From hemenway@jeffnet.org Sun Sep 5 11:36:53 1999 Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 07:15:12 -0700 From: Toby Hemenway Reply-To: permaculture To: permaculture Subject: Re: The Natural Step >Anyone ever heard of/know anything about >The Natural Step They have a web site at http://www.naturalstep.org/direct/index.html; I saw a talk about the program by Paul Hawken at The Bioneers Conference; he's active with them. There are informal contacts between some PC and Natural Step people, but I don't know of formal links. They've done a good job of moving into the "suit-wearing" niche for the sustainability crowd, working with a number of large corporations and foundations, and grounding their message in respectability by getting big-name scientists to endorse them. Seems to me they're doing a very good thing. I've reprinted their conditions in the original wording below (complete with superfluous use of the pompous phrase "in order for." But that's just the editor in me is nitpicking again). Their website explains these in less abstract language and gives examples; I'd go there before arguing with them. I would argue with condition 1, since life has always extracted substances from the earth via roots, bacteria, and fungi (poisoning the whole planet with oxygen a couple billion years ago). But I understand what they mean. THE NATURAL STEP'S FOUR SYSTEM CONDITIONS 1. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth's crust. 2. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances produced by society. 3. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature's functions and diversity are not systematically impoverished by physical displacement, over-harvesting or other forms of ecosystem manipulation. 4. In a sustainable society resources are used fairly and efficiently in order to meet basic human needs globally. --- You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: london@metalab.unc.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-permaculture-75156P@franklin.oit.unc.edu From london@metalab.unc.edu Sun Sep 5 11:37:46 1999 Date: Sat, 4 Sep 1999 12:01:16 -0400 (EDT) From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." Reply-To: permaculture To: permaculture Subject: The Natural Step This should interest you all. Anyone ever heard of/know anything about The Natural Step; do they endorse or interact with the Permaculture movement? LL ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 16:35:47 -0400 From: Kimberly Stoner At the Northeast Organic Farming Association regional conference this summer, there was a day-long workshop on the possibility of applying The Natural Step to agriculture in the U.S. I know there was a post about The Natural Step and Swedish agriculture on Sanet last spring, but it didn't make much impression on me at the time. After hearing a Swedish organic farmer (and president of the organic farming organization in Sweden) talk about how this movement has transformed the thinking about natural resources, energy, and environment in Sweden, I think The Natural Step deserves another look from the sustainable agriculture community here. I bring it up here, because it represents an attempt to bring a scientific standard to sustainability. According to the information in the workshop, at least, there has been extensive scientific review of the orginal documents. At the same time, the basis has been framed in terms that, while setting a very high standard, also make common sense. My information is at home, but here are the "Four Conditions" as far as I remember them: 1. Substances extracted from the earth's crust (e.g. fossil fuels, metals, other minerals) should not be extracted, dispersed, or used up at a faster rate than they are being deposited. 2. Man-made substances should not be produced at a rate faster than they can be broken down and incorporated into living ecosystems. 3. The quality of existing ecosystems should not be systematically degraded. 4. Existing resources should be used as efficiently and equitably as possible. I am sure that these are not the exact words, but I think they convey the basic ideas. The consideration of social systems, Hal, is limited to the word "equitably" (which may not even be the right word) in the last condition. In the workshop I attended, considerable time was spent emphasizing the fair and equitable distribution of resources. As I am sure you can imagine, the devil is in the details, but even the Swedish organic farmer felt that this is very challenging, but ultimately necessary standard to reach. Maybe I can write more, and more accurately, next week. I am out of time today. Kim Stoner --- You are currently subscribed to permaculture as: london@metalab.unc.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-permaculture-75156P@franklin.oit.unc.edu