A SUSTAINABLE CULTURE chooses criteria that support conservation and the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs for the health and well-being of all.  Human-scale Criteria of:

 

BEYOND maintaining SUSTAINABILITY comes PERMANENT AGRICULTURE--a state of nourishing co-existence with nature--when our designed systems provide for their own needs and have good product yield or even surplus yield, to paraphrase Bill Mollison, the co-creator of PERMACULTURE DESIGN.  Thus, also addressing Buckminster Fuller's vision for a "design science" that "produces so much performance per unit of resource invested as to take care of all human needs."  Natural performance enhanced without stress by nourishing relationships meets the real needs of both plants and humans, hence, Edges and Forest Gardens.

 

 

SUSTAINABLE is when our "wastes" don't overwhelm our natural systems.  This requires a stage of total cost accounting where criteria are applied to production, use, distribution, and storage of all that meets our basic needs.  By individually discerning our every day choices, we have the power to transform our present culture and deepen our vote through our economic choices and growing bioregionalism.

 

SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS are

 

(1)  cooperative, ecologically and economically; bioregionally rooted in their natural communities; work with nature's naturalized, multi-functional species; and recognize human as part of in considering habitat for all. 

 

(2)  causes no depletion of the resource base, by storing or conserving more energy than used to construct or maintain the system while preserving habitat for all.

 

(3)  maintainable, human time and energy limitations are humanely reflected in the design and staging of implementation; restorative and strategic diversity creates stability.

 

(4)  uses low external-energy input from local renewable resources; elimination of fossil fuel use.

 

(5)  aesthetically pleasing (that which can be in harmony pleases),

 

(6)  distributes while accumulating, like water spreading in swales and feeding plant roots, like dynamic accumulators sharing subsoil minerals with neighboring plant roots maintaining community.