Thinking about permaculture–a review…
Fusion Futures confuses energy and journalism
Reading David Holmgren’s Fusion Futures I found no general disagreement with what he writes about the future of fusion energy. I did, however, find differences with his attitude to science journalism. Does this stem from my past as a journalist? Probably. In that profession you become used to people outside the journalism bubble telling you how to do your job and about the shortcomings of your writing. Journalists become used to that. That brings me to something I find when reading David’s blog—I agree in general with what he writes but I pick up on some of the things he says and the way he says them because they strongly influence how people regard permaculture’s attitude to issues. That is the essence of this story.
IN HIS JANUARY 12 ARTICLE, FUSION FUTURES, David writes of:
“lazy science journalism that simply amplifies the public announcements by these institutions ensuring the ongoing flow of resources extracted from nature on behalf of the gullible taxpayer who, in any case, has no say in the matter.”
This naturally raises a question: what does David think science journalism should be doing? Here we again run into the assertion common to amateur media critics that the mission of the media should be what they say it should be rather than leaving that to those who are actually doing it. It would be like a plumber or an accountant telling permaculture practitioners what their role in land management should be and how to go about it, rather than leaving it to those who are doing it. Perhaps then, we can leave it to those producing science journalism to work out what and how they report.
Is it not the job of science journalists to report what science institutes and technologists are doing? That opens the institutes to public scrutiny. Reporting on the research and organisational matters of scientists and science institutes is part of the public accounting that keeps those interested abreast of new developments.
As in journalism in general, in science journalism you find a range of approaches from merely repeating what institutes say by rehashing their media releases to critical writing that links to allied developments, economics and politics. Science journalism is as diverse as any other journalism field. Journalists might start with news coming from an institute but the story does not end there. They can make use of the what>how>who approach in looking at the connections with the rest of the society:
- what is the research about?
- what stimulated its development?
- has it been peer reviewed?
- what could be the environmental, economic and social impacts?
- what are its likely impacts on organisations already working in the field
- what are the implications for jobs?
- how was the research done?
- how would it change our existing understanding of the subject?
- how will it affect/be affected by government regulation?
- who is likely to benefit most from it?
- how will it be distributed?
- is it safe?
This asks what happened, how did it happen/how was it done and who benefits/who is disadvantaged. It is an adaptation of the classic five Ws and an H—who/what/when/where/why and how? Current journalism about the AI, ChatGTP, gives us an example. Both Australia’s ABC and America’s CNN have covered it critically (as has the tech press and others), publishing comments about its promise and its possible impacts on societies, their institutions and people. This is not lazy science journalism.
By coincidence, you get the same range in science journalism as you find in writing about permaculture — glib commentary, statements that often sound like PR, misleading and erroneous statements, boosterism around personalities, hype about permaculture and permaculture courses as well as speculative, educational and analytical articles. Not too much though that does what Bill Mollison said permaculture does — making connections between things… for example, trends and events in broader society… then offering comment, analysis, opinion or speculation on their likely impact and how they relate to permaculture’s ethics, principles, practices, structure and standing in society. John Donne wrote that no man is an island complete to itself. So it us with permaculture which is part of that greater socio-cultural whole it is immersed in. This is why it is important for permaculture educators and bloggers to highlight those connections between trends and events in broader society and permaculture. How do government regulation and laws impact the practice of permaculture? What do new technologies promise for permaculture? Will we be reading books on permaculture written by ChatGTP?
David makes those connections in his writing. A few others do. I try to bring a socio/techno/political perspective because permaculture is closely connected to the societies it is embedded in and is influenced by the social, economic and political currents flowing through those societies. Science journalism does the same thing—connection—for science and for those who follow science. Similarly, reporting initiatives and trends within permaculture is why we need in-house journalism that looks inside the movement as well as outside it.
If we take a systems view we see science and science journalism as components of the broader socio-economic system to which they are closely or weakly linked by flows of information, knowledge, finance, decision making, entrenched and competing economic interest and politics. In the same way, a network view of the structure of permaculture reveals its close coupling with horticulture, agriculture, land management, community organisation, soil science, ecology, building, renewable energy and more and, reaching out, its weak links to the bigger economic, educational and social movement components. This suggests that rather than single out the science journalism subset, David’s critique might better remain focused on the bigger, enveloping economic system of which he is already a critic.
Coming across David’s statement about “lazy science journalism” after finding much to agree with in what he says about fusion energy was a bit of a downer. It seems that David is bringing his distaste of modern science to the fore again. Linking what he writes to his comment elsewhere about scientists being the high priests of the capitalist order, or something along those lines, I wondered whether David’s denigration of science and scientists — and science journalism in this instance — is more an expression of anger than criticism.
Don’t we detect a little irony here in regard to science and permaculture, the system that David had a direct hand in formulating? Permaculture is a derivative system. It takes the ideas of others, including those of science, and adopts them as its own. It appropriates. The design system’s co-creator, Bill Mollison, said as much when he described permaculture as a ‘synthesis’ of ideas and practices.
Permaculture has taken much, including from the science that David criticises. That might sound an unkind thing to say about a system I have been involved in since the mid-1980s, however permaculture’s approach of ideas-fusion in adopting knowledge and practices from different scientific disciplines and from traditional and cultural practices has contributed greatly to its value as a platform for resilient living. What permaculture did was take pieces of different knowledge systems and recombine them so that the links between them generated the synergies that make permacuture useable as an approach to living in a time beset by significant challenges in the physical world and human societies. To paraphrase speculative fiction writer Cory Doctorow, permaculture wasn’t invented. It was assembled from what was laying around. A coherent structure for resilient living is permaculture’s strong point. That is what appeals to people. That is the core of whatever success it has achieved because it offers a loose formula and mindset for living in our troubled times. Science reported through science journalism is important to permaculturte in doing this because it puts the design system on a firm basis of testable knowledge. Testability makes science self-correcting as new knowledge is found. That, perhaps, is something permaculture could do with a little of too.
As Bill Mollison said, it is the connections between things that are important, especially to taking an integrated approach to design of socially, economically and environmentally resilient systems. Journalism, including specialist writing like science journalism, is a key link in doing this because it brings developments and ideas to our attention so we can make the connections between things in our projects. We should go on to ask where would permaculture be without journalism — whether that of bloggers on their websites, social media, the past and present focus on permaculture on TV (eg. The Global Gardener, Heartlands, ABC TV’s Gardening Australia) and in the press? Indeed, some of the most significant surges in permaculture’s popularity have been mainstream media-driven. Let’s not be too harsh in our criticism of something that is a key to permaculture’s popularity.
Singling out science (and by implication, science journalism) for its role in “ensuring the ongoing flow of resources extracted from nature on behalf of the gullible taxpayer” comes across as a bit harsh. Why? First, “gullible taxpayer” talks down to people by situating them as victims. Secondly, the application of science and technology frequently comes down not to the scientist or engineer, but to the industrial/business entities likely to economically benefit from them. David’s criticism of science journalism ascribes much to it that should really be ascribed to the broader economic system because it is a component within that system and, like other institutions and practices (including permaculture itself), both serves and benefits from the system. For example, permaculture landscape, garden designers and educators have work because the economic system provides the surplus income with its discretionary spending power that enables people to enrol in permaculture design courses and have gardens designed. This is how Accredited Permaculture Training (see here for the levels of training in permaculture) in Australia’s formal tertiary education system, a commendable mainstreaming of the permaculture design system by Permaculture Australia, also serves the economic system while at the same time creating livelihood opportunities for graduates.
This is no defence of a malfunctioning economic system. Certainly, it needs reconstruction. But let’s not attack one component of the system, like the subset of science journalism and science itself, rather than post ideas on how it the system could do better.
Science alternatives
There are alternatives to the types of science that David criticises. Or, there were alternatives. One of the influencers on my thinking was Fritz Schumacher and intermediate technology, later known as appropriate technology.
Intermediate technology did not eschew modern science and tech, nor denigrate its developers as the handmaidens of the economic order, nor condemn those who wrote about and reported it. Its approach was to sidestep blockages to the adoption of technology by creating an alternative technology that made use of science and engineering to make it affordable to people with few financial resources but plenty of know-how resources. It is cheaper than hi-tech, more efficient than much traditional technology and maintainable through existing skills found in lesser-developed countries and in some areas in developed nations. As its name suggests, intermediate technology is situated at the intermediate edge of hi-tech and traditional or low-tech and draws from both. In permaculture terms, intermediate technology is an edge species. Drawing from hi-tech and traditional/low-tech is a permacultural sort of thing to do because, as Bill wrote, permaculture is a synthesis of the ideas of others, and we look to find niches in which we can intervene in the connections between things.
From earlier years I recall a print magazine called Resurgence that I wrote an article for occasionally and that was aligned with the thinking behind intermediate tech, and an organisation called Science for the People. That was about how science could serve the critical needs of people, a proposition that I still hold, which is why I defend it despite its shortcomings. In those days we saw industrial engineering workers at the UK’s Lucas Aerospace attempt to redirect the company to production of socially useful technologies like public transport. I mention this to suggest that permaculture could support the repurposing of some elements of science and technology to do what the Lucas Aerospace workers wanted to do, and to demonstrate that science and the documentation of it in science journalism are not the enemies of permaculture. They are its allies.
A more sophisticated approach to science and technology and its reporting through science journalism would pull permaculture out of the pit of biased criticism and position it as a credible voice with ideas about current and future applications of science as the software for a resilient society. Science is the software. Society is the application.
As for fusion?
What of the fusion energy David comments on? When I tutored and guest lectured for the futurist and limits-to-growth educator at UNSW, Ted Trainer, there was much excitement around the idea of cold fusion. In the tutorial group were engineering and science students who saw cold fusion as the energy panacea for humanity. It failed the replicability test of science, however, as did the EmDrive—the postulated spacecraft drive that would generate thrust by reflecting microwaves inside the device in a way that violated the laws of physics. Like cold fusion, the EmDrive appears to have been the result of experimental misinterpretation. A false positive. A Type 1 error. It was the established process of the scientific method that disproved it.
The fusion experiment David discusses is hot fusion, not cold fusion. We know it works because it is the energy source of our sun. When we step outside and feel the sun’s warmth we are basking in the emission of radiation of an ongoing fusion reaction as the universally-abundant element hydrogen is converted into helium. Whether harnessing fusion energy will prove possible… well, we don’t know because we cannot predict the future. What we can talk about are the economic, political and social impacts that could come with the technology, their effect upon the rapidly developing application of renewable energy from solar, wind and tidal energy, on humanity’s industrial and ecological base (eg. what effects would the widespread application of plentiful energy have on earth systems?) and on societies and their economic structures.
the application of fusion energy is just 20 years away…
There is a saying among science journalists and technologists that the application of fusion energy is just 20 years away. It is always just 20 years away. The recent experiment of containing this phenomenal energy source for even an extremely limited time is an achievement that, in the way that other technological developments start, is a proof-of-technology phase and should be understood as that rather than people making smarty comments about a lot of energy going into production of a fusion reaction that lasted only such a sort time. A humble start like that is how technologies begin their evolution. As Nelson Mandala said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
Avoiding permaculture‘s marginalisation
David’s critique of science journalism and science is important in a design system with grassroots appeal because of David’s elevated position within it. His voice has reach and is regarded as credible. What he says will be believed. His opinions will all-too-often become the opinions of others, including his opinions about the role of science and science journalism in our society. The question is how will the people whom we would influence regard that? David has a right to his own opinions and ideas and to write and speak about them, however my concern is about how people both inside and outside of permaculture could take what David says as his speaking for permaculture.
Technology and humanity have co-evolved and we will continue along that path. Some see our present time as a struggle between the direction that science and technology are taking us and the idea of some kind of a return to nature. This is a vague notion of multiple meanings. Whether some kind of return to nature would be remotely possible with our huge global population and a changing climate is surely doubtful. We can, however, make use of the processes of nature and with the application of a little scientific thinking, work with it in ways that benefit both us and it.
Permaculture’s version of the return to nature is no return at all. It is an adaptation of nature to serve human needs that completes the circle by also benefiting natural systems. Well known examples include the farm shelter belt that biomimics the forest and that serves as windbreak for crops as well as wildlife habitat. The revegetated streambank reduces soil erosion, provides habitat and yields edible forage and materials for people. Agroforestry provides similar values and yields timber for construction, fuelwood or other uses. The urban bushland patch provides habitat for wildlife, conserves plant species including those that are rare and provides respite, recreation and learning for urban people. Permaculture is not all about using nature for utilitarian purposes, however. It makes a solid argument for setting aside large tracts of wild land in which species can continue their own evolution. It is a hybrid approach, anthropocentric in intent but ecological in outcome. It is development based on natural processes. We are talking about mutual benefit—human needs and nature’s continuity.
Science, reported through science journalism, provides the foundation for this type of development such as reporting how science uses biomimicry—the design of technologies that mimic how nature works. Examples are the Land Institute’s work in developing perennial grains; the inspiration of humpback whale fins in the design of wind turbine blades that increases their efficiency; velcro. Biomimicry is promoted as a technology useful in permaculture design. Would its extension to current research into artificial photosynthesis and some types of genetic engineering also be acceptable to permaculture people?
John Cage wrote that a return to nature — as nature was pre-modern-technology — might be attractive and possible, but it can only work for some of us. He went on to say that: “The only chance to make the world a success for humanity lies in technology… grand possibility technology provides to do more with less, and indiscriminately for everyone.” Or, as American naturalist and writer, Joseph Wood Krutch, put it: “Technology made large populations possible. Large populations now make technology indispensable.”
Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance…
If permaculture practitioners and its leading thinkers denigrate rather than constructively criticise science and the science journalism that documents it, then permaculture risks intellectual marginalisation in a world where science is critical to adapting to the changes we see going on around us.
In a time of scientific misunderstanding, of a loud and agitated anti-science movement, of untrained people imagining they know better than experts in a field and that their opinion is equally valid, of the rampant misleading of people through the spreading of disinformation (something permaculture has not been free of), let’s listen to the respected scientist and science-populariser, Neil de Grasse Tyson on the importance of science (and by implication, science journalism) to the future of our society. He put it this way: “Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.”
Let us finish by quoting someone who knew a lot about science and technology and the society it is embedded in. Perhaps, as ideas around science vie for position in permaculture, it offers a way forward in positioning science and science journalism within the permaculture design system:
“Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before — that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment.”
…R Buckminster Fuller.
This comes across as a suitable mission for permaculture. In realising Fuller’s (and, hopefully, permaculture’s) dream, science journalism will play a leading part.
Fusion Futures
https://holmgren.com.au/writing/fusion-futures/
A conversation with futurist and limits-to-growth educator, Ted Trainer…
Exploring Australia’s vulnerability…
Exploring permaculture…
