With its promise of self-suff iciency, localism, cultural connectivity, and low maintenance, permaculture offers what many in suburbia didn’t know they were missing.
It’s hard not to get dragged down by the news these days. One in six Americans are living in poverty. Home foreclosures have hit record highs. Tax gimmicks ensure that oil companies and banks keep getting richer, the poor get screwed, and the middle class pays for everything. Add to that the triple threat of climate change, a volatile oil supply, and rising food prices, and you can see why anxiety has people carrying guns, carrying on, and, in some cases, carried away.
But according to Lisa Fernandes, a permaculture designer and educator in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, there’s another way to address the stress: She calls it resilience.
“A lot of people are not ready to talk about the big issues such as climate change,” she notes, “but with permaculture, you don’t have to. What you’re really doing is organizing on the landscape to withstand shocks, disruptions—whatever the source of those shocks, whether it’s a monster storm or unemployment or something else.”
“Even the EPA has started talking about how to adapt to climate change,” she adds, “rather than simply how to try to stop it. And many people are hurting, already underwater on their mortgages, trying to figure out how to make ends meet. Permaculture is a step in the right direction.”
Fernandes adds that talking about sustainability doesn’t accurately capture the depth of the permaculture philosophy. “That word is rapidly losing its meaning. We’re not just trying to sustain what we have. We’re trying to move past a model of simply reducing the amount of damage we do—to actually repairing and improving the landscape. We’re re-organizing how we interact with the Earth, so that our needs are met—that’s another conversation—and we can bounce back from whatever the future throws at us.”
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