Thinking about permaculture–a review…
Wood fires, science and allusion: thoughts on David Holmgren’s response to George Monbiot
David’s article further explores the conversation in Australian permaculture circles about burning wood for heating and cooking. It also alludes to other topics that potentially influence public attitudes to the permacultue design system and those who inhabit it.
IN A MARCH 2023 article entitled Is wood smoke as bad as George Monbiot claims?, prominent Australian permaculture proponent, David Holmgren, continues his championing of wood as an energy source for heating and cooking.
The article is a response to the publication of George Monbiot’s call for the banning of wood heaters in the UK. George is a prominent social and environmental commentator and columnist with The Guardian.
This is not new territory for permaculture. The Australian social movement around permaculture has been here before, a number of times. Arguments for and against wood-fired heating have been voiced on multile occasions. A rough resolution emerged that wood energy, primarily for heating and secondarily for cooking, is acceptable in rural areas but not in the cities on account of its potential for air pollution and the associated health impacts.
In his article, David claims that the adoption of high-efficiency Swedish wood heaters makes them useable in urban areas, a proposition likely to be challenged. David writes that the higher efficiency Swedish stoves release fewer emissions than other types. While this is likely true there would remain the question of sourcing fuel for a great many urban, wood-burning heaters. As David writes, forest thinning for bushfire hazard reduction could supply some of the fuel, however that is a seasonal resource that a huge increase in demand could soon diminish. Plantation wood could be another fuel source the viability of which would require assessment in regard to existing commitments for the supply. Much would depend on the scale of uptake of wood heating and cooking in the cities.
The occasional reappearance of the wood-burning heater/cooker discussion in permaculture’s social media suggests that it is worthy of continued conversation among permaculture practitioners — people obviously want to make sense of it — however my commentary is not about that argument. It is about certain tropes David uses in his article and their combined effect on the reputation and future potential adoption of permaculture in a world beset by the uncertainties of a warming climate, cost of living crises, geopolitical instability and conflict, the emerging politically multi-polar global realignment, the rise of authoritarian regimes and the pernicious spread of disinformation and misinformation.
I think this is an important big picture consideration for the social movement around permaculture because the language David uses at times intentionally or unintentionally positions permaculture as a combatant in the culture wars as well as potentially being seen to align it politically. Even if that is not David’s intention it happens in a de facto way. Just as permaculture looks at the connections between things, so do people inside the permaculture bubble as well as those outside it who have some knowledge of it. They could link David’s personal beliefs and ideas with those of permaculture as a body of knowledge and practice. That would be influenced by how people perceive David’s role in permaculture. As the co-originator and as its most prominent public face, is what David says and writes representative of the whole practice of permaculture or is his a voice among many who speaks for himself and not the whole movement? Whichever, there is no denying that David is the leading influencer on contemporary permaculture thought and that what he says and writes carries intellectual weight and credibility within the movement.
As I write I have in mind comments made on and off social media about David’s political position on, and his beliefs around the Covid vaccination theme. I have known David long enough to know that he does not shy away from expressing controversial opinions, however my work in both journalism and organisational communications reminds me that expressions of opinion by people prominent in some organisation are all too often assumed to represent the opinion of the organisation itself. That is why public figures emphasise they are speaking for themselves and not for their organisation. The risk is that David’s public statements of personal belief and attitude could become seen as synonymous with permaculture as an applied practice.
Keep in mind as you read that I am not criticising David (ie. this is not an ad hominen attack). It is his ideas that I focus on. I make use of the commentary format to reflect on what David says and its wider, potential effects. Keep in mind that this is speculative, however as we cannot predict the future, speculation—asking ‘what if?”—is a useful way to think things through. Let’s start with David’s evident distrust of science and his dismissal of expertise.
DAVID
I have a deepening trust in the wisdom of indigenous and traditional peoples of place, including my own ancestors, and a slowly developing but accelerating scepticism about the apparent wisdom of the latest ideas from reductionist science, even when supported by an apparent consensus of experts in a particular field.
…focus on PM10, and even more so on PM2.5, as the prime metric for reducing the enormous complexity of what constitutes good and bad air reflects both the reductionist paradigm that dominates scientific culture and research.
COMMENT
Here we see how David reaches into science criticism cliche with his “reductionist science”. This does three things:
- by implication it suggests all science is reductionist because no exceptions are mentioned
- it suggests that reductionist research has no value although we see it revealing new knowledge
- it ignores the science of complexity and network theory (let’s call it holistic research) that looks at the connections between things and that are a complement to reductionist research.
Reductionism and holism are both valid approaches to understanding our world, which is what science in its essence is about.
The devaluation of expertise
Does David’s choosing to devalue the ideas of people with expertise in their fields suggest he imagines that he has more-valid knowledge and opinion than people with years of work in their field? I find this an alarming proposition. It would be like someone untrained in permaculture saying they know more about the design system than David Holmgren.
This assumption of arrogant superiority has been a long-running phenomenon in permaculture that, as a person with a long history in teaching and using permaculture in her daily work with a social institution said, in-part explains why permaculture has not been taken seriously by institutions and by political decision makers (which gets back to David’s comment elsewhere about permaculture being consigned to an amateur subcultural niche without a deep crisis to stimulate its wider adoption, which in turn begs the question of what that is).
I don’t quote Marcus Aurelius directly at David but at permaculture people generally who criticise expertise (as distinct from questioning it) without a valid counterargument. Marcus observed that:
The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.
DAVID
… the rich world middle class had access to new consumer goods at cheaper prices, without the pollution or the resulting guilt, while their working-class brothers and sisters lost their secure industrial employment and became subject to a downward spiral of nationally self-inflicted and environmental ills that paved the way for the politics of division and resentment that the comfortable middle class blame on Trump.
COMMENT
I have no quibbles with David’s statement about middle calss access to cheap goods without the attendant pollution and feelings of guilt as it simply reflects the realities of the globalised manufacturing and economic system and the comparative wealth of different countries’ populations. I do question the value of feelings of guilt (rather than accepting the situation as unjust) however, as they can be barriers to taking action.
“Rich world” is a bit of a vague cliche these days when economic growth, the result of a globalised economy, is seeing the substantial growth of a middle class in China and India. Are they too part of the “rich world middle class”? Once, the term was used to refer only to the Western world middle class. We should be clear that the Western world middle class is not completely comfortable. Some of it is, however the rest is riven by economic insecurity stemming from the vicissitudes of the economy, the increasing cost of living that eats into incomes and savings and the general uncertainty that pervades modern life.
The reality we are witnessing today is that poverty, joblessness, cost of living crises, homelessness and other trends are bringing about the development of a subclass in so-called rich world nations. Rather than a rich world/poor world division reminescent of the first/second/third world construct of the 1970s, we are witnessing the further global stratification of societies based on wealth and poverty.
The comment about “… a downward spiral of nationally self-inflicted and environmental ills that paved the way for the politics of division and resentment that the comfortable middle class blame on Trump” is a politically loaded statement that it difficult to get a grip on because David does not open it up. Is he saying that Trump is blameless? Surely not.
I don’t know the type of environmental ills David speaks of. My reading of the situation suggests that it is mainly cultural differences that Trump supporters and their Australian counterparts oppose (wokism, feminism, science, social movements around climate and gender identity, mainstream media, political and social institutions etc), rather than environmental ills. This is what we know as the culture wars.
I go along with it as far as — what I assume David is getting at — how the dominant socio-political system left many people economically behind and how this is linked to the current social divisions Western societies are experiencing. Is this what David says is being blamed on Trump? A plethora of knowledgable and credible opinion identifies people who have been left behind as Trump’s political base. It is a direct relationship that Trump continues to agitate. So, is blaming Trump for doing this off the mark? If this is what David suggests, I think he is oversimplifying. Much media commentary I have read says that Trump exploited the dissatisfaction of those bypassed by the socioeconomic system. In other words, Trump is a political opportunist.
We can refer to the economic philosophers, Karl Mark and Frederick Engels (no, I am not a Marxist) who identified a similar social strata in their time to that supporting Trump today. Writing in the late 1840s they referred to it by the unkind-sounding name of the ‘lumpenprolitariat’ — an underclass devoid of an understanding of their exploitation for political gain by reactionary forces, such as the political right today exploits the culture wars. It is nothing new.
As for the politics of division and resentment that David alludes to, that is as much the creation of the political forces aligned to Trump as well as what Trump himself propagates, as it also is by people deliberately spreading disinformation designed to destroy trust in societies. Creating distrust between a people and its government and social institutions, such as its scientific and medical organisations and its media, is the partially hidden mission of those engaging in disinformation. When done by foreign agencies (eg. the St Petersberg troll factory and China’s Ten Cent Army) its mission us to destabilise its enemies, the democracies.
It is distressing to see some in permaculture aiding and abetting the spread of disinformation, suggesting a degree of penetration of fake information and right wing political influence into the movement. Most do it simply by passing on unanalysed information as misinformation. Whether done deliberately or otherwise, during the Cold War Russian intelligence coined a name for such people: useful idiots.
David professes sympathy for “working-class brothers and sisters [who] lost their secure industrial employment and became subject to a downward spiral of nationally self-inflicted and environmental ills”. There is no denying the impact of the globalised shift in working class jobs to cheap labour nations like China and, in parallel to the increasing Western distrust of China’s geopolitical actions and ambitions, to nations like India. The globalised economy at work, again.
Sympathy for the working class, which David is not a member of because of his lifestyle as a homesteader, is a positive thing as it suggests the permaculture ethic of care of people. Let’s open that up. Homesteading is a lifestyle unattainable to most Australians and some ask whether it can realistically serve as a replicable model of permaculture. I have to respond by saying that there is no standard model of permaculture, a reality that the numerous applications of the design system’s principles and characteristics offer evidence of. It serves as a replicable model for those with the financial resources and skills to set up as homesteaders, however they are few because the great majority of Australians are urban dwellers. Sure, you can take homesteading ideas and apply them on the suburban lot, however that is not homesteading. It is gardening, storing rainwater and perhaps generating some of your energy from rooftop photovoltaics. All are basic actions recommended in permaculture but few are the number of so-called urban homesteaders earning an income of some sort from their city backyards.
Sympathy for a diminishing working class is a positive thing so long as it is accompanied by the real reasons for the disadvantaging and decline of that social class, which I think David acknowledges in his references to the globalised economy. Is the politics of social class something that prominent permaculture commentators, and permaculture as largely a middle class social movement, should become involved in? Should prominent permaculture figures have more to say on it now that David has made the link in his article?
The working class in Western nations has been shrinking in number and political clout for some years, thanks to automation and the outsourcing of jobs to the emerging economies. Now, new iterations of AI ( artificial intelligence) promise to accelerate this trend among both the working and middle class by threatening their jobs. ChatGPT — Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer — is a current focus that promises to upend professions, jobs and even school exams. A chatbot capable of generating text and illustrations, according to a CNN report, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, demonstrated the technology “drafting lawsuits, passing standardized exams and building a working website from a hand-drawn sketch.”
Given its potential impact on both our working and middle classes and their jobs, let me ask whether, rather than allude to Trump and some of the other things David comments on, he would be better joining tech leaders in calling for AI labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months because of risks to society and humanity. Why? Because “experts have become increasingly concerned about AI tools’ potential for biased responses, the ability to spread misinformation and the impact on consumer privacy [and] also sparked questions around how AI can upend professions, enable students to cheat, and shift our relationship with technology.”
Just to be clear, there are others who see great social benefit in AI, including ChatGPT (see this ABC report: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-24/what-is-chatgpt-how-can-it-be-detected-by-school-university/101884388).
The permaculture angle comes into the AI and other technology issues through its second ethic — care of people.
DAVID
…[it] doesn’t mean humans are immune to wood smoke toxins, but I remain sceptical that wood smoke, or more specifically the small particulate matter (as measured by PM10 and PM2.5 metrics), is equally toxic to the fine particulate matter from burning fossil fuels that we have been exposed to for only 50 to 250 years (10 generations at most).
…my scepticism of all the included particles in these measures being harmful to health.
COMMENT
What? Skeptical about fine particles being a health hazard? That wood smoke particles are less dangerous than particles from fossil fuel emissions? Much world depend on the chemistry of the particles in the human body. David’s skepticism is not enough.
The evidence is there that fine particles of wood smoke and fossil fuel emissions are both health hazards. I wonder whether David’s reason for saying this is to enclose wood-combustion heating and cooking in a rosy-positive ambience because he is a long term champion of burning wood?
Again, we see here David’s selective attitude to science and expertise. Sure, we know that fossil fuel particulate emissions are harmful, but on what evidence is the doubt over fine particle pollution in general based?
DAVID
…If Monbiot and his British readers wanted to support something more relevant to their own citizens as the UK spirals down into energy poverty and people start burning furniture (literally) including the plastics to stay warm and cook, they could promote and model modest self-build appropriate technology such as [this Rocket Mass Heater].
COMMENT
David is right in alluding to the degradation of British society, which we can attribute to the legacy of PM Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of the economy, the philosophy of libertarianism that influences many in power, Brexit and the current cost of living crisis. There is also a housing crisis. His energy poverty is a subset of these influences.
As a proponent of “modest self-build appropriate technology”, including working with an NGO using these technologies in the southwest Pacific, I go along with David’s suggestion of construction workshops for manufacturing small rocket stoves in the UK. I am familiar with appropriate technologies, which I prefer the earlier term ‘intermediate technologies’ for because they stand intermediate in efficiency and access between high and low/traditional technology. It is what the Fritz Schumacher-inspired Intermediate Technology Development Group promoted.
What would be the barriers to popularising the construction of rocket stoves in the UK?
- finding materials for constructing the rocket stoves
- finding the expertise to advise on construction
- fueling the stoves
- smoke emissions.
This thing wasn’t invented. All the parts necessary to make this go were just lying around. It was assembled…
Foraging and salvage of waste materials such as metals and wood could be the means of finding materials for constructing and fueling the rocket stoves. Depending on the scale of adoption, materials such as waste wood for fuel could become depleted, especially in the cities. Overharvesting forested landscapes for fuelwood is an ecological risk (which is why fuelwood collection is presently not permitted in some bushland areas in Australia).
Were David’s idea to become reality at a scale that brought a waste wood supply shortfall in the cities, there arises the potential for supply to become part of the black economy which, being unregulated, risks overharvesting in natural systems as well as being expensive. A precedent is the recycling market for brass that saw the theft of brass fittings from old buildings, such as in Sydney’s Callum Park.
What about finding expertise? There is the internet of course, and there are metal workers, engineers and technologists. And smoke? Rocket stoves produce minimal small particle emissions.
In developing an (intermediate) technology response to a crisis, David makes us aware of two things:
- there are DIY intermediate technology responses to crises
- the usefullness of expertise in developing solutions to long term crises.
David’s idea is achievable. It is akin to what speculative fiction writer, Cory Doctorow, said in his book, Makers: “This thing wasn’t invented. All the parts necessary to make this go were just lying around. It was assembled.”
Cory is saying that we can often find the components of the devices we want to make lying around in disuse. To turn them into something new requires first, a need and, secondarily, the imagination to see the potential connections between the disperate components. I think there is something implied here about seeing the relationships between things in permaculture.
Or, as Robert Moore writes in Trails. An Exploration: “Once there is a use for a technology and the right components exist, inventors simply need to make the right connections.”
DAVID
David continues his previous statement with this: “… to help feed and warm the coming hordes of homeless once the knock-on effects of NATO’s war with Russia really start to make life tough.”
COMMENT
First, a little reality. The reduced Russian natural gas flow into Europe did not result in people experiencing cold conditions at home to any significantly greater degree than the existing baseline. This, despite predictions, and Russia’s hope, that they would and in so doing weaken Europe’s resolve to support Ukraine in its moment of existential crisis. Life was already tough for many in the UK and Russia’s war on Ukraine did not make it any tougher. If anything, the Russian invasion galvanised many in their support of Western values and of national resolve, just as it revived and galvanised NATO.
This is another politically loaded statement that (possibly) suggests David’s position on Russia’s attack and invasion of Ukraine (as do those words of mine indicate my position), its kidnapping of Ukrainian children and missile attacks on civic infrastructure such as electricity generation that powers industry, water supply and homes and on hospitals and schools. The Russian intention is to destroy civic infrastructure and weaken Ukraine’s resolve to resist. History shows how this is doomed to failure, just as it is failing in Ukraine.
I am speculating here because David has not made his attitude to Russia’s war public. But if his statement indicates that David blames NATO for the war, a political position on the far edges of both the left and right and a conjunction where their seeming political differences converge, then it puts the permaculture David co-created in a perilous position:
- it exonerates Russia
- in a de facto way it excuses Russia’s war on the territory, cities, farms and people of Ukraine
- it lends de facto approval to the authoritarian, repressive and censorious state that is Russia
- it potentially alienates a possible post-war-reconstituted Permaculture in Ukraine association (and here on facebook and here)
- were Russia to take over all of Ukraine, it defies the permaculture ethic of ‘care of people’ by denying a people their sovereignty and freedom to choose their political leanings (such as Western or Russian facing and choice in joining NATO — a course now being pursued by Finland and Sweden after they realised that neutrality is another way of allowing Russian imperialism a free hand); Finland joined NATO on the day I write this article).
As Western European countries and political analysts have said, a Russian victory leads to a future war on NATO countries. The Russian leadership has said that their objective is to reclaim the countries that were once part of the Soviet Union (and which are now NATO members). Just a few days before I write, one of Russia’s public propagandists was proclaiming joyfully the prospect of Russian nuclear missiles descending on European capitals. Keep in mind that Russia’s intention of reclaiming the old Soviet territories in Eastern and Western Europe includes not only Poland but a large part of Germany. We can see where supporting Russian imperialism would lead. Supporting Russia is a completely debased thing for anyone in permaculture to do, as is blaming NATO for Russia’s war.
What is at stake here? Permaculture’s reputation. The potential for alienating people already in the permaculture bubble is great. So is deterring those outside of it from joining.
Permaculture is the product of Western liberal democracy as it existed in Australia at the time of permaculture’s birth, the late 1970s. Could it have emerged from an authoritarian state? I doubt it. Why? Because permaculture criticises and challenges the social, economic and political status quo. How long would authoritarian and censorious governments tolerate that? Not very long. Sure, it is good that permaculture people criticise and seek to reform the democratic states they are citizens of, and their dysfunctional institutions, however as permaculture practitioners we might remember our origins.
DAVID
I also see the looming nightmare where the current unstudied catastrophic rise in heart-related disease immediately following the roll out of the experimental injections across the richer nations will need an explanation to suppress the bleeding obvious point of primary inquiry and warning that has already been given by brave independent researchers and doctors…
COMMENT
Yet another politically loaded statement about Covid. This is the theme which caused so much turmoil (and here) in the social movement around permaculture earlier in the pandemic. Let’s dissect it to find its implications.
David writes of “the current unstudied catastrophic rise in heart-related disease immediately following the roll out of the experimental injections”.
A few thoughts:
- if it is unstudied then how does David know it is a “catastrophic rise”?
- on what verifiable evidence does he base this claim of a “catastrophic” rise? (the term comes across as a little hyperbolic)
- the term “experimental injections” is a much-overused meme among Covid deniers and the anti-vaxx subculture that has since been co-opted into the far-right repertoire.
Following an investigation, the European Medicines Agency recommended updating vaccine information to include the low possibility of heart swelling and to raise awareness among health care staff and vaccine recipients. Medical News Today reported that: “There is little evidence to suggest a significant risk of heart failure from COVID-19 vaccinations. In rare cases, COVID-19 vaccination may cause inflammation of the heart.”
Vaccination in general results in a very small number of adverse reactions. Anti-vaxx entities latch onto these and blow them out of proportion to discredit health science and health workers and create distrust of them. We saw this over the past year of the pandemic. We also saw how those entities found a new home within the far-right (see the ABC TV 7.30 Report on its current manifestation as a social movement). This is dangerous territory for David to be seen to be associated with even if his politics suggest he is not. It is just as dangerous for permaculture in general thanks to the flow-on effect of David and others influential in permaculture taking a public stand on it.
The risk is that people seeing David Holmgren as synonymous with permaculture assume he represents the entire permaculture movement when anti-vaxx and the associated anti-science sentiment are only a probable minority school of thought within it (if not, then permaculture really is in trouble).
Again, we are talking about permaculture’s reputation — the regard in which people hold it and the credibility they ascribe to it.
permaculture could become… seen as a cookers’ thing…
So what is the danger of propagating Covid denial, anti-vaxx, anti-expertise and anti-science beliefs within the social movement around permaculture? It is this: permaculture could become associated with the larger political context that surrounds these things and become seen as a cookers’ thing (‘Cooker’ is a collective Australianism for spreaders of social myth, disinformation, misinformation and conspiracy theories such as climate change denial, flat earth, the deep state, anti-vacination, Covid denial, chemtrails, the illuminati, anti-science and similar beliefs. It is an abbreviation of ‘cooked in the head’ and is sometimes used in mockery and at other times as an acceptable generic term).
Permaculture’s practitioners can probably distinguish between David Holmgren’s personal beliefs and what the permaculture design system itself teaches. But… can people coming into permaculture do this? And can the public looking at permaculture from outside?
This is the danger in a social movement dominated by a single voice (what social scientist and subcultures researcher, the Australian academic Terry Leahy calls the ‘charismatic authority’) and who is widely regarded as authoritative and as representative of the permaculture design system. His personal beliefs become inadvertently associated with permaculture as a whole and seen as authentic and valid permaculture attitudes. Would this turn away potential recruits to permaculture and attract others who share a similar mindset to the charismatic authority?
DAVID
At a recent men’s Rites of Passage event I overcame some of my inhibitions about ritual and ceremony, which in this case included fire. I recognised that my lifetime work with understanding fire in the landscape, bushfire resilient design, fire in the hearth and workshop, ecological forestry, woodwork and wood energy were missing the core of ceremonial fire and the connection to the fire in our hearts. One of many gifts for me from the dedicated men who developed, led and participated in the Passage was closing the circle of fire around our hearts.
COMMENT
This deserves further unpacking. What does David allude to, especially his phrase “connection to the fire in our hearts.” My reaction to these types of statements is a necessary skepticism stemming from my time on a coastal community on the NSW North Coast where there was a New Age ambience. Bill Mollison regarded New Age stuff as “hogwash”, a sentiment I share to a large extent while I recognise some New Age practices may have possible value to some people.
I recognise the evolutionary role of fire in the human experience, its practical value, its use by indigenous cultures and the spiritual values (‘spiritual’ is another term requiring unpacking) ascribed to it which come out of that. I assume it is this that David alludes to. Is it something about connection and continuity through the ages? If so, this is to do with the sciences of evolution and anthropology, however with David’s comment about “reductionist science” we don’t quite know where he stands with that.
I don’t go along with David’s idea of an extended use case for wood energy in industry or personal transportation. I think electrification, despite its challenges and powered by renewables, is the most effective way to power the near-to-middle-distance future. Maybe we will see a fusion of renewables and hydrogen (a topic in the state where I live which meets its energy needs through renewables such as wind energy and hydroelectric power). Maybe we will see small scale nuclear, or fusion if finally developed, but I doubt it.
Despite it being loaded with hints of his personal attitudes to expertise, science and vaxxination, David’s articles is a further contribution to the conversation around the use of wood energy.
Note…
In case readers might see me as a critic of David Holmgren, my comments are about his ideas and not him personally. As permaculture’s charismatic authority and main definer of what permaculture is, David expects criticism. That is what becomes with being the thought leader David positions himself as.
Read David Holmgren’s article: Is wood smoke as bad as George Monbiot claims?
Thinking about permaculture
The public marketplace for ideas: responding to David Holmgren
