About the author:
My name is Dennis Zhu, and I am a student who is studying chemistry in UCSB. I like to hit the gym and play computer games, when I have the chance to escape the torture from chemistry.
Introduction:
People are relying on unsustainable resources for thousands of years. It is due to the fact that unsustainable resources provide energy conveniently and instantly and people are getting used to utilizing unsustainable resources. However, unsustainable resources will inevitably be depleted one day and they are contaminating our environment by producing a large amount of carbon dioxide that causes greenhouse effect. Therefore, in order to create a better living habitats for us and for our offspring. It is necessary for us to learn how to live with sustainable resources. Fortunately, there are two teachers for achieving sustainability: permaculture and Earthship.
Exploring Beauties of permaculture:
Under escalating environmental pollution, people are talking about global warming and the decrease in biodiversity every day. It is always a big question: how can we improve the environment we live in? Permaculture might be the solution to this problem. Permaculture is a word that combines two words: “permanent” and “agriculture”. Therefore, the literal meaning of permaculture is an agricultural approach designed for permanence. When considering the permanence of agriculture, it’s crucial to use sustainable resources for agriculture, because unsustainable resources such as fossil fuels will inevitably be depleted one day. In addition, permaculture encourages people to collaborate with nature instead of against it, because fighting against nature is not only unsustainable but also wasting energy. Permaculture enables the creation of a sustainable community by following nature’s patterns which has the potential to help us to address contemporary environmental crises.
Utilize everything! One of the keystones of permaculture is the utilization of sustainable resources. Nevertheless, when people think of sustainable resources, they only think about renewable energy. Indeed, renewable energy such as solar and wind power is a crucial component. However, Sustainable resources encompass a much broader picture. Organic materials such as human feces should be utilized as a sustainable and valuable resource. Burnett indicates in his book, “Permaculture: A Beginner Guide” that in the natural world every “waste product” is useful elsewhere within that system. When we flush our bodily wastes out to sea, not only are we causing pollution, but we are also at the same time-wasting valuable resources. Sustainability is not only about large and fancy renewable energy stations that governments are promoting but also it is related to everything in our life. Just like the answer of Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, when he was asked by the host about how to make our cities more sustainable. He mentioned in his interview that you should catch the water off your roof. Grow your own food. Make your own energy. It saves time for people from going to the supermarket if everyone can grow their own food. It only takes a few minutes every week for any good organic gardeners in their gardens. It’s insanely easy to make our cities more sustainable when everyone can start by doing the easiest things to keep sustainability. When we learn how to turn our own wastes into sustainable resources and spend a few minutes every week doing simple sustainable practices, the idealized sustainable community becomes achievable. Another thing we can do to embrace permaculture is cooperating with nature.
Interesting nature
One thing I learned from permaculture is that the natural world resembles a perpetually tangled wired headphone. Susan Cousineau claims in her blog that the world is a stunning, tangled, breathing, growing, dying mess: the relationships and patterns between things are deeply meaningful. Everything in nature is related to each other. Not a single creature can escape from the maze of nature. Not even the cleverest but most arrogant creature: human. Therefore, instead of trying to fight against nature, it is much better to respect and follow nature which is essentially beneficial to us. For example, many people see mosquitoes as the “evilest” creatures on earth because they are annoying and they also spread diseases, so they try to use a lot of chemical pesticides to kill them. However, it is not working that well. Although pesticide can kill some mosquitoes, the mosquitoes with tolerance to pesticides can still reproduce at a faster rate because their competitors are killed by pesticides. Therefore, people end up wasting their money and energy. But if they change their mindset and feed some animals that could eat mosquitoes, the number of mosquitoes will be limited by those animals. In addition, following natural patterns can increase biodiversity. In nature, there is no land with only one type of plant or animal. Plants and animals depend on and collaborate with each other to grow prosperously. This is how nature should be. Burnett mentions that some farmers tend to cultivate only a few types of plants on their lands. When there are diseases or climate change that kill all their plants, they have no income. Nevertheless, if they cultivate many different kinds of plants on their lands, they do not have to worry about diseases or climate change because though some of the plants could be killed by diseases, there are still many other plants that they can harvest. Nothing in nature should be indispensable as its failure can be disastrous to the whole system. Therefore, biodiversity provides backup options for nature. Permaculture teaches people how to create a stable environment by simply letting nature be our teacher. However, like everything else, permaculture has its own weakness.
Drawback of permaculture Although permaculture has the potential to create a sustainable and stable community. However, it would never happen unless more people in the society participated in permaculture. Personal efforts alone are not enough to achieve success. Russ Grayson argues, “When the idea of getting your own place in order first — as advocated by permaculture co-creator, Bill Mollison — stops at your garden gate and fails to extend out into communities, neighborhoods and suburbs as Bill envisioned it would, it positions permaculture as an expression of the libertarian notion of private rather than social solutions, of going it alone, say its critics. The result of an overt focus on the individual or household is a lack of civic infrastructure for essential services and a decline in community cohesion”. Some advocates of permaculture might process permaculture in their own gardens. However, few of them actually bring permaculture to their communities. This shows that one of the biggest weaknesses of permaculture is that it is hard to get everyone involved. Fortunately, there are two possible solutions. First of all, governments can support permaculture just like how they support renewable energy but in a much cheaper way. Governments don’t have to build gigantic water or solar power stations. They can provide some free tools and seeds for people to try permaculture inside their gardens. With a small input, the outcome can be amazing. Moreover, although permaculture has been around for many years, still not many people are familiar with it.For example, during Earth Day, a festival dedicated to environmental protection, I found that only a few people were familiar with the concept of permaculture. Therefore, it is important to spread the idea of permaculture so more people can have a chance to embrace it. There should be more short videos about permaculture on social media and free public lectures to show the benefits of permaculture. With increasing amounts of population participating in permaculture, the influence of permaculture will increase. Therefore, more and more people will learn and become a part of permaculture. I have to admit that permaculture might seem too idealized to achieve because it requires the whole society to work together. However, in order to practice permaculture, people have to change their current lifestyle. They should grow their own food, recycle their waste, and use sustainable resources which can be quite hard for some people who are already used to going to supermarkets, dumping all their wastes, and driving their massive pickup trucks with incredible fuel consumption. Nevertheless, we can start to support permaculture by taking small steps, like recycling plastic bags and water bottles, gradually working towards achieving permaculture principles step by step. With contributions of every individual, a society that follows concepts of permaculture will no longer be a dream.
Just like what Aspinwall states, “It’s got to be down to, the Titanic’s got to be sinking, and this is the life raft,” he said. “But selling them on the life raft while they can go dine and dance in the hall with the rich people in the top level.” To be honest, it is quite challenging to integrate permaculture a part of daily life for a normal city dweller. Urban citizens are accustomed to having water from their taps, electricity for their televisions and air conditioners, and food from supermarkets. It seems like people have to surrender to unsustainable lifestyle. However, Eartship has the potential to change everything. It enables water recycling, electricity generation from solar panels, and food cultivation within the home.
Crystal of permaculture:
Nowadays, the environment is suffering from air, soil, and water pollution. When we turn on the air conditioner during summer heatwaves and watch television comfortably, we are polluting our environment because of emissions from air conditioning and burning of fossil fuels for electric supply. What we do every single day is actually an accessory for environmental pollution. However, for people who live in a normal house, it is impossible to live without a water system, air conditioner, and electric supply. Nevertheless, there is a house that can regulate its temperature with our air conditioning, creates its own power by using renewable energy, and collects water for daily consumption. This wonderful house is the crystal and the symbol of permaculture ideas. Its name is Earthship. The use of recycled materials is fundamental to the construction of an Earthship, aligning with one of the principles of permaculture to create a sustainable society. Burnett indicates in his book, “Permaculture: A Beginner Guide” that in the natural world every “waste product” is useful elsewhere within that system. We can see the applications of recycled wastes used in building Earthship. For example, Amy, an owner of a wonderful Earthship, built a school using waste water bottles as bricks. In addition, her own Earthship is built of more than 900 recycled car tires she rescued from the landfill. The recycled car tires have carpets in the bottom and are filled with sand so the tires can be consolidated and expanded to be as strong as bricks. Moreover, she also designed “sunflower” and “rainbow” walls using clear glass bottles. Amy proves that a fantastic Earthship can be built using recycled products in our daily life. Every waste product has its function and what we have to do is figure that out and utilize them wisely. Recycling wastes is one of the many activities that can increase sustainability; however, it is not the only one.
Earthship takes care of its owner: In the face of people’s reliance on unsustainable resources, Earthship provides a solution by following principles of permaculture to create a self-sufficient and sustainable living environment. Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, gives some advice about how to make our cities more sustainable. He mentioned in his interview that you should catch the water off your roof. Grow your own food. Make your own energy. It saves time for people from going to the supermarket if everyone can grow their own food. It only takes a few minutes every week for any good organic gardeners in their gardens. What Bill Mollison mentioned in his interview is exactly what Earthship can do for its owner. Nick Aspinwall argues in his article, These Homes Are Off-grid and Climate Resilient, that Earthship follows six green-building principles regulating heating and cooling, water collection, sewage treatment, solar electricity, food production, and the use of recycled and natural materials. It is a sustainable home designed to maximize sunlight and use limited water resources efficiently. Earthship collects and filters water from about eight inches of annual rainfall. The priority of water usage is for drinking, showering, and hand washing in Earthship’s water system. The resulting “gray water” is used for irrigating outdoor plants or flushing toilets. Finally, “black water” is flushed into a septic tank. Another module harnesses solar power for lighting and appliances which saves significant amounts of energy. Moreover, Earthship can produce 25 to 50 percent of food for its residents’ daily diet. For residents who follow a plant-based diet, they can be self-sufficient. Earthship satisfies all activities that can make our society more sustainable. Collecting rainwater and managing to use them in the most efficient way, generating energy from solar power, and growing food in house for a part of daily consumption. This integrated and symbiotic system has made Earthship a good prescription for increasing sustainability in the community. However, People might worry about high temperatures during summer and low temperatures during winter, as the Earthship relies solely on electricity generated from solar power, which is not sufficient to run an air conditioner. This could lead to concerns about how to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature during hot summer or cold winter.
Self-regulating Earthship Despite concerns about temperature regulation, Earthship demonstrates how working with nature can create comfortable living conditions without relying on air conditioners. Permaculture teaches people to cooperate with nature instead of against it. Earthship allows its owner to utilize every aspect of our mother nature to create a comfortable living environment. For example, Amy created an earth burm which can utilize the Earth temperature in order to regulate indoor temperature. Earth burm itself keeps the Earthship warm and cooling tubes that run all the way through the Earth burm allow cool air from the outside to come into the room. Moreover, the Earthship is always facing north in the southern hemisphere so it can get the maximum sunlight coming through the windows in winter and minimum sunlight coming through in summer. The design of Earthship also allows hot air to be sucked out of the awning windows when the hot air rises as it mixes with the cold air from the cooling tubes. By utilizing nature, Amy can live in a comfortable environment without an air conditioner. When we learn how to take advantage of nature efficiently, we can stop relying on unsustainable resources.
Weakness of Earthship However, it is hard to convince people to actually buy an Earthship. To make things even worse, it is not the only obstacle to Earthship.For instance, many governments are prohibiting people from building Earthship for safety issues. Efforts of a few people alone are not enough to achieve success. Russ Grayson writes, “When the idea of getting your own place in order first — as advocated by permaculture co-creator, Bill Mollison — stops at your garden gate and fails to extend out into communities, neighborhoods and suburbs as Bill envisioned it would, it positions permaculture as an expression of the libertarian notion of private rather than social solutions, of going it alone, say its critics. The result of an overt focus on the individual or household is a lack of civic infrastructure for essential services and a decline in community cohesion”. Some advocates of permaculture might process permaculture in their own gardens. However, few of them actually bring permaculture to their communities. This shows that one of the biggest weaknesses of permaculture is that it is hard to get everyone involved. It is the same for Earthship. To be honest, this situation is even worse for Earthship because unlike permaculture which can be performed at a low cost, people have to pay about the same amount of money as a regular house in order to own an Earthship. It can be hard for many people to give up their original lifestyle and live inside an Earthship. Just like what Aspinwall states, “It’s got to be down to, the Titanic’s got to be sinking, and this is the life raft,” he said. “But selling them on the life raft while they can go dine and dance in the hall with the rich people in the top level, it’s a hard sell.” Many people are so used to using unsustainable sources just like people who can go dine and dance in the hall with the rich people in the top level in Titanic. It is almost impossible to wake them up. Moreover, Aspinwall also points out that many municipalities prohibit people from building houses with waste and rubber. It is ironic that those who are trying to save the Earth are hindered by governments that encourage environmental protection. However, this is the reality we face when talking about Earthship, which are extremely hard to sell and still considered illegal by many municipalities. To be honest, there are still many obstacles for Earthship to be popular in modern society. This is because living in an Earthship means people have to change their current lifestyle. They need to grow their own food, recycle a limited amount of water, and use a limited amount of electricity for necessities. It can be quite challenging to integrate permaculture as a part of daily life for a normal city dweller. Urban citizens are accustomed to having water from their taps, electricity for their televisions and air conditioners, and food from supermarkets. Nevertheless, it is never too late to get into the life raft when the Titanic is sinking.