Alchemical Blog
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Thinking Like an Alchemist [3] - Permaculture
Principle]
Permaculture is a new myth / alchemic generator for the sustainability age. As we move into the future our continued survival requires us to seek solutions to the present dilemmas that go beyond best practices and academic theory.Example] The Mythic Mandate online workshop provides attendees with a skill set and mission for utilizing their creative imagination to build poetically resonant tools to transmute their daily experiences into a powerful new map for the future.
Requirements to Participate] This is a free online workshop. Each participant is required to post an offering about permaculture for discussion no later than 2 weeks before 1/27/10. Offerings can include: a poem, a photo, an illustration, a short video, a short story or brief news item pertaining to permaculture that will be posted on PlanetShifter.com Magazine for pre-workshop sharing and reflection.
Link to Full Details and to Sign-Up] http://www.planetshifter.com/node/1766
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Thinking Like an Alchemist [2] - Consumption and the Jevon's Paradox
Principle] The Jevons Paradox - "It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth". The problem with efficiency gains is that we inevitably reinvest them in additional consumption.
Example] Paving roads reduces rolling friction, thereby boosting miles per gallon, but it also makes distant destinations seem closer, thereby enabling people to live in sprawling, energy-gobbling subdivisions far from where they work and shop.
Text] "Brookes argued that devising ways to produce goods with less oil—an obvious response to higher prices—would merely accommodate the new prices, causing energy consumption to be higher than it would have been if no effort to increase efficiency had been made; only later did he discover that Jevons had anticipated him by more than a century. Nowadays, this effect is usually referred to as “rebound”—or, in cases where increased consumption more than cancels out any energy savings, as “backfire."
Link to Full Text] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_owen#ixzz1A6LS0RZA
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Thinking Like An Alchemist [1] - Open Source
Principle] Always think open source DIY over manufactured commercial.
Example] Open Source Ecology and the Global Village Construction Set
Text] a movement dedicated to the collaborative development of tools for replicable, open source, modern off-grid "resilient communities." By using
permaculture and digital fabrication together to provide for basic needs and open source methodology to allow low cost replication of the entire operation, we hope to empower anyone who desires to move beyond the struggle for survival and "evolve to freedom."Video]
Global Village Construction Set in 2 Minutes < Click Here!
