The sentence that most resonated with me from this weeks discussion was from the movie Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective when Ben Falk was talking about having a net positive impact on the planet. Most of the conversation that we have about environmental issues are all about how to do less damage, how can we bring our impact on the planet down to the smallest that it can possibly be. Folk challenged the presumption that this is the best thing that we can do for the planet, arguing that doing the least bad is not enough but that we have the ability to do more good. He argues that if our goal is to have the very least impact that we possibly could have, the best thing that we could do would be to stop existing.
I think that this really resonated with me because it’s something that I have struggled with in my own relationship to the earth for a long time. If you believe that the best thing that humans can do for the earth is to have the smallest impact as is possible, then it logically follows, as folk asserts, that the best thing for the earth would be for humans to stop existing. But that seems much too bleak of a view of humanity for em. I’ve always asserted that humans are fundamentally good, and how can I hold that belief while also arguing that we should have the absolutely smallest impact as possible? I think that the idea of permaculture really offered me a solution to this problem.
I think the fundamental idea behind permaculture that really resonated with me was how it reframed humankind’s relationship with nature. It placed humans back within nature, living and working with nature as opposed to being distinct and separate from nature. For far too long humans have been living divorced from nature. We think of ourselves as separate from the natural world, and therefore make no attempt to live within and think responsibly about the world. If we are not one with nature, and there is no way that we could live within nature then we lose all responsibility to even try to design our systems in tune with the natural world. Once we reframe our position within the world, it becomes not only possible but an absolute imperative that we work to design our systems to fit within natural systems. We become part of the ecosystem again, and have to think of our place within that system.
Of course, we never really left the system. But we thought that we did, and so we stopped thinking about the ways our actions impact the system. We got so far removed, that now we are only capable of conceptualizing human interaction with nature in the negative. It is nearly impossible for us to conceptualize a modern society that lives within nature and has a net positive effect. But permaculture opens that door. It reminds us of the responsibility that we have as a part of the system, and offers us solutions for how to live regeneratively.
