I read the comment below on a blog yesterday. I now know how protective I am of Permaculture and my need that it be credited for many fine practices the world needs to thrive in the future. I found this comment maddening and commented with some restraint so I didn't sound as ignorant as the first. Last week I did the same when Permaculture was described as crop rotation in another blog. As with all word that get co-opted by pop culture, like sustainability and green, the true meaning is diluted if not lost completely.
I do not think we need to be word police, however, a little corrective comment goes a long way in established blogs and internet articles that are read by thousands. Its easier to go where the people are than attract them to someplace new. Google Alerts help with this monitoring. Otherwise the tide will turn against us as culture turns our beloved Permaculture into some sweet, fat free, saccharin yogurt. I invite you to see what happens if we all left an intelligent note at the site below and see how high that comment counter can go.
" My greatest threat is not from those who might attack, but those who fail to come to my defense."
"The term Permaculture was first used by the Australian ecologist Bill Mollison in 1978," says Clarissa Dickson Wright, "and like Topsy, the word grew ... we live in an age where we have developed a passion for renaming something and imagining we invented it." As Morrison described permaculture, it is simply the integration of human habitation with plant life, creating microclimates and mimicking patterns found in nature. Sensible stuff, but as Dickson Wright says; "I would have said that was simply a description of pre-twentieth century gardening."
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