Climate Change
We have known for decades that the global warming equation is worsening year by year. And as the new documents come to light from the oil companies that they knew even as early as the 60s however made the clear choice to choose profit over educating people about the dangers of global warming and climate change.
Now we are at this juncture where that denial has come home to roost in such a shocking and seemingly rapid moment of the now witnessed with radical flooding, radical droughts, fire, wholesale loss of farms, wholesale destruction of the environment, and loss of biodiversity.
These are dire times for humans and all the other species on the planet. It is not the time to save up for a rainy day, it’s the time to take your personal wealth, whether it’s financial, whether it’s your time, whether it’s knowledge, whether it’s a position of influence, whether you’re an educator, and to decide what repository of knowledge you’re going to become that makes you a useful person in your community. What are you going to do to change the culture in your own community, your own family? How do I avoid giving silly gifts to people? Maybe give a gift of a tree instead. We ask, what are you doing every day that can help stop the cycle?
Flip the Script
Why is it that in the Hawaiian Islands, we’re importing 90% of our food when we can grow food year-round? What does it take for us to change that up? It’s a combination of changing consumer habits, voting people into office, who are going to enact policy, that makes it easy for farmers to have the right livelihood, you have to be able to make a living as a farmer.
It is insane that chemical agriculture is subsidized by our taxpayer dollars, yet organic farmers have to pay to get their organic certification year after year. Organic must be labeled but the chemical doesn’t. Why does the chemical produce not have a label that lists all the chemicals that they use, and whether it’s GMO? We need to flip the script and educate people into the place of action.
The Fist Slamming Moment
Where’s the inflection point with young people, where we’re teaching them relevant skills. The fact that you go through high school and college, and you have no vocational training? We call it in the permaculture design course, the fist slamming moment. It usually comes about halfway through the course where someone who’s 22 or 25, after a week of just like, “Wow, this is so amazing. I’m learning so much”, and they slam their fist on the table, and they’re like, “How is it that I’m 25 years old and I don’t know any of this? I don’t have any skills. I don’t know how to do anything. How could I have gone through 12 years of education, and I don’t know how to do anything?” and they’re angry. We say, “well, what are we going to do about that? What do you want to learn?” Pretty much any field in the permaculture world, whether passive solar hot water, if you studied that and learned that for one or two years, you’d know more than 99% of the people on the planet about passive solar hot water. The careers are abounding whether it’s going to be of the vocational type or in policy work.
Consulting + Design
Our clients are diverse. We work with everyone from a small backyard in an urban setting to give them an edible landscape where they can grow some vegetables and a couple fruit trees, and maybe have three chickens, all the way to, 1000-acre agroforestry projects in Central America.
Public Speaking
Getting an audience is a privilege. Being able to stand up in front of an audience and share a message of hope is a privilege. And we really enjoy doing it! We’ve spoken at green conferences, permaculture conferences, art conferences, Rotary Clubs, and more.
Permaculture Courses
Permaculture teachers are bound by the international standard curriculum, which holds the test of time. We really enjoy teaching permaculture, for us, it’s not enough anymore to just teach that curriculum, climate change must be taken into consideration.