Episode-2672- Geoff Lawton on PDCs, Back Yard Permaculture, the Current Chaos and More

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Geoff Lawton is a Permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He first took his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course in 1983. He holds a Diploma in Permaculture Education, Design, Implementation, System Establishment, Administration and Community Development. Both of these were awarded by the founder of Permaculture, Bill Mollison.

Geoff has undertaken thousands of jobs teaching, consulting, designing, administrating and implementing, in 6 continents and close to 50 countries around the world. Clients have included private individuals, groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, non-government organizations and multinational companies.

He has currently educated over 15,000 students in Permaculture worldwide. These include graduates of the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course and courses focused on the practical design of sustainable soil, water, plant, animal, energy, structures, legal and economic systems.

Geoff has embraced the technology age. Not only is he the driving force behind the World Wide Permaculture Network (created in 2011), he also has an online training and education website named Geofflawton.com.

Geoff established Geofflawton.com in 2013 with the aim of educating as many people as possible in Permaculture and environmental sustainability. He has released Permaculture educational and inspirational films to his members regularly throughout each year and holds one Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course event per calendar year.

In 1996 he was accredited with the Permaculture Community Services Award by the Permaculture movement for services in Australia and around the world.

In October 1996 Bill Mollison, upon his retirement, asked Geoff to establish and direct a new Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (PRI Australia) on the 147-acre Tagari Farm. The Institute was a global networking centre for Permaculture projects. It is currently located at Zaytuna Farm at The Channon in Northern NSW, Australia. Geoff is the Managing Director.

The institute is a self funded non-profit company limited by guarantee. The institute has since founded PRI USA, PRI Jordan, PRI Sunshine Coast. Other Permaculture Research Institutes that have been launched or are in the process of being launched including: PRI Canada, PRI Chile, PRI Turkey, PRI Greece and PRI Afghanistan. PRI Australia won the Humanitarian Water & Food Award for 2010 for their initiative “Greening the Desert“.

Resources for today’s show…

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I love Geoff. He’s my age and looks a lot like my brother.

He is so knowledgeable! I wish we had more like him.

We look at the “futurists” who want us all to depend on technology and we don’t understand what they are thinking, but if even if any of them are sane, they probably won’t tell us what they’re really thinking, beyond an admission here and there that they wonder if this planet will still be livable in 50 or 100 years. Even if that’s true, their “solution” is crazy. I’ve seen some of these guys and they have no idea. It is like the atom bomb scientists were in their day. They had no idea how crazy they were. The all took themselves and their work so seriously!

Geoff is good at understanding people. And that’s really important. It’s all about people, not even about “efficiency” or “sustainability.” I suppose you could have an “efficient and sustainable” system with no people in it! Well, that wouldn’t make any sense, would it? We design systems for people, and Geoff designs systems for people.

Jack mentioned the riots like he did in the last episode. Of course there is this element of hopelessness, of being totally left out of having meaningful participation in society. There is also a sense of a long-standing lack of justice or fairness in the society. But there is also a criminal element taking advantage of this. They don’t need the stolen goods; they need the confusion. They need the hopelessness.

You have to wonder why Permaculture isn’t further along after 50 years or more of teaching it and using it. The answer is that there exists on this planet an active minority that doesn’t want people to do better. Many think it’s just ignorance; we have to spread our message better. That’s not the full picture. There is a sector of society actively (but secretly) opposed to betterment. They are cutting or perverting the pro-survival messages. They will go into communities that aren’t quite strong enough and mess them up. This is a reality on planet Earth that needs to be dealt with. We turn our back on it and it will just use that opportunity to sneak up and stab us.

That’s one reason I am taking my chances to live in the city (where there has been some damage from the “riots”) where I have access to knowledge that I hope will help me be more effective as a human being.

Comments

Episode-2672- Geoff Lawton on PDCs, Back Yard Permaculture, the Current Chaos and More — 5 Comments

Tom herr on June 2, 2020 at 1:36 pm said:

Please send a link to listen tothe full intro song
- Evelyn Mitchell on June 2, 2020 at 8:26 pm said:
  
  Tom,
  
  This is the song, it’s called “The Revolution is You”, I don’t blame you man I love the song too. Spent many days learning the words so I could sing it in a karaoke situation, but didn’t get the chance. I hope you enjoy the whole thing.
  
  http://www.survivalpodcast.net/audio/stuff/Revolution%20Is%20You.mp3
  
  Trying again
  http://www.survivalpodcast.net/audio/stuff/Revolution%20Is%20You.mp3
  
  Okay it’s the second entry on the right sidebar under “Connect with TSP”.
  
  Evelyn
- Modern Survival on June 3, 2020 at 10:02 am said:
  
  https://bit.ly/3eYaECv
Larry Cox on June 2, 2020 at 7:50 pm said:

I love Geoff. He’s my age and looks a lot like my brother.

He is so knowledgeable! I wish we had more like him.

We look at the “futurists” who want us all to depend on technology and we don’t understand what they are thinking, but if even if any of them are sane, they probably won’t tell us what they’re really thinking, beyond an admission here and there that they wonder if this planet will still be livable in 50 or 100 years. Even if that’s true, their “solution” is crazy. I’ve seen some of these guys and they have no idea. It is like the atom bomb scientists were in their day. They had no idea how crazy they were. The all took themselves and their work so seriously!

Geoff is good at understanding people. And that’s really important. It’s all about people, not even about “efficiency” or “sustainability.” I suppose you could have an “efficient and sustainable” system with no people in it! Well, that wouldn’t make any sense, would it? We design systems for people, and Geoff designs systems for people.

Jack mentioned the riots like he did in the last episode. Of course there is this element of hopelessness, of being totally left out of having meaningful participation in society. There is also a sense of a long-standing lack of justice or fairness in the society. But there is also a criminal element taking advantage of this. They don’t need the stolen goods; they need the confusion. They need the hopelessness.

You have to wonder why Permaculture isn’t further along after 50 years or more of teaching it and using it. The answer is that there exists on this planet an active minority that doesn’t want people to do better. Many think it’s just ignorance; we have to spread our message better. That’s not the full picture. There is a sector of society actively (but secretly) opposed to betterment. They are cutting or perverting the pro-survival messages. They will go into communities that aren’t quite strong enough and mess them up. This is a reality on planet Earth that needs to be dealt with. We turn our back on it and it will just use that opportunity to sneak up and stab us.

That’s one reason I am taking my chances to live in the city (where there has been some damage from the “riots”) where I have access to knowledge that I hope will help me be more effective as a human being.
- tuffy on August 10, 2020 at 3:51 pm said:
  
  Just a clarification: For Angelo Eliadis of Deep Green Permaculture (really amazing garden, check it out), his garden at 65 sq meters is almost 700sq feet, not 200 sq ft…so, like 20ft x35 ft that’s still micro though!