006
The terrible case of Charles Martin, the Ohio man who shot a neighbour’s son to death for walking on his lawn has shown us the flipside of our cultural neurotic obsession with lawns, those neat, tidy, manicured, and ultimately useless landscapes. This man was so enraged that someone would walk on his grass that he reached for his shotgun. Lawns are a classic example of our dysfunctional society. Here is a form of land use, described by Stephen Morris as ” the Marine haircut of the plant world”, that uses more energy, pesticides and herbicides (and in some places, water) than agriculture, yet is entirely useless. Where our oil-poor ancestors would have had potatoes and chard, we have lawn. I am delighted to be able to announce to you though, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the Days of the Lawn are numbered.
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13 Mar 2006
In an interview with Paul McCartney (which you can hear here) , he talks about the song ‘Yesterday’ (one of my least favourite Beatles songs…). He said he woke up one day with this song in his head, and couldn’t think where he had heard it, and went around asking his friends what this song was. He’d play it to them and they would all tell him they hadn’t heard it before. After a while he realised he must have made it up, but still wondered if one day the person who wrote the original would get in touch (now there’s an idea for making a few quid…). In putting together this, the last in the Top Five Things To Do With Oil Barrels series, I want to offer an idea which, likewise, I am sure is not mine, but which, try as I might, I am unable to find where it came from.
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10 Mar 2006
This is possibly the single most wonderful things you could do with oil barrels. How about converting them into the most efficient form of space heating imaginable? All for just a few quid? In such a way as to heat the house as well as a beautiful heated cob bench, bed, whatever? I am always drawn towards technology that is simple enought that I can build it, look after it and explain it. The Rocket Stove is potentially one of the greatest inventions of recent years, and one you really should know about. Why there aren’t research facilities full of engineers running around with barrels and cob and making fires to test their amazing new creations is beyond me….
Read more»
Global Public Media have just posted a talk by the great David Holmgren, the co-founder of permaculture, just after Hurricane Katrina, which explores peak oil, energy descent and permaculture. He sets out the history of the permaculture movement, its place in the larger sustainability movement, the concept of energy descent and our options forward from here. David is really at the cutting edge of thinking about solutions to peak oil and energy descent, his approach is practical, and his solutions are realistic, positive, but also address the profundity of the challenge. David has been a huge inspiration to my work, do have a listen. 
