Rick, I think we have a long way to go before we can have habitable space environments that are also self-sufficient. Remember Biosphere 2?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... Human nature seems to foil our best laid plans every time.
We are making progress on sustainability issues, slow though it may be. With the internet keeping us so connected, more and more people can see the impact our consumer lifestyle has on the people half a world away who make it possible even though they could never afford it themselves.
Back to the topic of permaculture... I've been thinking about it, and I think the most permaculture-like beds I have are my "ornamental" beds. I never use chemical fertilizer on them, only a heavy mulching of pine straw and gum leaves from my trees (within the system if it's defined as my property, though not within the plant bed), and occasionally a dressing of compost (homemade, though with some outside material) for the fruiting plants. The roses are interplanted with blueberry and cherry bushes, with kiwi vines growing up trellises at either end. The only non-perennial plants are garlic and onions for pest deterrence, which I plant and harvest with a tiny spade to avoid disrupting the wonderfully soft and rich soil. Even though it's a fairly sustainable and productive system, those giant rose bushes in the middle of it always make me feel otherwise. My veggie beds, despite being managed with an eye for sustainability (dressing with compost, saving seed, companion planting), can never fit a permaculture ideal as long as I'm digging them up twice a year to rotate in a new crop.
I haven't read as much on permaculture as some of you, so I apologize if this is a silly question, but how is labor handled as an input? There are a lot of things I prefer to do by hand (e.g. loosening the soil with a pitchfork rather than a rototiller) because I think it's a lot gentler on the garden/soil system, but I don't know how a permaculture viewpoint would differentiate those methods - after all, neither the rototiller nor the fork are made from materials mined, forged, and constructed in my little urban yard. To my mind, the fork is a smaller input primarily because it uses my back rather than electricity or fossil fuel, but I'm curious how a permaculture purist would compare them. And would that comparison change if, for example, I had a physical disability that made hand-tools impossible to use, but powered tools OK? That is to say, can extenuating circumstances be factored in, or is permaculture just off-limits to folks who can't do it all the way for one reason or another?
