WEBVTT - What's permaculture all about? 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:14.040 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:18.680 and there's Charles W. Chipper, Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry Rowland. 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.000 And we're all in great moods everybody, because it's stuff 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:26.119 you should know. Time. Everything else just falls to the 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:29.000 wayside when we record stuff you should know. It's just 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:31.560 it's the reason we love doing it. Still, after a 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.239 thousand episodes, do you realize every single listener right now 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.839 is thinking why are they in a bad mood? And 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.279 why is Josh being so weird? I don't think I'm 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.960 being weird? Am I being? Am I overselling it? I 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.720 think so? Oh sorry, it makes it sound like we 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.080 all three were in a big fist fight and then 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:52.120 Jerry had recorded, right, She's like just jammed to clean 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.000 X upper nose to staunch the bleeding. I am recovering 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:59.240 a bit because we just got back from New York City. Dude, 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.600 it has been a week. So we did. We did 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:05.759 show a show Sunday, a show Monday, in a show Tuesday, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.720 all sold out at the Bellhouse travel Home Wednesday, and 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:14.520 our recording today Thursday. Yes, and I I just want 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:17.399 to say, there's no way that people will ever hear 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.959 Tuesday's episode because it was the filthiest thing we've ever 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.040 done on stage. It was seriously, man, I don't know 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:26.680 what got into us. I think it was night three 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:31.280 of three. Uh so that is for the three and 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.080 fifty people in that room. Yeah, I hope they enjoyed it. 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.480 It was fun. It was fun, and come on out. 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:39.399 Whenever we do a live show, you never know for 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.640 this gonna be like this one's not getting released. Let's 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.600 just go crazy, you know, especially it was a twenty 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.440 one and up show, which is really well, that's why 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.920 we for sure why we did it. Yeah, that's what 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.800 took the feedbag off, you know. And that is saying 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.760 I think so put the feedback on take it off. Yeah, 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.600 I guess so. I guess so it's not really but 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:03.040 we'll just pressed forward. How about that. Let's do so, Chuck, 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.000 I know that you know this, but not everybody knows this. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:11.639 I had a personal conversation with one Charles C. Man, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.800 who wrote my favorite book of all time that is correct. 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:19.960 Uh And I was talking to Mr Man and he 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.360 has a I was talking to him. I've got a 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.040 show coming out on Existential Risks eventually, but um, and 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:27.520 he's going to be in it, and it's just like 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.520 interviewed for it. But he has a book coming out 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.080 this January and it's called The Wizard and the Prophet. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:35.360 Have you heard of it? No? But did you just 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:39.079 say that he's going to be uh part of Existential Risks. Yeah, 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.480 he's an Interviewee. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's gonna be pretty 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.000 I was really psyched to just be able to talk 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.120 to him, and even better than that, like you know, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.440 we were kind of rapping for a few minutes beforehand, 0:02:49.800 --> 0:02:53.120 and it was just as calm and casual as I 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.400 had always like envisioned talking to him that would be. Yeah, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.920 it was a really really neat conversation. But he was 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.079 telling me about the book has coming out, The Wizard 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:06.000 and the Profit, and it's basically about him trying to 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.120 find out how we can possibly or even if it 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:14.080 is possible, um sustain ten billion people on planet Earth 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.960 and not just sustained meaning like you know, keeping him alive, 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.160 but how can we do it sustainably? And he goes 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.960 back and starts digging in and finds that there's this 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.920 long standing head butt between the techno optimists, the people 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.440 who are like, well, we humans are smart enough to 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.200 invent our way out of any problem, and the people 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.520 who are like, no, we need to really like mitigate 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.760 a lot of things that we're doing right now to 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.480 to make sure that we actually can keep doing this 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.360 for the foreseeable future. Uh. And part of it is 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.960 on Norman borlog Um, and he is the wizard that's 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.119 actually absolutely right there. The profit is a guy named 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.600 William voked v O g T. I believe his name, 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.160 and he I don't know nearly as much about him 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.720 as Norman borlog which is say, I know basically zero 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.240 about him, but he's the prophet, so I will know 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.160 all about him when the book comes out in January. 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.280 I'm psyched about it. But as I was researching this 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.200 pull Perma Culture article, I was like, you can really 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.320 see that that same head butt, that same push and 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.240 pull between people who are saying we need sustainability and 0:04:22.279 --> 0:04:24.159 other people are like, we need to feed, you know, 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:28.560 billions and billions of people. And that really comes together 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:32.159 in the debate over perma culture and whether it works 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.159 or whether it is just just a pie in the 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.640 sky kind of idea. Well, I have a little something 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:42.720 to say. I am a bit of an earth well 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:46.279 not a bit. I'm an urban perma culturist. That's awesome. 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.520 We have not in me as like I don't know 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.360 much of while I do know about the stuff now 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.320 after researching it. But we uh have are redoing our 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:59.000 front and backyards and we hired a perma culture company 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.760 to do so. Really, the Perma Culture Pros. That's not 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.320 their name, but maybe it should be. Uh yeah, So 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.320 we're we're we are like right in the middle of 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:15.559 making our small little piece of Atlanta UM a perma 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:18.960 culture urban permic I know it's hard to say now 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:21.960 that I'm saying it out last an urban perm habitat 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:26.239 if you will herb perm that's right. So I'll be peppering, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.760 you know, little things here and there. I think that 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.800 would help a lot because UM perma culture, as it 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.560 turns out, and I didn't know really anything about it 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.920 until we started researching this. UM it is a wooly idea. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.920 It's tough to pin down, which is really weird because 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:49.200 it's actually a set of design principles meant to grow 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.440 food for people in a way that's sustainable and not harmful. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:58.159 And it basically stands in contradiction of what you would 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:02.280 consider like big modern and agriculture, which is, we grow 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.880 one kind of food and we squeeze as much as 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.400 we possibly can out of it from the ground we have, 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.080 using as much artificial resources as we possibly need to 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:15.560 to increase our yield. Yeah, and that's like people throw 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.920 around the word sustainable or unsustainable. Um, and maybe people 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.360 sometimes folks don't even stop to think about what that means. 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:26.040 Sustainable or I guess we'll start with unsustainable. That means 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.360 that you are you're depleting resources around you, and you're 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:35.600 depending very much on bringing in different resources to make 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:40.240 that thing work. Right, Like you're not just using what's available, 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.000 Like that's what sustainable would be. You're using what's available 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:48.080 at all works together to ideally sustain itself without saying, well, 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.719 now I need to bring in this thing from where 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:55.560 we're here to make this these acres of corn grow. Yeah, 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.880 I've got to go burn a bunch of fossil fuels 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.839 to create nitrogen based fertilizer. And uh, it's not going 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:03.720 to attach to the soil very well, so a lot 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.359 of it will run off and be wasted, and even worse, 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.599 it'll end up in a pond, which will create an 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:12.400 algae bloom which sucks up all of the dissolved oxygen, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:17.280 which creates a fish kill. That's unsustainable. And and it's 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.960 weird because I hadn't really thought about that either, Chuck. 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.760 But as growing up, as like kids who were sentiented 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:28.000 in the nineties, you hear unsustainable and it's just basically 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:32.560 in your mind equated with evil, like almost intentionally malicious 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.239 acts against the earth, and that's just not necessarily the case. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:41.560 And that that's another thing about like Norman Borlog the Wizard. Um, 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.400 he had the greatest of intentions, but you can also 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.160 lay at his feet a lot of the ecological problems 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.200 we're facing right now because of agriculture and the agricultural 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.480 practices he helped pioneer in order to feed a bunch 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.360 of people. So there's this this this tension between unsustainability 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:01.760 and sustainability, but it's also of attention between what's realistic 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.640 and what's not. You know, Yeah, it's definitely a little sticky. 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.280 It is a little sticky, But permaculture basically is trying 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:13.760 to create like a harmonious, holistic approach to um farming 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:17.000 and whether it be a large farm or like in 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:21.080 my case, like an urban a small urban plot. Uh. 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.160 And like I said, well kind of go over both 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.360 of those through my lens and then through the larger 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.920 ideas of the farm. Um. And it's not like Robert 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:32.000 Lamb wrote this article from stuff to pull your mind. 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:35.120 He did a good job with it. He does, but um, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.480 he does point out that you shouldn't. It doesn't necessarily 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:41.800 mean that you have to go back to caveman days 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:43.720 and like you have to live like tuk tuk and 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:47.040 scavenge the earth. Um. He said, to think of it, 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.040 uh in terms of a river, Like you're a boat 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.720 floating down a river and you were sustained by that river, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.200 but you are also navigating it as well with your 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.719 rudder and if you have to you right now, it 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.720 just increased tenfold. That's right. So yeah, it's it's it's 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.640 not like just passively taking from the land what it 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.520 has to offer. There's still management of it, right, But 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:14.880 but the idea behind that management of it is is 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.320 managing the land um in a way that that the 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.360 land is happy with you, Like you can walk past 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.600 the dog that's just sitting there looking at you, and 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.000 maybe you know, give it like a wink or something 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.200 like that and keep walking. Um, that's passive. But if 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.319 you stop and scratch it behind the ear, you're managing 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.839 that dog in a way or something like that. You're 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.760 at least interacting with it more and the dog likes it. 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:41.920 You could also walk past the dog and like poking 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.800 in the ribs. That's interacting with it in a way 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:48.559 that the dog wouldn't like. Permaculture is the middle one, right, 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:51.120 So you're saying, hey, I want to get something out 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:52.920 of you, like a good feeling, so I'm gonna scratch 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.400 it behind the ear earth. And again, like you said, 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.640 you're doing that by trying to create a system, whether 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:01.760 it's you're little plot of land or a full scale 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:06.400 industrial sized farm, um, in a way that it has 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.679 it's sustainable, meaning it requires as few external inputs as possible. 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.240 That's right, But sorry, I just need to point it again. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.319 It's still being managed. It's still being managed by you, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.560 just in a harmonious way. Yeah. I think there's a 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.800 word for the other thing where you just just let 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:28.760 everything do its thing, right. Yeah, that's nature. Maybe like 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:33.840 wilding or something or rewilding. Have we talked about that? No, 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.400 we did. I'm probably wrong anyway, although we also thought 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.960 we didn't do a cat episode, So who knows if 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.520 we've talked about it before or not. All right, so 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:46.640 this all goes back to Australia and see you in 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:52.359 September of next year Australia. Yep, right, yep, get get excited. 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.439 Oh man, you just sold us a million tickets for 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.800 that accent, buddy? Uh in New Zealand, Um, you gotta 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.440 you gotta take it better than that. Well, no, I'm 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:05.960 I'm super excited about going to New Zealand. I didn't 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:08.400 want to not mention that, you say in New Zealand. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.040 In New Zealand. Uh So in Australia in the nineteen 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.440 seventies there were a couple of dudes named Bill Mollison 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:21.000 and David Holmgren and imagine they were sitting around smoking 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:23.200 a joint one night and in the version that I 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.520 have in my head, when they dreamed up the word 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:31.400 perma culture, in which is basically what we've been talking about. 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.439 This is just put a word on it. Um actually 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.640 two words permanent and agriculture. Good point, and they said, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:42.880 let's join those up. And he said, and that was it. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.760 That's how I went down. Uh. And it's a self 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:48.680 sustaining alternative to like what you were talking about, which 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.719 is mass production of a single crop. And there are 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:56.520 three basic ethics to the perma culture movement. Um, care 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.480 for the earth, care for the people, and then setting 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:04.600 limits on population and consumption. Right. And so Mollison, I believe, 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.160 was a professor at the time and Homegren was a student, 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.839 and they they split within a few years. They had 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.320 creative differences. I guess you could kind of call it. 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.240 They both like pursued perma culture, but through different ways. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.560 So Mollison is frequently um accused, or was I think 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.719 he may have passed um accused of being kind of 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:34.199 a dogmatic, um charismatic, egomaniac maybe where it was like, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.839 it's more way, you're the high way, um, and and 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:42.040 that that extended to even principles of perman culture, right, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.200 like if he said it, it was just that was 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.640 just true. Whereas Homegrown apparently took a little more of 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.760 a pragmatic approach to studying it, finding out the best practices, 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.520 discarding the ones that didn't work. Even if they were 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:59.720 like precious to everybody, including the entire Perma culture movement, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.120 and and movement is actually the right word, because there 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.080 is like this definite um well, like Mollison put the 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.040 cult in permit culture, you know what I'm saying, Like, 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:15.199 there's definitely an adherency to it that's kind of fervent. 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.120 You know that that the whole movement gets criticized for, 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:23.440 rightfully or wrongly, but they they both kind of um. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.800 I think the fact that they did split probably added 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.240 to this field even more because there's two different courses 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.360 of study or of um thinking about it, at least 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.160 um that were able to develop in tandem. Yeah, and 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.880 this stuff is nothing new. They didn't intervent this idea 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.280 because took took in the gang way back in the 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:45.440 ancient days did things like this. They worked with what 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.679 they had. They didn't have four acres of corn. They 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:53.120 had they did forest farming, they had crop rotation, they composted, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.480 they had multiple crops. Uh. And they were not just 0:13:56.640 --> 0:14:00.200 out to be leading pioneers and environmentalism. They were that 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.320 was just the way you work the earth back then. 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.640 And that's a lot of what perman culture is all about. 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:10.679 Is returning to this idea of of just sort of 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.559 doing it the smart right way. Uh. And again, this 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.360 is probably not going to be the thing that feeds 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.520 the world. But that's not to say you can't have 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.000 a perman culture movement in farms and urban perman culture 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.000 going on. Well, that's one of the things that it 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:29.560 gets criticized about is that people, um who are big 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:34.760 time adherents of perman culture do tend to say, like, uh, yeah, 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:36.920 this is this is what we need to feed the world, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.440 and if we don't do this, then there's not going 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.040 to be people around two feed because we're going to 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.240 wreck the earth and die from climate change. Yeah. I 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.600 get that, but I think I come from the like 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:52.120 reality camp, and you're not going to undo conventional modern farming. 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.400 You're not gonna just completely supplant that anymore. It's kind 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.560 of too late. I agree with you. I am of 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.360 the same mindset. Um. I do think though that you 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.520 these practices are most of them should be incorporated as 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.160 best as possible. That'd be great. So I think there's 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.760 a happy medium between you know, big big time monoculture 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:22.160 agriculture and pure perma culture, just because they're both probably 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.800 unsustainable for what we need, which is to feed a 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.000 bunch of people in a way that doesn't wreck the earth. Yeah, 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.600 I'm with you, man. Should we take a break? All right, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.120 We're gonna take a little, uh, a little pause for 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.440 the cause and then come back. That was so corny 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.480 and so I'm like a radio dj uh and then 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:42.400 come back and talk about design principles of perman culture 0:15:42.480 --> 0:16:05.440 right after this. Okay, you're back, We're back. Are we back? 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.120 I'm back. Okay, I'm back to Jerry. You're back. She's back. 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.600 She's back. So um, Like I said early on Chuck, 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.440 the permaculture is a little it's wooly. It's a wooly idea. 0:16:17.480 --> 0:16:19.960 There's so many different definitions of it, and as a result, 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.560 it's it's um image kind of suffers in the mind 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:28.840 of rational skeptics. Right. But I did find one um 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.640 one definition of it that I thought really got the 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:37.360 whole point across the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:41.800 productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.160 natural ecosystems. That's a big one. There's a second half 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.240 even it is the harmonious integration of the landscape with 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:53.280 people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.240 non material needs in a sustainable way. That is a 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.360 great definition. I agree wholeheartedly. And I'm not sure who 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.080 the actual person who who said or wrote it was, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.119 because it's it was misattributed to at least three different people. 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.800 But regardless, it's a great definition. We should just throw 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.399 your name in there too. Sure we'll say I said it. 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.840 So you said you brought up the three basic ethics, right, 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.800 the care for earth, care for people, and setting limits 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.960 on population. I feel like we should kind of go 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.560 over those a little in depth, don't you think. Yeah, 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:27.119 care for earth is um it's not just like a 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.120 lot of this is about plants, of course, but it's 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:33.400 also animals and insects and how the air moves through 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.360 the area and minerals in the earth. Um, And it's 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:43.479 basically respecting all of the things within the ecosystem. How's that? 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:48.280 I think that's great? Care for people right? So basically 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.280 that's saying like, um, that there's an importance to community. 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.000 It's every person isn't just an island, right, and that 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.640 this is a big one too, that access to resources 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.320 is a human right and it's easy to take that 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.919 for granted. You know where in places where you you 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:11.800 have easy access to um land or water or something 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.200 like that, but in places as diverse as Flint, Michigan, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:21.520 or Central America, they're there the access to good stuff 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:27.159 like water is highly restricted or the water is just 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:30.680 not good. So the idea that everybody should have easy, cheap, 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.520 if not free, access to something like clean water is 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.159 that's a that's a big one. That's that's kind of 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.840 radical in a weird way these days. Yeah. And as 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.560 far as the limits on population and consumption, Robert puts 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:47.399 it as recognizing how you have to reinvest money in 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:52.639 surplus labor and energy into caring for the planet. Like 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.160 it's it's it takes work. Right, So those are like 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.280 the three ethics. That's not how you go permacal ulture. 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:04.560 That's just kind of the basis for the designs to permaculture, right. 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.280 And I think, um, you said that this is this 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.159 is not new, right, this is something that's been around 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:14.520 for a very long time or these some of these 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.760 ideas are the sustainable practices are adopted from like generations 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:23.200 and generations of proven techniques, right, Um, which is pretty 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.040 interesting if you ask me. That's another thing too. If 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:28.040 if you if you have not read have you read 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.520 fourteen ninety one yet? Oh man, you have to read it. 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.800 It talks about this kind of stuff where like they 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:39.119 they from just looking into it, they've and they've found 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.960 that there's always sophisticated land management techniques that were just 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:49.200 totally lost the time until um archaeologists started discovering them. 0:19:49.200 --> 0:19:50.800 And at first they didn't even realize what they were 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.040 looking at, and they'd be like, well, there's a lot 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.960 of kind of weird hills in this this area, it's 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.359 otherwise pretty flat, and then they realized, oh wait, this 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:02.000 is entire system of berms that used to be planted. 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.520 And in between the berms were aquaculture ponds where they 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.720 raised fish, and they were just doing all the sophisticated 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.560 stuff that no one had any idea. That book is 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.080 just all about chasing that stuff down and figuring it out. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.520 So so good, Chuck, one day you'll read it, right 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.439 of course. Yeah, So before the break, I promise some 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.240 design principles and there are believed like ten of these 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.679 in our article. And it breaks down like this, and 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:32.679 this is this is talking about a farm, but we 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.600 have incorporated in this company that's come in is incorporating 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.200 these most of these same principles within like our place 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.280 as small as our backyard, for instance, zones. We have 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.359 divided our yard up into zones now, uh, And basically 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.240 in the case of a farm, it's a little bit different. 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:53.040 They divide areas into zones based on based on the 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.879 and all this stuff. It's just sort of makes sense, 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:58.800 and it's all seems like it would be intuitive and 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:01.639 how tuk tuk would have done it. So it divides 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.240 into zones based on like how much attention certain things 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:06.920 need on the farm and what does it require out 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.120 of people in the different areas. And so if if 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:11.959 you think of it as a circle, you got your 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.480 farm in the center. So obviously the stuff that needed 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.560 the most attention would be closest to the center where 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.080 the people are. And then as you go out and out, uh, 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:27.639 the activity uh decreases, like the human activity, and things 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:32.200 are allowed like maybe trees to grow a little more wildly. Right, Yeah, 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.959 So like the zone is kind of like riffles in 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:39.119 in a pond or something right there, concent concentric circles, yeah, 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:41.600 radiating from the center. And I guess the center is 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:47.040 the actual farmer, in this case your house. Uh yeah, okay, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.440 so that's understandable enough. And then you look into something 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:55.399 called sectors, and that's kind of similar, it seems like, 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.879 but it's actually not. With sectors again, the center of 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:03.760 the whole, the whole um permana culture land or whatever, 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:07.720 is the farm where the people live or whatever. And 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:12.680 then the the zone or the sector's radio outwards. So 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:15.639 the whole thing is one big circle around the center, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.800 but this time it's sliced into like like pizza slices. 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.520 Basically alright, I'm hungry enough, okay, So but with that, 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:26.560 so that doesn't mean like you do sectors or zones. 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.879 These are two different ways of looking at the land 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:34.679 that will overlay one another. Right, And I've seen a 0:22:34.720 --> 0:22:37.879 couple of places that recommend if you're setting up a 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.680 perma culture farm, you want to spend basically an entire 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:46.120 year doing nothing but observing. Don't plant anything, don't cut 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.120 anything down, don't dig a pond, don't do anything like that. 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:52.760 Just observe. Figure out where the sun is at different 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:55.520 parts of the year, where does the wind come from, 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.080 where does the water go, um are there pollutants that 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:02.639 come on the property that you need to to you know, 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.119 manage where do the animals, Like if there's deer that 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:08.520 come in and eat the eat the garden, like, where 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.840 would they be coming from? And so that's what you 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:16.720 base the sectors on. And then that that creates kind 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.679 of like this underlying map beneath the zones. Does that 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:24.200 make sense? Yes? Okay? And I got that one right, Yeah, 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:26.640 I think so? Okay. I mean I'm sure a perma 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:33.000 culture expert would say, oh boys, right. Uh. Relative locations 0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:38.200 another important part of permaculture. That is basically designing things 0:23:38.320 --> 0:23:41.320 and again in a way that makes sense relative to 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:44.960 one another. So the great example that Robert gives is 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:48.200 is planning a crop downhill from a pond. That way, 0:23:48.760 --> 0:23:51.159 it's downhill, you don't need to install a pump system. 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.280