Now that we've covered where we get energy,
let's explore how we invest it, and the ethical sustainability of that investment.
We are each given a limited number of years on the earth to do whatever it is we choose to do. How we invest that time matters; that is what makes up the sum total of our lives. So, when you go to work you invest your time and energy in exchange for money, which you can then invest in food, or the stock market, or a house, or fishing... whatever you need or like.
In order to conserve energy - resources - we must know how we are investing it.
People Care
Earth Care
Fair Share
Provision for all life systems to continue and multiply
Provision for all people to access those resources necessary to their existence
Setting limits to population and consumption. Governing our own needs.
There are three types of investments of resources - whether time, money or effort - that we make every day: degenerative, generative and regenerative.
Degenerative investments use resources for items that lose value as time goes by. For example, when you invest money in a car, it helps you do things, but over time the car loses value and must be replaced.
Generative investments use resources for items that give back some fixed amount that is limited by the scope of the original investment. For example, when you plant an annual crop of corn, you invest your money in the seed, and time in cultivation, getting a return equal to the original investment. That return is still limited by the amount of corn seed you were able to buy and plant, and the fact that corn is an annual crop. You will need to re-invest your time and money again and again.
Regenerative investments use resources for items that give back again and again. For example, if you plant a perennial crop like apple trees, you invest the time to get them established, and they will return apples for years to come, perhaps even for generations.
The types of investments we choose matter.
Sustainability is the ability to continue. For anything to continue, it must produce at least as much as it requires to function, whether that's energy, time or money. Something cannot be sustainable if it operates at a deficit in resources.
Permaculture ethics (as stated by the founder of permaculture, Bill Mollison)
require living justly within each of these categories, and the places where they intersect.
Ethical existence is essentially a balance between the needs of all life, it is far too common to separate human needs from the needs of insects, animals, fungi and plants. Without them, we can not survive. When we act with our collective world in mind, that balance can be maintained.
In addition to the ethics, there are twelve permaculture principles (from Bill Mollison) that give us a road map to achieving ethical existence. The better we practice each of them, the better equipped we will be to create a livable world for all.
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Observe and Interact
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Catch and Store energy
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Obtain a yield
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Apply self regulation and feedback
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Use and value renewables
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Produce no waste
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Design from Patterns to Details
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Integrate don't separate
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Use small, slow solutions
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Use and value Diversity
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Use the Edge and value the Marginal
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Creatively Use and Respond to Change
While generally intuitive, we should explore these concepts in more detail...
It is very difficult to decide where our human systems are the most in need of attention. We waste vast amount of time, money, energy and natural resources because we want an easy, convenient life and we want it instantly. We pollute and destroy ecosystems to further our short-sighted goals, even though we can see the toll it takes on the world around us. Everyday, we miss opportunities to create a more ideal world, even though we have the means at our disposal. The cost of this culture of instant gratification and glorification of goods is mounting, and may soon be out of our reach. Only by changing deeply rooted characteristics of our society, can we begin to live in harmony with our life support system. If we do not, the system will shrug us off.
All of this is what makes (#4) the practice of self-regulation and acceptance of feedback so important.
We need to be diligent about honestly looking at our lives and recognizing where we need change, and then we need to be earnest in creating workable plans for making that change happen. Until we control our excessive desire for irresponsibly manufactured and meaningless objects, we will continue to make unwise decisions based on self-centered ideals. Until we recognize and acknowledge the damage we are doing to ourselves and the other inhabitants of the planet, we continue to slip further and further away from a livable future for the generations to come.
Time, energy, money, food, and natural resources... it is hard to think of an area of life in which humankind does not create a great deal of needless waste. There are endless numbers of waste streams that flow throughout each of our lives, and trying to stem that flow can often leave us feeling discouraged or helpless. This can lead to paralyzing inaction, because the task just seems to enormous to master.
But the truth is that all efforts to (#6) produce no waste make a difference. It is much more important to take one step at a time, moving always in the right direction, than to try to get everything right all at once. In fact, significant, long-term change has rarely ever
come about through an 'all at once' effort. The first step is to do a full self review and identify the areas most in need of change, and easiest to create change.
(#5) Use and value renewables means that we need also to recognize which energy sources are sustainable, and employ those above all others.
Because recycling is a process plagued by inefficiencies and under-developed end uses, reducing and reusing are more effective approaches. There is no need to recycle something that was created to be useful again and again, and designed to be compostable at the end of its usefulness, to return to the soil in order to safely continue through the nutrient cycle.
In short, if we focus on - reuse as opposed to recycle, reduce as opposed to consume, and if we make sustainability culturally more important than stuff and speed and ease, we can create a world with fewer challenges for our children and their children.
Inclusion and Diversity are such important concepts, that they show up three times in the list.
Diversity creates strength and resiliency in a system. For that reason we need to (#10) use and value diversity in the environments we create for ourselves. The advantages gained from diversity don't stop at strength and resiliency. When we (#8) integrate, instead of separate, whether we are talking about soil, plants, ecosystems, theologies, cultures, education or humanity, everything benefits from diversity, variety, and trait or idea sharing. Inclusion means that we (#11) use and value
the marginalized. Using the edges and valuing the marginal adds diversity in all of our environments. For example forest edges, the place where forest gives way to open meadow, have the widest variety of species of plants and animals, since they combine the more homogenous zones from each side. This pattern repeats in all edge-spaces we encounter.
In order to understand anything, it is vital to (#1) observe and interact with it. Interaction is necessary for understanding problems, evaluating waste or inefficiency, and weighing new ideas. The entirety of human history, up to the modern age, was driven by observation and interaction with the natural world. This is how we see patterns and understand function and flow.
Once we recognize the patterns and flow of a system, we should (#7) design from the patterns down to the details. In this way we can choose details that support or alter the patterns as needed.
If we (#9) use small, slow solutions to create change we can observe their effects, and (#12) creatively use and respond to changes. Solutions that do not work are more easily reconsidered if not large, costly, and swift. This is the way way to create sustainable change.
When we make wise and conscious decisions, we will have no trouble with (#2) catch and store energy and (#3) obtain a yield.