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If Antarctica sheds all its ice, the sea will rise some seventy meters higher, so I no longer live at sea level but lately ensure a minimum of one hundred meters’ elevation. Our beach cabin is for sale!

Even this may bring the coasts close to my door, and I have educated myself about edible seaweeds of this coast. As well, we have now fitted six 10,000-gallon (44,000-liter) tanks to our buildings and outbuildings to catch roof water—enough to provide for our household and gardens in drought.

Over the last ten years, we’ve planted about two hundred nut pines, sixty chestnuts, five walnuts, twenty apples, twenty pears, thirty plums, and about fifty other fruit trees and vines. All of these could be planted by three people in three months if necessary.

We also have thirty geese, fifty chooks (that’s Aussie for chickens), thirty ducks, seven to twenty pigs, and wild rabbits and wallaby, fish and lobsters. The pines, apart from offering us nuts, also provide cones to fuel a Russian stove that heats the house, as well as a cook stove. We are now building a bread oven. Not to forget the ninety to a hundred oaks (to feed geese and pigs) and a few thousand blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon) and other Australian native trees, for honey and fuel and lumber. These are wild-seeding or (in the case of ti-trees) clump-forming.

We have a few “instant” thickly mulched gardens and fifty to a hundred meters of fresh vegetable beds. We invested in a tunnel (un-heated) hothouse for tomatoes, banana, ginger, lemongrass, and so on. This coming year we will invest in solid trellis for grapes, kiwi fruit, hops, and more.

All tank outlet pipes are pressurized to ensure good pressure at the buildings. For wildfire an eight-horsepower diesel pump services underground two-inch lines and hoses. We have life subscriptions to two seed-savers clubs.

An electric farm system is being designed, and an “X-Trail” vehicle (a four-wheel drive Nissan model) is fitted with a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tank and lead-free petrol. Along with rainwater storage, we have three dams for native fish, including blackfish and eel.

About twelve months from now, we should have fitted enough solarelectric panels to power all essential functions, putting us well on our way to sell surplus energy to the state power utilities. Building and fitting energy-efficient homes and devices, we should be as well equipped as can be.

I designed and built an energy-efficient house in 1955, and since then have designed about two hundred for clients and friends. There are many people able to do this today, and to retrofit inefficient homes, which in fact I enjoy more than building anew!

My wife Lisa and I are happy, contented, ready to face tough times, and possess the tools to do more. You may get the idea that we are forward planners, and this is how we advise you to behave. None of this is difficult, all of it is beneficial, and quite simply, if you don’t do it, you are taking an unwarranted risk, for you, your children, and your society. Change is coming, but we have time to make ready.

NOTES

1. www.clubofrome.org/docs/limits.rtf

2. CSIRO: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia

A baker, fisherman, CSIRO technical officer, and university-tenured lecturer, Bill Mollison conceived Permaculture and spread its strategies through education. He founded the Permaculture Institute in 1978 to further these goals. He originally self-published his books, articles, and curricula, which entirely funded all Institute work. A passionate teacher, at eighty-two he still conducts courses. By personally planting the seeds of Permaculture in 120 countries, Bill’s efforts have been recognized. He is a receiver of the Right Livelihood Award, Outstanding Australian Achiever Award, Vavilov Medal, Australian Ecology Icon of the Millennium, Steward of Sustainable Agriculture Award, and more. His Web site is www.tagari.com.

Thinking Like an Island

MICHAEL ABLEMAN

The following essay is based on excerpts from a talk given at the 2009 Future of Food conference