The Wheaton Eco Scale

Paul refers to the Wheaton scale in podcast 028, reviewing the movie, "Fresh." The movie is ofr folks who are still a little lower on the scale, but he and Jocelyn include some good discussion. Here's the link: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2lvFv8/www.richsoil.com/permaculture/274-podcast-028-review-fresh-the-movie/

I like this scale, and have been talking to people about it.  My observation would be that whilst this is the Paul Wheaton Eco Scale, it is really the eco-specific instantiation of the generic HumanSelfImprovementScale.  (See, I am hoping to curry favour with our benevolent dictator by displaying my mad Java skillz whilst talking about eco stuff  )

I think that any field of human endeavour that involves self motivated self improvement could be typified in this way.  Take fitness for example:

[li]Level 0: Most people do nothing "fitness" related, and don't think about it.[/li]
[li]Level 1: People that do a little tend to laud their efforts over those those that do nothing, and aspire to do more ("You really should do something to keep fit.  I signed up to the gym!  This guy got me on to it, and he actually goes every week.  That guy is awesome!")[/li]
[li]Level 2: People that are doing more probably think that most of the people in world are scum draining the health care system ("I mean come on, haven't you fat f--ks seen Supersize Me!")[/li]

[li]... and so on up the scale.  I don't know what the upper echelons of the fitness scale would look like, but I suspect it would involve people that think anyone not living solely on protein shakes isn't committed to the cause[/li]

The interesting thing is here is that most people in the world don't need to think about going to the gym, because to most people on Earth the idea of having excess energy is completely fanciful, and whilst they may understand their diet could be better, they simply don't have the luxury of doing anything about it.  Same same for the eco scale - most of the world would have a very small eco footprint by definition, not choice.

My other observation would be that zealotry is more likely to exist at the lower levels of these scales.  This is evident in the corporate world, where people with a little bit of power tend to laud it over their subordinates, whilst more senior people are less obsessed with their seniority.  I suspect Sepp Holzer wouldn't care so much about the eco scale he's the king of, because he would have enough self assurance in his actions to need validation from others.

Where am I on the eco scale?  Most people on this forum would probably say level 0, aspiring to level 1.  I think I'm trying to jump straight in at level 2 by avoiding Prius owning delusions of eco-ness 

You can save a lot of money by avoiding buying a Prius! 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
You can save a lot of money by avoiding buying a Prius!   

I think I save a lot of everything by not owning a Prius.  I live in a rural area, and do a lot of highway driving for work.  I own a 12 year old car, which is mechanically fine (it still does better than 30 miles per gallon), but starting to wear out in many other ways. Road noise was really starting to become an issue, leaving me tired and irritable, etc.  I toyed with the idea of buying a new car (not a Prius, but a small turbo diesel, which is more efficient on the highway), and then invested in a pair of noise cancelling ear muffs instead.  I saved tens of thousands of dollars, and have saved all the sunken energy and resources that a new car represents.  This was great until I started listening to Paul's podcast, and now I have recordings of his road noise to leave me tired and irritable    No doubt "level 0" people passing me think that I'm crazy, but I don't care; they're assholes, right?

My observation here would be that the eco scale (and probably any 'Human Improvement Scale') probably has a few false steps in it.  I can see the "Prius delusion" because it's near to where I am at, but I suspect there are probably others at higher levels.  Perhaps (and I really don't know what I'm talking about here, so treat this as hypothetical) a guy at level 3 buys a chipper and starts madly mulching all their fallen timber, while the gal at level 5 knows that Hugelkultur is much better.  She might think Mr Mulcher is an asshole, but really he's just doing the best thing he understands, given his frame of reference.  Buying the Prius might be a net loss in terms of eco impact, but if it was the last car someone bought because it was the start of a journey of eco-improvement, then maybe its impact is offset?

Paul You asked:  why would anyone want to listen to all these pod casts...?

  Well...all i can say is....  could the Beatles have all their fans over for Lunch?

    nope!  but through their music everyone had lunch listening to them.

  Same with sitting on your front porch @ the farm  listening to you talk while you occasionally played some notes on guitar...  how  cool would that be....?  i'd  say,  WAy cool  Brother...

should we all board planes helicopters and buses ...fuel up the jalopies and head to Montana?
Well --> most of us  entertain the idea certainly...  because you and Jocelyn are
healing the monocultured planet in this way....  and frankly we  need it.

I salute you guys  bow and thank you for the Honor of listening to them.

Sorry in advance, this may come off as a bit of a rant, but the number of people on the planet that truly qualify for the top 3 or 4 positions on this scale as an indicator of our future well-being is not very encouraging.

IMO, we need to convert at least one mega-ego super-rich billionaire philanthropist and/or venture capitalist or a very large collective of individual permaculture farmers to unite to the cause if a serious dent is to be made in conventional thinking among the fat-cat industrial farmers and related industries. The world is going to shit far too quickly - we don't have another 50-60 years for individuals the likes of Holzer, Fukuoka et al to show what is possible. They've done their job, shown us the light, proven conventional wisdom wrong and pointed us in the right direction. Their ideas need to scale much further now. We need competition at the "money talks" level to show the "better way" is also more profitable (in whatever sense the majority of us value most), now and long-term.

It has been shown that permaculture and natural farming can yield similar, if not superior, yield at the grass roots level and do so in a sustainable way without sacrificing the ecology for quarterly earnings. It isn't realistic to expect a mass exodus from capitalism just because it feels right. I'm hoping some well-backed venture capitalists finally see the light, even if it is through their own narrow prism, and recognise a business opportunity when they see one and start investing, consolidating organic/natural/permaculture farming organizations and use some ingenuity and innovation (remember those?) to take on the industrial agri-corporations and beat them at their own game. The way I see it, the end game will either be a return to individual subsistence farming by force of nature (i.e. an eco-collapse), or by advancement in social and economic maturity. I would prefer the latter - I think it will be less messy for all involved.

I'm hoping some enlightened nation, probably through necessity based on water and/or oil dependence, will take the lead and set an example as an eco-leader for the rest of us to follow. After all, when the oil runs out, those who need it the least will be in the best shape to carry on.

Just my $.02 CAD.

Cory S wrote:

IMO, we need to convert at least one mega-ego super-rich billionaire philanthropist and/or venture capitalist or a very large collective of individual permaculture farmers to unite to the cause if a serious dent is to be made in conventional thinking among the fat-cat industrial farmers and related industries.

In my opinion it's implausible that a billionaire or venture capitalist will magically convert to a permie mindset and save the planet.

Therefore we need to look at the "large collective" option.  Is it plausible that a large collective of individual permaculturalists will unite?  And once they have united, what will they do exactly?  There are a LOT of people on this board who are actively practicing permaculture.  We seem pretty united in our attitudes and goals.  What actions should we be taking to make a dent in conventional thinking among industrial farmers?  And is it even plausible to expect a united group of permaculturalists to be able to do something (what?) to change the thinking among a group of people of whom they are not a part?

I guess what I'm asking is, how will a united group of permaculturalists (all of us on this board) change the thinking (and actions?) of industrial farmers?  What should we DO to accomplish this goal?  What innovation or ingenuity, specifically,  can we bring to bear on this profound challenge?

I'm ready to unite if you are.  I'm ready to take action.  What is the action?

Permaculture's "problem" is that it is low input, and long term.  Therefore there isn't a chain of industry that can make money from it (as in conventional agriculture), so they aren't going to get behind it.  Also, it is very easy to create a public perception that permaculture is a backwards step ("See!  Those hippies are so stoned they can't even put all the right plants together or in a straight line!  And that guy is riding a bicycle!  Where's his tractor?!").  The average person who doesn't care about where their food comes from, but they sure don't want it coming from some dirty hippy.  After all, some of their drugs might contaminate the food - won't someone think of the children!?!  We have seen exactly how this plays out in Australia with our Federal Government moving to introduce a (very very mild) carbon tax.  The level of outrage that has been whipped up in the community by the vested interests is astonishing, given the projected cost impact is a few bucks per person per week.

I am surrounded by "real" farmers, primarily cattle on pasture land.  There is also a lot of plantation and native logging in the wider area.  I think the only way you would get through to them was to show permaculture is more profitable, and do so on the scale that they think in.  The systems that currently support industrial agriculture would need to alter as well, or alternatives set up.  If you had a thousand permie farmers in a given area, would you really expect them to all load up their (presumably quite similar, given the climate and season) produce and set up a thousand stalls at a farmers' market? Would you further expect the supermarket set to all wonder past a thousand near identical stalls to go shopping?

The systems that currently sit between farmer and consumer are set up to support large harvests of monocrops, and there's a level of efficiency in that.  A few times per year, a very large truck parks outside our house, and our neighbour (who, with 200 head of cattle, is bordering on non-economic in modern terms) loads up a dozens of cattle to go to market.  How would she be served in a polyculture setting - would dozens of small vans come past to collect different things (a pig here, a few boxes of apples there, etc), or would a "polyvan" come and take all of these things?  That would mean that the operation at the other end of the truck's route would need to know how to handle a vast range of produce, which is currently not the case.

I don't have any answers, but just making some observations about the scalability of this approach.

I think converting poor nations to permaculture will be easier than rich ones. Permanently fix a starving African nation, and people will start listening.

Kirk Hutchison wrote:
I think converting poor nations to permaculture will be easier than rich ones. Permanently fix a starving African nation, and people will star listening.

Ok, who is going to "permanently fix a starving African nation"? 

I'm really hoping we can get beyond "and a miracle occurs" discussions and "but it can't work because of X (scalability, whatever)" discussions and get to the "now we are going to do this and this is what we're doing" discussions.

Here, here to what H Ludi Tyler said! Let's just make it happen and PROVE our point.

Thank you!    But HOW do we make it happen?  Let's talk about HOW. 

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
Ok, who is going to "permanently fix a starving African nation"? 

Me in the future... Right now I'm still caught up in compulsory public education, but in the future I intend to spend some time in Africa helping out. For those with more freedom, go for it!

Hooray!   

A while ago I was musing over how I, one person, could effect significant change, and I cam up with the following method:

1. Go to poor village and buy some worthless, unproductive land on the outskirts.
2. Permaculturize land.
3. Give away lots of food to the community.
4. Teach anyone interested dhow to do it themselves, so long as they promise to do the same.

I could envision a little chain reaction unfolding.

That could happen in any locale, I think. 

I think you'll find that's happening in the USA right now:

http://www.dinnergarden.org/

H Ludi Tyler wrote:
That could happen in any locale, I think. 

Yeah, affluent people are probably just a bit more closeminded

Kirk: I think there are places like this already.  And that's great!  Maybe you can do the same one day, I hope so.  There are plenty of African villages out there that still need a permie centre

http://permaculture.org.au/project_profiles/africa/strawberry_fields_eco-lodge_ethiopia.htm

One example but there are others.

Phil: I don't think permaculturists necessarily have to think in the same scale as conventional farmers for it to become viable.  The whole point about permaculture is that it is a low input system, so your margins are much bigger.  On the other hand, conventional farming is moving more and more to the business model of taking lots of expensive inputs, adding them all together, and producing a product that is slightly more valuable than all its inputs.  Wash, rinse, repeat many many times in order to make any money.

The permaculture way means that many people would go back to the land, lots of small producers instead of many large.  Sadly, this would mean we cannot support jobs like producing bad television programs or making massive billboards or coming doorknocking every week to see if people want to change telephone company...

In terms of distribution it would be smaller scale.  There would be different solutions depending on population density. Broadly, if there are many more smallholders then the population will be distributed more evenly, and less concentrated in cities.  There are lots of options like farm gate sales, local markets, etc. where the farmer can do their own retailing, which increases the profit margin enormously.

Hi Hugh,

Kirk was asking how you convince farmers to change. I guess my point was that you can't just change the farmers without changing a lot, unless you first change the consumer. It might be nice to think we should 'devolve' out of cities, but I think that's really a much bigger issue, and being a practical sort of fella, I would hate to see a situation where Permaculture is seen as too hard because it needs a complete societal change. Really you have to change the consumers, or regulate change. I think regulation is doomed to fail because the people with the most to lose have the real power to stop governments by sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt (as with the carbon tax).

The risk of changing the consumer by appealing to their sense of Eco improvement is that we get thousands of people driving out to rural areas to shop

I don't have faith in sufficient numbers of consumers changing out of good will alone. They need a real, viable alternative to the "easy" choices being offered to them wherever they look on their drive home from the office to their suburban home.

A 300 percent markup at their local big-box supermarket for organic produce isn't a sufficient alternative to what, inevitably should prove to be an uneconomical and non-viable model for production and distribution. I don't fault the producers, distributers or suppliers here, but I doubt they are all working toward the same objectives and interests.

When I talk about a collective, I mean putting equivalent power of scale and volume up against the industrial producers.

Maybe we all just need a common mascot/brand. For example, if you had the choice of a Walmart or a Holzer's across the street from one another and understood (i.e. marketing) what each had to offer, and they were roughly competitive with one another, which would the majority choose?

Let's assume the "Holzer brand" represents nothing more than a unified collective of local producers, distributors and retailers. Everything I understand from permaculture should give it the clear advantage, given the same scale of production and distribution. But it remains a very niche alternative. Why is that?

Personally I'm not sure why people would need to "devolve" out of cities.  Permaculture can be practiced in cities.  This would solve the problem you mention,Phil, of thousands of people driving out to rural areas to shop.

You say we have to change the consumers.  Do you have any ideas of how to do that, specifically?

Cory S wrote:

When I talk about a collective, I mean putting equivalent power of scale and volume up against the industrial producers.

Can we talk about about a plan of how to do that? 

For instance, if it was just easier for my neighbors to buy food from me, it seems to me they would buy it from me, instead of driving 10-12 miles into town to buy food.  Same with neighborhoods in town, if neighbors could buy food from the friendly neighborhood grower, wouldn't it be more likely they would do so? (Please do not derail this discussion by dragging in the "guvmint won't let me sell food to my neighbors" stuff, thanks, unless you have a personal story about how the guvmint tried to stop you from selling food to your neighbors and how you overcame that obstruction.  )

A fair argument, H Ludi Tyler. A fair question would be what percentage of the local population within 10-12 miles are you currently serving and what is preventing you from servicing the majority of them?

Why are they not flocking to buy from you, as opposed to the local big-box retailer? I presume there are many big-box franchise grocers that have the majority share. Why isn't at least one of them aligned primarily with permaculture distributors or producers?

These are the questions I feel need exploration. Perhaps in another thread, as I do not wish to thread crap. The Wheaton Eco Scale served as a good point to insert the questions.

I was just thinking about this thread going off topic.  I'm new here, so if someone wants to link a more appropriate existing (or new) thread, I'll go there

Ok, I started a new thread (if you don't like the title, let me know and I'll change it) : https://permies.com/permaculture-forums/10191_0/permaculture/getting-more-people-to-buy-from-permaculture-farms

[offtopic]@ kirk, some posts before you expressed the urge to buy some land next to a poor village in africa and start to permaculturalize it. Well some piece of land is waiting for you in Ghana. My brother bought a piece of land (several actually) and build an orphanage there. Now he is in dire need of a permaculturalist with his/her mind set to this task to start growing food there, in a permaculture way. To minize the input and eco-footprint and maximize the yield and diversity. I myself are way too much wound up and connected to certain projects here in europe. So any (slightly experienced) permie up for the task can go to http://www.goodworldghana.org/ [/offtopic]

Cory S wrote:
A fair argument, H Ludi Tyler. A fair question would be what percentage of the local population within 10-12 miles are you currently serving and what is preventing you from servicing the majority of them?

Right now the simple reason is that I am not currently growing food for sale.    So they're being prevented from buying permaculturally produced food by the simple reason that there is no permaculture grower nearby.  I would say, in general, the reason people aren't buying from permaculture growers is that there are not enough permaculture growers in most areas.

I'll move over to the other thread now! 

Just a brief cultural referance to consider.  When I went to college in Flagstaff, Az (back in the age of dinosaurs), my best friend was Navajo.  In their culture knowlege should be paid for.  It's disrepectful to the knowlege to give it away, and likely a waste because anyone who won't pay won't respect and properly use that knowlege.  And since knowlege is power (again a cultural view) do you really want to contribute to missuse?  Just a "think outside the box" moment.

leigh gates wrote:
Just a "think outside the box" moment.

Another think outside the box moment...

What are the unintended consequences of charging big bucks for this knowledge? Do we miss the opportunity to perhaps draw in the very people who might be most likely to implement that knowledge? Certainly, the fees I've seen being charged hasn't led to a groundswell of permaculture change in communities. Most who pay do the high prices do so as a luxury and therefore have no natural incentive to do anything more than use courses as mental masturbation. When I look around the world, I think I see that most of the people who are actually doing permaculture paid little or nothing for the knowledge. Money is also not the only way to "charge" for knowledge.

If you're goal is to make money off of people, then charge whatever. If you goal is also to have the biggest impact you can, think a bit about how you charge. After all, Paul has offered these forums that contained a lot of knowledge to the world for free and touched far more than he could if he charged for it all.

Cory S wrote:
I'm hoping some enlightened nation, probably through necessity based on water and/or oil dependence, will take the lead and set an example as an eco-leader for the rest of us to follow.

You're in luck! That has already happened - Cuba. And they are in my country's back yard.  The US hasn't learned much yet from them. smh

I think the point is a good point.  And it has been shown to me over and over.  When I give information away, most people (90%+) think the information has no value.  And when I charge huge amounts of money for the exact same information, the information is universally respected.

This is a point I should have conveyed in the podcast. 

paul wheaton wrote:
I think the point is a good point.   And it has been shown to me over and over.  When I give information away, most people (90%+) think the information has no value.  And when I charge huge amounts of money for the exact same information, the information is universally respected.

I've experienced the same thing when I give people stuff who have no real incentive to do something with it especially when I didn't make their action an intrinsic part of what it is I'm giving. People who do seem to have a demonstrable incentive that has nothing to do with me, have always stepped up to the plate. I think in the United States we may have inadvertently focused on certain demographics with our permaculture that really don't do us any good. I see permaculture happening in low income neighborhoods than I do in anywhere else. And it's rare that I meet many there who paid for a class. Even in other communities where permaculture is happening I don't think most of the people actually doing the work took courses. How do we account for that dynamic? Some people will pay and do or not do something with the knowledge while others will not pay and actually do something with it. Neither is wrong.

paul wheaton wrote:
When I give information away, most people (90%+) think the information has no value. 

Do you estimate 90% of the people who come to this board for information think it has no value?   

The first time people hear the word "hugelkultur" I think 90%+ give it no value.

And then by the time they've heard it mentioned eight times, I then think that 90%+ will then give it some value.

I think that the regulars on these forums will put a lot of weight in my words.  Even if they aren't paying anything for those words.  I think noobs will put almost zero value on my words.

paul wheaton wrote:
I think noobs will put almost zero value on my words.

Don't give them any of your precious energy. They don't deserve it.

Created this slide for a presentation tomorrow, wanted to talk about "The Wheaton Eco Scale" on the topic of sustainability.



Is it OK to use your farmer character in this way?

Brian,

very cool! 

paul wheaton wrote:
Permaculture Design Course.  Typically 14 very long days of intensive study in permaculture.

lol @ 14 days..

oh yeah, i'd love to learn from someone who has studied permaculture for 14 days!

pffft...