Quinta das Abelhas

Portugal-base permaculturalist Andy Hill tells all to traydio’s Carl Munson.
Why, when conventional agriculture uses 10 calories to produce 1 calories, wouldn’t the climate-changing, oil-peaking industrialised economy switch to permaculture, which uses just 1 calorie to create 10 calories?
Vested interests and ignorance - of course!

Listen at www.traydio.com

2 Comments »

The phrase ‘peak oil’ has recently started to appear in the mainstream press.
I have been aware of peak oil for some time now, so i thought i would write a quick post here.

Peak Oil refers to a time when we find less new reserves of oil
than the amount of oil we use.
Many scientists claim that we have passed this point, or are about to do so.
To understand what this means, you need to take a moment out from your
busy life & take a look around.
Think about the energy being used.
Think about where that energy comes from.

For instance, look in your larder. Where does the food you rely on come from?
How is it grown? How does it get here? Look at the computer you are using,
and think about how it is made, where the components come from.
Think about the clothes you wear, and what they are made of,
where they are made, how they get to you.

Basically, for the past 100 or so years our civilisation has come to rely more and
more on oil and its derivatives.
Our food is grown using oil-based fertilisers and pesticides.
It is often grown 1000s of miles away, and gets to us via oil fuelled transport.
Our clothes are made from oil. Our medicines.
Our electricty is mainly generated using oil or natural gas (thats running out too).
We heat our homes with oil. Practically everything in our culture comes care of
petroleum - a case of the proverbial ‘eggs in one basket’!

Unfortunately for the lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to,
it has also become apparent that this wasteful oil based existence is
affecting our environment.
We are polluting our world with oil, and we are altering the planetary
climate by burning fossil fuels, so if oil isnt running out we may make the planet
unable to sustain life.
Whether oil is running out or not, the ’business as usual’ approach
is not viable. It is time for change either way.

More info about peak oil:

Life after the oil crash

peak food 

peak oil - wikipedia 

So, what to do? All the experts seem to be advising the same things.
Reduce debt - times are going to get tough.
The party is over, it’ll be hard enough without debt payments,
and our economy is primarily oil-based, so as oil gets more expensive
everything else will, including interest rates/payments.
Downsize - small is beautiful.
Lower heating costs in a small house, less fuel for a small vehicle and so on…
Grow food. Cuba has survived 30+ years of US embargo
primarily by embracing organic farming and permaculture.
Food needs to be grown near and by the people that will be eating it.
Get to know your neighbours - work with them, share tools and ideas,
pool resources, co-operate.
When things get tough it will be far easier to survive with the help of
people around you.

Quinta das Abelhas is already at a great advantage over most people,
but we are now actively working with the implications of peak oil and climate change in mind.
We are planting a lot of fruit trees this winter.
We have bought solar panels, ready to be offgrid when our ruin is
renovated soon, and replaced our computers with low energy silent ones.

We are also replacing pine and eucalyptus trees with fast growing nature
friendly timber trees. Planting trees for biofuels, and lots of nut & fruit trees.
If we can grow a tree to provide us with resources we need, we will.

And in the spring we are going to stop doing any shopping as a dry run,
to see where our self-sufficiency weaknesses lie.
We plan to try growing coffee, tea, tobacco etc,
but if they fail we will have to find alternatives that do grow well here.
Herbal teas straight from the garden are an easy healthy alternative.

In previous years we have grown almost all our summer veg,
preserving much for the winter.
Next year we plan to grow everything, sourcing new seeds for plants that we
discover we need, including soap plants and many more herbs.

Stay tuned to find out how we fare, and what we do, step by step to 
prepare for the impact of peak oil.
The ‘goodlife’ is the lifestyle for the 21st century, and the only viable solution
to the huge challenges facing humanity.

No Comments »