"Coppice Agroforestry"

You can help this happen.

We humans must develop land management systems that provide diverse products to meet our needs while regenerating healthy ecosystems. Coppice agroforestry systems can do exactly this.

Many woody plants resprout from the stump or root suckers when cut to the ground--we call the regrowth "coppice", and the management system "coppicing". Many ancient cultures understood this plant behavior and managed coppice to produce their fuel, craft and building materials, livestock fodder, fencing, and much more. In North America, coppicing was a casualty of European emigration from a culture of resource conservation (by necessity) to one of widespread overexploitation and industrialization. We now must re-engage with these practices and develop them to a high art for our times and for our future.

Mark Krawczyk (www.keylinevermont.com and www.rivenwoodcrafts.com) and Dave Jacke (www.edibleforestgardens.com) have therefore decided to write "Coppice Agroforestry: Perennial Silviculture for the 21st Century." Coppice Agroforestry will serve as a detailed manual for foresters, farmers, craftspeople, and land managers describing the history, ecology, economics, design, and management of agroforestry systems based on the repeated harvest of small diameter wood products from resprouting tree stumps. Bridging ancient coppice traditions and cutting-edge agroecosystem design, Coppice Agroforestry will articulate a practical vision of forest management that integrates ecosystem health, economic viability, multi-generational tree crops, and diverse non-timber forest products. Our book will fill several critical gaps that so far have been unfilled in the literature on coppice woodlands - namely:

- How to apply this strategy to North American ecosystems and species;
- Effective design processes for multifunctional, productive landscapes;
- Details on coppice system establishment;
- Consolidated research from a scattered literature;
- Data on projected system yields;
- An in-depth discussion of coppice products and market potential.

As we strive for solutions to stabilize our communities, economies and ecologies, it’s vital that we come prepared with a diverse and well-stocked toolbox. Coppice woodland management can and will provide complementary solutions for a post-petroleum world. We feel eager to contribute to this expanding toolbox with Coppice Agroforestry.

While we have found publishers interested in this book, we have chosen to self-finance the manuscript production phase, and need help to do so. We have already begun work, with literature research, searches for case studies, and first drafts underway. We need money to support us while we work this winter and next spring. We need money to cover the costs of research (many of the resources we need to access are overseas and therefore expensive to acquire). We also need to travel to visit case study sites, interview practitioners and see their systems first-hand, and take photographs, measurements, and so on. While we seek $5,000 to get us going, we will gladly accept much more in support of this work. We'll focus first on using the money for travels to visit case study sites. We expect we will need about $18,000 to fully fund the writing of this book.

We look forward to hearing from you all, to developing this resource in support of our planet and people, and to sharing the results of our work with you in the future! Thanks very much!

Feeding humanity in a future of declining resources and environmental crisis

The Food and Farming Transition: Toward a Post Carbon Food System

Richard Heinberg, Michael Bomford

The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks. The new food system will use less energy, and the energy it uses will come from renewable sources. We can begin the transition to the new system immediately through a process of planned, graduated, rapid change. The unplanned alternative-reconstruction from scratch after collapse-would be chaotic and tragic.

The seeds of the new food system have already been planted. America's farmers have been reducing their energy use for decades. They are using less fertilizer and pesticide. The number of organic farms, farmers' markets, and CSA operations is growing rapidly. More people are thinking about where their food comes from.

These are important building blocks, but much remains to be done. Our new food system will require more farmers, smaller and more diversified farms, less processed and packaged food, and less long-distance hauling of food. Governments, communities, businesses, and families each have important parts to play in reinventing a food system that functions with limited renewable energy resources to feed our population for the long term.
Read the full report:
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Recommended Reading

Now available in the Permaculture Activist book catalog

NEW! The Barefoot Architect: A Handbook for Green Building
by Johan van Lengen
720 pp, 2008
The first English translation of the international bestseller dripping with easy-to-understand drawings.
A former UN worker and prominent architect, Johan van Lengen has seen firsthand the desperate need for a "greener" approach to housing in impoverished tropical climates. This comprehensive book clearly explains every aspect of this endeavor, including design (siting, orientation, climate consideration), materials (sisal, cactus, bamboo, earth), and implementation. The author emphasizes throughout the book what is inexpensive and sustainable. Included are sections discussing urban planning, small-scale energy production, cleaning and storing drinking water, and dealing with septic
waste, and all information is applied to three distinct tropical regions: humid areas, temporate areas, and desert climates. Hundreds of explanatory drawings by van Lengen allow even novice builders to get started.
Basic design, climate, and site planning for humid and dry climates. Includes info on Adobe, rammed earth, bamboo, plaster, wood, concrete and ferro-cement; Foundations, roofs, floors, walls, doors, windows, and eco-techniques; Solar heating, water-powered electricity, natural cooling and ventilation; Water purification, pumps, cisterns, septic tanks, composting toilets
This book is for people who dream of building a simple home. It is also for those in the building trades: carpenters, masons, plumbers, and artisans, as well as for urban planners, rural technicians, and small community designers.
It covers basic design, use of a great variety of natural materials, construction details, natural heating and cooling, and water and sanitation techniques. Although many of the methods shown are traditional, more modern techniques are shown as well.

Behind the Corporate Curtain

I'm reading Thom Hartmann's latest book Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" and How You Can Fight Back, 2nd Edition, wherein I have learned some startling things about the reasons that "our" government "of, by, and for the people" has become, instead, of, by, and for the corporations.

Wonder why your liberties are shrinking, your vote not counting? You better read this. Think "big government" is the total cause of your affliction and misfortune? You're part right...and part wrong. The main reason it's gotten SO big and controlling is that corporations have basically taken it over. The recent Supreme Court decision, which tossed out corporate campaign finance limits, is just the latest in a long string of judgments that have steadily eroded people rights and created huge inequalities.

The first Tea Party revolt was, as some seem to have forgotten, against transnational corporate domination of the early American economy by the East India Company. Modern Tea Partiers owe it to themselves to understand this fundamental truth and to rechampion the same cause that birthed the American Revolution and our nation.

Chapter 6 provided a surprising list of 19th-century laws, common to most states at the time, regulating corporations. If American citizens (not "consumers" by the way; that's the corporate name for us) still had the powers once provided by these kinds of limits, we would be enjoying a cleaner world, more freedom, and much greater happiness.  Here's that list:


- Corporations were required to have a clear purpose, to be fulfilled but not exceeded.
- Corporations' licenses to business were revocable by the state legislature if they exceeded or did not fulfill their chartered purpose(s).
- The state legislature could revoke a corporation's charter if it misbehaved.
- The act of incorporation did not relieve corporate management or stockholders/owners of responsibility or liability for corporate acts.
- As a matter of course, corporation officers, directors, or agents couldn't break the law and avoid punishment by claiming they were "just doing their job" when committing crimes but instead could be held criminally liable for violating the law.
- State (not Federal) courts heard cases where corporations or their agents were accused of breaking the law or harming the public.
- Directors of the corporation were required to come from among the stockholders.
- Corporations had to have their headquarters and meetings in the state where their principal place of business was located.
Corporation charters were granted for a specific period of time, such as twenty or thirty years (instead of being granted "in perpetuity", as is now the practice.
Corporations were prohibited from owning stock in other corporations, to prevent them from extending their power inappropriately.
Corporations' real estate holdings were limited to what was necessary to carry out their specific purposes.
- Corporations were prohibited from making any political contributions, direct or indirect.
- Corporations were prohibited from making charitable or civic donations outside of their specific purposes.
- State legislatures could set the rates that some monopoly corporations could charge for their products or services.
- All corporation records and documents were open to the legislature or the state attorney general.

Now imagine the country if these laws were still in place. You'll begin to understand why Thom chose the following titles for some chapters in his book...
     Unequal Uses for the Bill of Rights
     Unequal Regulation
     Unequal Protection from Risk
     Unequal Taxes
     Unequal Responsibility for Crime
     Unequal Privacy
     Unequal Citizenship and Access to the Commons
     Unequal Wealth
     Unequal Trade
     Unequal Media
     Unequal Influence

Here's a few reviewer's comments:

"If you wonder why the corporate world constantly lurches from malaise to oppression to governmental corruption and back, Unequal Protection reveals the untold story. Beneath the success and rise of American enterprise is an untold history that is antithetical to every value Americans hold dear. This is a seminal work, a godsend really, a clear message to every citizen about the need to reform our country, laws, and companies."
--Paul Hawken, author, Natural Capitalism

"This extraordinary book combines meticulous historical and legal research with a clear and compelling writing style to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt the incompatibility of corporate personhood with democracy, the market economy, and the well-being of society. Complete with a practical program for essential reform to restore the rights of real persons - including model legislation - it is essential reading and an invaluable reference work for every citizen who cares about democracy, justice, and the human future. Hartmann combines a remarkable piece of historical rersearch with a brilliant literary style to tell the grand story of corporate corruption and its consequences for society with the force and readability of a great novel. I intended to take a first quick glance and then couldn't put it down."
--David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World

"Unequal Protection should be in the hands of every thinking American. If we do not awaken soon, democracy will be replaced by a new 'Third Reich' of corporate tyranny. To be aware of the danger is the responsibility of each of us. No one has told us the truth better than Thom Hartmann. Read it!"
--Gerry Spence, author of Give Me Liberty

"Unequal Protection is a blueprint for revitalizing the spirit of American democracy. Sometimes you have to understand the bad news in order to appreciate the good news. Thom Hartmann connects the dots in a way that is a tremendous gift for our generation of Americans."
--Marianne Williamson, author, Healing the Soul of America
(see more cartoons by this artist at http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Cartoons.html)

"Essential reading for anyone concerned about the future of democracy, both here and abroad. With devastating precision and well-reasoned passion, Thom Hartmann shows the reader precisely how the corporate entity gained such a perilously dominant role in the life of a nation whose founders meant for its politics to respond to the concerns of people and communities, not return-seeking corporations."
--Jeff Gates, president, Shared Capitalism Institute, author, Democracy At Risk

"We thought it was only in science fiction that things created by humans could actually take over what is inherently our human heritage. But Thom Hartmann shows how we've already let that happen on a frightening scale - not in Frankenstein's monsters or Kubrick's creeping computer Hal - but in the corporations that present their friendly 'faces' to us as if we have nothing to fear from this ultimate usurpation of our rights as real humans."
--Ed Ayres, Senior Editor at Worldwatch and author, God's Last Offer

"For years, Thom Hartmann has been asking the important questions and inspiring people to act on their solutions. Now he tackles one of the hardest - how democracy in America and worldwide has been eroded by unaccountable corporate power. He looks at the structures that encourage destructive behavior and offers alternatives. Fascinating history told engagingly. We need books like this to find a way forward."
--Paul Loeb, author, Soul of a Citizen

"Hartmann goes where no person has gone before - towards uncovering the true history of how corporations and the wealthy people behind them transformed our law and culture to usurp democracy. This book is an inspiration to all groups and communities and explains why we must rethink our engagement in single issue struggles and move towards the assertion of direct, democratic control over corporations."
--Thomas Linzey, Esq., Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Read this book...please. 
(You can enjoy all of M. Wuerker's latest excellent political cartoons at Politico.com)

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How To Explain Peak Oil To Anyone

Sharon Astyk is author of the forthcoming Depletion and Abundance: The New Home Front, Families and the Coming Ecological Crises and A Nation of Farmers. Sharon (both will be available in the Permaculture Activist online book catalog) has an M.A. and most of a Ph.D. in English literature, where her research centered upon literary, philosophical and historical responses to disaster and demographic crises in 16th and 17th century Britain. Final completion of the Ph.D. is presently on hold while she responds to the forthcoming disasters and demographic crisis of the 21st century. Five years ago, Sharon and her family moved to rural upstate New York to begin a life attempting to consume only a fair share of human resources. She and her husband, a physicist, run a small Community Supported Agriculture farm (CSA), and in their copious spare time, they are raising four sons and assorted critters and livestock. Some of her work can be seen at her blog www.casaubonsbook.blogspot.com, and at her website on peak oil preparation for families, http://www.sharonastyk.com/.


Enjoy the following article recently written by her and visit her blog and site. Be forewarned! You could lose track of time and stay there for hours.

How To Explain Peak Oil To Anyone

It has occurred to me that there must be a simple way of explaining peak oil to everyone - but most solutions have concentrated on creating a *single* simple method of explaining peak oil, when what is needed is a highly specialized approach, designed to help people grasp the issue in the most basic terms imaginable. Being a helpful sort, I have undertaken to provide those explanations. Thus, all you need to do is evaluate the person you are explaining things too, and from there, insert the proper explanation. BTW, just in case you can't figure this out, this is intended to be funny and is bound to offend someone, probably everyone. Deal.

-If the Person is a lot like: Homer Simpson
The way to explain it is: "Beer comes from oil. You use oil to run tractor to grow barley. You use oil to run fermenting equipment. You use oil to ship beer to liquor store. You use gas, made from oil, to drive drunk to the store to get beer. No oil means no more beer - ever."
The solution you offer is: "More beer good. Beer comes from oil. Must. Save. Beer."

-If the Person is a lot like: An Uber-Soccer Mom
The way to explain it is: "Yes, I heard how awful it was that the coach criticized your Christina - I agree, that he was completely out of line to hurt her self esteem like that. Speaking of self-esteem, did you know I've lost 11lbs on the 100-mile diet? I feel great, and I fit into some clothes I haven't worn since Jared was born. All that fresh produce and unprocessed food has been so wonderful - Mike says I look younger too, and it seems to improve my skin. And Jennifer is a lot less hyperactive since we've been biking everywhere. And Lisa is writing her college application essay on the impact of our environmental lifestyle changes. My friend Rita who is a guidance counselor told me that this will really help differentiate her from all the soccer players and school newspaper writers for the people at Yale. Green is the new black, you know."
The solution you offer is: That you will be thinner, happier, sexier and your kids will be smarter if you do this stuff. Oh, and btw, it saves energy too.

-If the person is a lot like: Rush Limbaugh
The way to explain it is: "Evil people in China and India are burning up all of America's oil. Those selfish bastards are trying to compete with us just so that they can have running water, and the democrats in congress won't let us nuke them like we really should. They are trying to prove that Americans can't compete without a lot of energy. We need to prove that we're better than they are, with or without oil, because God loves America best. With Jesus to help us conserve, we don't have to have oil."
The solution you offer is: Conservation is Patriotic, and a good way to stick it to people in other countries.

-If the person is a lot like: Paris Hilton
The way to explain it is: "Without oil to manufacture tv sets, run "Entertainment Tonight" and power all that tv, no one will watch what you do. No one will care if you have sex on the internet, go to jail or kill Brittney Spears with your bare hands while mud wrestling on reality tv. Yes, you'll probably still be rich enough to buy oil, but all the good hotels will be having brownouts, and everyone will be so busy trying to get alone that they won't care about you. Oh, and if they get a chance, you servants will probably kill and eat your little rat-dog."
The solution you offer: "Think how much attention Angelina Jolie got by adopting all those poor kids. Maybe you should take some of your money and adopt a whole town in Bangladesh and go carbon negative. You could have a series on almost any network but Fox about making your home environmentally sound and helping poor people get access to renewable energy."

-If the person is a lot like: Grandpa Simpson
The way to explain it is: "You know, back in the old days we didn't have all this newfangled technology crap. We just did good, hard work, and knew the value of a dollar. Back then we didn't need tv, or cell phones or cars. We didn't sit around downloading music from that there internet, we had real music, in real speakeasies, and we danced for hours. And that porno-graphy on that there filthy computer - in our day we had to do real work to see naked women, carve real peep holes through rock-hard chestnut boards. These kids today are too fat and spoiled to dance, and they wouldn't know what to do with a hoe or a horse or a jackknife if it bit them in the ass. We need legislation to get them off the streets and back onto the farms!
What to suggest: National service programs, Chain gangs and Victory Gardens

If the Person is an Aging Hippie:
What to say is: "You were right about everything. Absolutely everything. Growing your own food. Renewable energy. The economy. Drugs. How sexy greying ponytails are. Not trusting old people...oh...wait..." Well, almost everything.
What to suggest: Stop looking so smug.

-If the person is a lot like: An Economist The way to explain the problem is this: "Ok, just for a moment, let me ask you to suspend your belief for just a moment. Imagine that unicorns and faeries roam the forests, that the sun goes around the earth and that the US has a meaningful third party. Ok, now imagine that it is just possible that we can't actually substitute grain for gasoline, or benzene for water. And further imagine that people dying is bad, even if it seems like it is good for the economy.
What to suggest: Give up now.

-If the Person is: Your Dubious Spouse What to say: "I'm doing this because I love you and I want us to have a positive future. Preparing for a low energy future will definitely bring us closer together and make our marriage stronger, happier and sexier. I can't think of anything more romantic than discussing our feelings, the current depletion rate and the latest apocalyptic novel while canning okra in the 90 degree heat. And I think you are never more beautiful than when you are putting up rainwater cachement.
What to suggest: A literal roll in the hay. Move the scythe first.

-If the person is a lot like: The President of the United States
What to say is: Ask Dick. He'll explain it to you.
What to suggest: Immediate impeachment with a heavy, blunt instrument.

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