Upcoming 6-weekend Permaculture Design Courses in Sonoma County (Petaluma, CA) and Seattle have been announced for the fall of 2012, and there are just a few seats left in the Portland course that begins May 19.

Permaculture: Patterns for a Resilient Society

Much of what you’ll find here falls into a few major categories: general resources on permaculture and ecological design, information on my courses and upcoming events, and my musings and articles on several themes. One of those themes is how agriculture has shaped human culture into an unsustainable form that permaculture can improve. I also am on a campaign to find the opportunities in energy descent and Peak Oil, ideas that at first encounter can be terrifying and often send people into a doomer spiral. There are many ways to respond to crisis that fall between “don’t worry, be happy” and “we’re all gonna die,” and permaculture provides useful tools for exploring that large middle arena. Thoughts on other topics are in blog form or in the articles linked to the right.

Writing, teaching, and working on our marvelous place in Sonoma County are my current obsessions. If you’d like to sponsor one of my workshops or courses, have me speak at your event, or reprint some of my writing, go to my contact page and someone will get back to you ASAP.

News: Martha Stewart recommends Gaia’s Garden!

Upcoming Events:

Latest Writings:

Fear and the Three-Day Food Supply

One of the scary factoids in circulation these days is the revelation that grocery stores hold only a three- or four-day supply of food. People wield this statistic to argue that our food system is appallingly insecure and in grave danger of failure. We’re only a few days from starvation, goes the frightening story, and we’re liable one day to find our supermarket shelves empty and the populace in panic. To accept this forecast uncritically, though, means ignoring how complex systems work. Read more . . .