“In the 24 hours since this time yesterday, over 200,000 acres of rainforest have been destroyed in our world. Fully 13 million tons of toxic chemicals have been released into our environment. Over 45,000 people have died from starvation, 38,000 of them children. And more than 130 plant and animal species have been driven to extinction by the actions of humans. And all this just since yesterday.” – Thom Hartmann in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (1999)
The Permaculture Movement
The material culture we live in may eventually force us to live sustainably out of necessity unless we find a balance with nature and humanity. Luckily, awareness is expanding and spawning incredible global activism. Despite daunting challenges, people with common values are coming together to shape the permaculture movement.
The Permaculture Movement represents a collective design system that integrates our social and environmental responsibilities to provide for our physical requirements to create a more sustainable and permanent culture. In short, it is bringing together all sustainable ideas for a collective goal.
Our Awareness
Like many others, we woke up one day to discover that our culture was upside down and its destruction to our environment is utterly unsustainable. This realization led to confusion as we wondered why. While we sought answers along the way it became easy to blame various bogeymen for society’s ills like; the “other” political party, or the corrupt government, greedy corporations, different religions, crumbling education, or the mass media. It eventually became clear that they are all fish in the same sea, and so are we. We were just as much to blame, for we are the system.
Recognizing this profound interconnectedness to all that is clearly exposes the system as designed to unnaturally divide us. Division seemed calculated in every political speech, every advertisement, every religious sermon, every classroom, and every news cast. The masses buy into this division and they form prejudices about their neighbors, who then form biases towards them. This division feeds fear, breeds anxiety, which turns to hate, which leads to destructive actions. It creates a “dog-eat-dog” economy where greed always trumps the environment, compassion, and fairness. We concluded that each of us must take action in our own way to transform such an insane system.
Understanding that we’re connected to everything leaves one way forward – sustainability. Everything from the way we relate to each other, build things, produce food, apply industry, operate government, and much more needs to be transformed with new values of harmony and sustainability if humanity expects to survive. The good news is that all it takes is changing our values and applying them one person at a time. In other words, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” – Gandhi.
Common Sustainable Values
- Balance – living and producing in harmony with nature
- Interconnectedness – the common good is best for me because I’m one part of a much larger system
Living in harmony with nature for the common good of all humanity will be common sense to future generations. Like ancient Aborigines, they may refer to us as “mutants” for not understanding this universal truth. Future generations may even perceive our divisive and destructive culture more primitively than how we view the “earth is flat” era. One thing is for sure, sustainable innovators will be the HEROES to our descendants.
Motivation
There is only so much evidence one needs before moving to action. There are many wonderful organizations informing the public to make them aware of our cultural and environmental crisis. That is terrific, but once we became aware, we realized there wasn’t a cohesive community to promote pragmatic solutions for a sustainable future. Sure there were many groups and industries driving the green revolution, but they appeared fragmented and dispersed throughout the internet. Although, other popular social networks like Facebook and Linkedin contained green groups, one has to sift through the noise to interact with them. Further, Facebook has become a personal communication vehicle, not a business vehicle, while Linkedin’s confusing interface is exhausting for busy professionals.
Objective
PermaculturePros.com is a community designed to optimize sustainable enterprise for grassroots organizations, green businesses, and conscious consumers. The goal of PermaculturePros.com is to bring together these innovators, large and small, into one social community that provides them the tools to broadcast their products, services, and ideas to the world. It’s an easy-to-use interface where conscious consumers can find a variety of sustainable living tips, news, and products while directly participating in the community.
PermaculturePros.com Tools
- Social profiles for businesses, organizations, and individuals
- General store where users can post their products and services
- Sustainable news and press release board
- Searchable link directory
- Education and Jobs post
- Networking forums
Benefits of Networking on PermaculturePros.com
- Reach your target audience for FREE
- Network with industry leaders and suppliers
- Display and sell your products in our General Store
- Post press releases and write industry articles
- FREE LINK in our Directory
- Display a banner ad to your website on your profile
- Video window for your commercials and Vlogs
- Easy-to-use interface focused only on sustainability
