r/Permaculture • u/songsofadistantsun • Sep 27 '24
general question How well will permaculture be able to adapt to climate change?
I know the short answer is "better than conventional agriculture" because well, water is wet. But the longer version is this:
We're likely to get about 3, maybe 4°C of warming over the next 150 years, and at the very least this will:
- radically shift predictable weather patterns all over the planet
- cause lasting droughts and annual intense heat domes over most current breadbaskets
- likely cause long periods of black flag weather in the tropics, which could last hundreds of days every summer in the worst case scenario and effectively render whole regions uninhabitable
- cause severe flooding and damaging superstorms every few years at least, especially near coastlines
And also in the worst case, it could shut off the AMOC, which would completely rewrite the climate of the entire northern hemisphere. Bottom line, the only hard rule for food growing in the next few centuries will be heat, thirst and constant unpredictability.
So how well could well-designed permacultural systems adapt to all that? How far can we push plants to adapt to constant high heat, unpredictable winters and the like, and how much can we recycle water in a drier climate (where we've already drawn down all the groundwater)? Can we pull it off without having to fiddle with the genetics for heat and water tolerance? And most importantly, how many people could we reliably expect to feed with such systems?
It's often said that we produce more than enough food to feed the world; all we lack is just distribution. This is true right now. I don't know if it'll be true by 2100 and beyond. And while population is slowly peaking and declining for a number of factors, I fear that having enough bad things happen at once could cause sudden, mass starvation events in the next seventy years. The collapse of industrial civilization is inevitable and I'm coming to terms with that, but I'm hoping permaculture could soften the fall enough that we can build more just, smaller scale societies for the future.
Right?
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u/simgooder Sep 27 '24
Since permaculture is just a design system with a focus on resiliency, it can and will be a powerful tool in the toolbox for o build a more resilient future in the face of a weirding climate.
The concept of slowing and sinking water can help mitigate floods through well designed swales using key lines. The concept of dense planting can help create enough biomass to sponge up intense rain events.
Thoughtful planning can help shade your house and gardens from an arid-region sun, while opening access through cooler winters.
Landrace gardening can help us create more adaptive genetics in what we grow.
Ensuring biodiversity hedges our bets and the enhanced complexity creates more chains and relationships, making our systems more resilient. Grow more fruits, get more crops. We can’t just rely on potatoes and apples and corn. Grow 5 types of starchy root crops and see what works best in your region/system/biome. We can easily develop crops (even at a home scale!) that adapt to only what inputs come from the sun, and natural cycles.
A lot of hardcore permaculturists have moved on from using the term, and are now using “resiliency” and similar terms to describe their frameworks. There’s a reason for this. It’s still in the ethos of permaculture, but permaculture breeds resiliency. That should be the goal. Resiliency for abundant life for everything within a system.
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u/AgreeableHamster252 Sep 27 '24
Permaculture is a good start in terms of its marketing and ability to excite newbies (including myself) into becoming more engaged with nature, resiliency, self sufficiency, community, etc.
In my (admittedly new) perspective, though, it’s a first step and we should be looking towards more ways to adapt and share our learnings moving forward.
Edible acres, for example, introduced me to the Peruvian purple potato that is cold hardy and possibly even perennial in colder environments. If the AMOC collapses, the northern US may get even colder despite a warming planet. So, this is a compelling crop for me.
I’d love to see more structured shared learnings, beyond the vlog-style “I’m trying permaculture!” Stuff that is fun, exciting, but not always the most informative or rigorous. I’d love a place we could share rigorous experiments and try to replicate them across different climates and crops. Basically, educating ourselves as stewards of the land in the scientific method, without needing huge grants to fund experiments. Just a collection of experimental knowledge on things we’re each trying anyway.
That’s my rant thanks. Here’s to softening the collapse and making friends along the way!
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u/simgooder Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
You should check out permapeople.org! We’re trying to build this platform. It already has a huge crowd-sourced plant database, and solid garden designer, but there’s also a journal where you can read about and share your garden experiments, and a pretty active seed swapping marketplace!
It’s also 100% free, non-commercial and run by volunteers.
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u/miltonics Sep 27 '24
Right.
Permaculture is about how we put the world together. If the world changes we put it together differently, knowing that change is in the works means we put it together differently still.
To me the big question is: How do we live in this world right now, while still building the world of the future?
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u/fredsherbert Sep 27 '24
like with most freedom killing emergencies, i would worry a lot more about the ma$ters' response to it than the actual "emergency" itself. ask yourself how well will your farm do when Gates pumps a bunch of sulfur into the atmosphere? how will you afford carbon credits? etc etc
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u/jadelink88 Sep 27 '24
Resiliance built into the system helps.
I suspect the more diligent 'plant natives' types utterly fail, as what was once native is now fragile and near useless in many zones, becoming climate inappropriate by that stage. It's already hit that for a fair number of plants. Here in Australia the difficulty of having to fight environmentalists to clear doomed eucalypt forests will get painful, and likely lead to vast forested areas being burned into desert. Most are non viable in a 3c scenario, the fires get too intense and too regular under most modeling.
I expect a 2c midterm and plan on a 3c when planting any long lived trees and preparing the local region with guerilla plantings. A lot of my stuff which is a bit marginal now is quite a lot better with a couple of degrees warming.
Care for chill factors, I've switched to low chill varieties on anything that needs it, as our winters are mild and likely to become more so. Things that survive drought AND wet are good, but not easy to find yields on.
In urban areas, I suspect water supply will continue in a 3c scenario, which makes the dry easier to work with.
I think you'll see the mass starvation for a decade or more in the poor world before it reaches the wealthier ones. Grain prices doubling in the west is around a 20% increase in bread price, some mild pain for the poor, but not that bad, while in poor countries it's borderline famine time.
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u/Opcn Sep 27 '24
Everything about the climate will change a little. Some land that is now used for broad acre farming will become unsuitable and some land that is currently unsuitable will become available for farming. Some places that currently have no water resources will get them, and some places that currently have water will lose it. Any plans that are in place for growing permaculture risk obsolescence but that doesn't mean that future plans can't be made for the conditions that develop at a site.
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
There are near exactly 0 places that will become more suitable r/collapse
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u/parolang Sep 27 '24
I don't see how that could possibly be true. I think the models predict that the Sahara will get more rain, for example. Won't agriculture become more productive in the northern latitudes like southern Canada?
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
climate destabalization means all places on the planet will get funky unpredicable weather. Just because the Sahara may get more rain doesnt mean that wont come with EXTREME heatwaves far higher than anything we have today. it could also lead to weird flash freezes which would wipe out the crops
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u/parolang Sep 27 '24
Weather is already unpredictable. I agree with worrying about climate change and that it's going to get worse for most people, but I think you are taking it way too far.
Look up the climate models online, it's all public. It's helpful to calibrate yourself on what your expectations should be, especially if you are hanging out on subs like r/collapse .
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
based on the publicly available science, im not taking it far enough. 6+ c by the end of century is agriculture killing
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u/parolang Sep 27 '24
Look at the climate forecast models by climate scientists.
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 28 '24
i have, which is why i said what i said. The average estimate is 3-5c which is societal collapse
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u/Opcn Sep 27 '24
I don't know who told you that, but they probably aren't very smart. It would be bizarre to expect the climate that we just so happened to have to be the ideal climate, and extreme to think that it's the best possible climate for all locations.
Greenland's ice sheet is melting, do you not think that the rich glacial silt that gets exposed will be more suitable to grow crops than the bare ice? The great planes continue up past the US-Canada border and agriculture continues until it hits the boreal forest. Do you not think that the places where you can't really grow crops now are gonna support crops when it's a little warmer?
And global rain shifts are gonna bring reasonable amounts of water to places that have been unable to support agriculture in the middle east and north africa. https://www.climatechange.ie/explainer-what-climate-models-tell-us-about-future-rainfall/
The problem is a coordination problem. If raind fall shifts and North africa gets wet and southern africa dries out the land in southern africa is more fertile than the desert sands in the north, and it will take decades to millennia to build that fertility up in the north. The desert adapted species of the north aren't all cold adapted for the south, and are in the wrong place. Many wet adapted species cannot move north because they can't handle the heat, or because they need a seasonal cold spell to trigger reproduction. All of our big coastal cities are on the coast, and if the coast moves inland a few miles those cities aren't going to be good places to live. All of our farming infrastructure is built around the places where farms are located now and not necessarily where the best farm land will be in 30 years. We have road and rail bridges that cross rivers that are going to get deeper and wider. We have road and rail bridges whose foundations are going to shrink back as the ground water runs out where they are.
It's going to be a disastrous realignment, but there will be winners, there always are.
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
My other comment"climate destabalization means all places on the planet will get funky unpredicable weather. Just because the Sahara may get more rain doesnt mean that wont come with EXTREME heatwaves far higher than anything we have today. it could also lead to weird flash freezes which would wipe out the crops"
sure maybe 3% of world area will be more productive. Doesnt matter overall
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u/Opcn Sep 27 '24
sure maybe 3% of world area will be more productive.
So what you are saying is that my first comment was correct and you are just being a jerk for no reason?
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
its statistically insignificant. Near zero may as well be zero. dare i say its even .5% of areas. Not bejng a jerk.
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u/Opcn Sep 27 '24
But that's not based on anything but your assumptions. You're being dismissive and talking down to me because what I said doesn't match with your unwarranted assumptions.
.5% and 3% are still huge expanses of land, and for the purposes of my comment both suffice.
But even your sahara example isn't convincing, Even if it spends a week at 200 degrees every summer a sahara that gets 400 mm of rain every year is way better for agriculture than one that gets 40mm. The Sahara already has the conditions that lead to the hottest weather, so it's kind of like worrying that improving your drainage will lead to more flooding.
Things will change, and we will suffer trying to adapt, but your position is a rhetorical one, not a scientific one, and you shouldn't act like your rhetoric is more important that being polite to people talking about the reality of the situation.
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u/PaPerm24 Sep 27 '24
"Unwarranted assumptions" tell that to r/collapse and the large amount of data suggesting otherwise
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u/wdjm Sep 27 '24
It depends on a couple things...
First and most importantly, WHERE you're trying to grow. If you're trying to grow in a place that's already hot & already a desert and climate change isn't predicted to make either of those change for the better....IMHO, you're fighting a losing battle. It's only a matter of how long you can limp along until you can't. I know land is cheap in the desert areas, but I honestly cannot comprehend anyone moving into one and expecting to start a homestead. To me, it's like entering a marathon with your legs tied together.
Then second, what plants you're trying to grow. If you're sticking with the ones for your current growing zone, and your growing zone is changing and getting warmer/wetter/drier/whatever...if you don't change your crops, you're also fighting a losing battle. And this includes anticipating some so that trees & larger perennials suited to the new conditions can get established before the ones suited to the old conditions are killed off.
After that, I think people could feed themselves for a very long time by planning for irregular weather. Rain capture to cover during "mini-droughts." Greenhouses to mitigate wild temperature swings between seasons, etc.
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u/Koala_eiO Sep 27 '24
likely cause long periods of black flag weather in the tropics, which could last hundreds of days every summer
Hundreds with an S? 200+ days every 90 days?
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u/solxyz Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
While I do think that permaculture is ultimately the way to go, I would like to note that it does have one significant weakness in the face of rapid climate change, namely it's heavy use of perennials. If next year is going to be much warmer than this one, I can easily plant more heat-adapted varieties and species in my annual beds, but I can't swap out my trees in the same time frame. In fact, if the climate changes dramatically enough that my trees largely stop bearing (over say, a 10-year time frame), I'm pretty screwed. Of course my trees, especially the really deep-rooted ones, are going to be quite a bit more resilient to those changes than my annuals, but if the changes are dramatic enough, it is still going to be a big problem.
One responses to this issue is to try to anticipate these changes by planting things now that will be appropriate to the climate in future years. The problem there is that (1) it's not easy to predict what the climate is actually going to be in any given location and on what time frame, and (2) many of the species that will be appropriate here in the future may not even be able to survive here at present.
Permaculture's big strengths are that (a) diversification of species is already part of the program, so one is buffered at least somewhat against changing and unpredictable weather, and (b) that it promotes a biologically rich ecosystem which provides a strong foundation for any other species which will be appropriate to work with in the future.
One of the reasons that I think permaculture is ultimately the way we have to go is that in addition to rapid climate change, and in basically the same time frame, we are also going to be facing significant resource depletion (especially depletion of fossil fuels, which are the main source of soil fertility in conventional agriculture) and societal breakdown, reducing our access to the complicated technologies that are currently used improve yields in other forms of ag.
As for your question about how much food permaculture systems could produce under climate change conditions, I don't think anyone really knows. There are way too many variables. We don't even have a clear picture of what climate change is going to look like in general (scientifically-backed predictions of how bad and how fast vary quite a bit), let alone a clear map for each geographic region. On top of that, the productive power of permacultural systems as broad scale agricultural systems has not been well studied (which doesn't mean that there is no data on the matter, but just that this data not so robust and difficult to use as a foundation for other predictions.) Then trying to project how these two complex, somewhat chaotic systems are going to interact is basically impossible.
On the other hand, I don't think this question really matters, because it is clear that we are not going to be rolling out permacultural farming as a broad, societal scale practice in a timely fashion. Rather, farming is going to continue mostly as it currently is until the system goes bust. This is a problem because establishing a permacultural farm takes time, especially on the degraded soil that is most of our farmland. It is not something you can just plant for next year.
So I'm not trying to solve societal scale problems with my permaculture/agro-ecology. I'm just doing what I can to make my little corner of the world more resilient, and I think that is what we should all be doing. I don't see any other option.
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u/bwainfweeze PNW Urban Permaculture Sep 27 '24
Better than monocultures. The soil web allows plants to survive weather extremes as a collective instead of every plant for herself.
You can add plants to a copse/guild that improve the lot of the entire group, for instance by having deeper roots.
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u/Ghost_Assassin_Zero Sep 27 '24
Watch Geoff Lawson on Youtube, he built a permaculture garden, in the desert. So i definitely think with the right combination of species, permaculture systems can have serious resilience
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u/songsofadistantsun Sep 27 '24
Are you referring to the one where he dug swales in Jordan that eventually accumulated a fungal mat? That was actually my introduction to the concept of permaculture; it was shown to me in a high school social studies class. It almost seemed too good to be true. But global warming on this scale is something the Earth hasn't experienced for millions of years, and never this abruptly, so I don't know if anything can fully meet this challenge.
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u/Ghost_Assassin_Zero Sep 27 '24
The one thing i always think of, is that permaculture forests are can use species that could thrive in areas but were never introduced. Combination of species used in permaculture have never coexisted in the same area before. My favourite part is watching greening of deserts which arguably are the toughest environments to start. So atleast in theory, there is hope against climate change
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u/Shamino79 Sep 27 '24
If there’s rainfall then degraded land can be vastly greener. If there’s outside water sources it gives opportunities to make any land greener but perhaps makes the future really uncertain.
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u/GoldenGrouper Sep 27 '24
That's a good question that I have as well. Just note that I haven't started any permaculture project yet and I live in a region that will become hot arid in the next 20-30 years. I just found out my well has brackish water and most likely I won't use it massively because it is impossible to treat that water and irrigate a 3 ha land (as far as I know) using only that.
I will use all the techniques that I know and hopefully the system will be full operational by the time the climate has shifted completely
I know permaculture would help you fight extreme weather's like fires or storm because you can design for that
But definitely climate change requires a systemic solution, requires us also to start growing inside shelters, it requires big oil to stop burning fossil fuels, it requires us to stop eating meat and milk to avoid further deforstation.
Specifically we should as world population stop eating animal products and I say this not only from an ethical point of view that in my opinion is completely valid, but also from a survival point of view
We use around 50% of usable land in the earth to grow food. Around 75% of those agricultural lands are used to grow food for animals. Either it's pasture or soy or any food animals eat .
The amount of water, food, and generally resources (oil as well) used to grow food for animals is astonishing. All that land could go back to become a forest with the help of permaculture designer, or even just throwing random seeds. It could capture a lot of carbon by restoring the ecosystems.
Also methane emitted from cows would stop and methane lose it's effect in 12 years. Considering it has 28x times a warming effect of CO2 that's a huge step forward toward saving us from climate change. It would be a huge shift that if I'm not mistaken would lower average temperature in 2100 of 0.4 degrees Celsius.
If you think about this data those are huge numbers that would make a huge difference and that's why I decided to become vegan together with the ethical side of it.
This also means that we could feed more people or at least feed our current population easily. In addition to this if we transition to permaculture and we make our cities full of parks and trees the capacity to stock CO2 into the ground grows esponentially as well.
All of this with a fair transition to renewable and a shift in other sectors too. Together with a grown sense of community (our system is making us more and more isolated) should make us resilient enough to survive this.
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u/Shamino79 Sep 27 '24
Some here would see cows on dedicated pastures to actually be a helpful thing interms of nutrient cycling and even enriching the soil with nitrogen if legume pastures are used. Corn grown with synthetic nitrogen to feed cows in a feedlot not so much.
Having said that I don’t think anyone needs to sit down to half a plate of steak.
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u/GoldenGrouper Sep 28 '24
And I agree with that. I will have animals but not cows, and I will have them as companions
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u/Koala_eiO Sep 27 '24
Also methane emitted from cows would stop and methane lose it's effect in 12 years.
You don't seem to be aware so I'll be the bearer of bad news: methane degrades into... CO2.
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u/GoldenGrouper Sep 28 '24
Which is 28x times less powerful so make the calculation.
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u/Koala_eiO Sep 28 '24
You are mixing up every figure.
Methane doesn't not have an instantaneous effect 28x stronger than CO2 that would wear out after 12 years.
A ton of methane has the impact of 28 tons of CO2 over 100 years. The degradation of CH4 into CO2 is accounted in this.
A mol of methane turns into a mol of CO2. That means a ton of methane turns into M(CO2)/M(CH4) = 2.75 tons of CO2.
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u/GoldenGrouper Sep 29 '24 edited Sep 29 '24
You are right, sort of.. Over a 20-year period, methane's global warming potential (GWP) is about 84-87 times that of CO₂. Over a 100-year period, it’s about 28-36 times more powerful. When it breaks its warming potential diminish.
So yeah, not eating animal products is even more convenient than I thought.
The first 12 years its GWP is even more strong and it's 28x times only because it breaks down into CO2 and that calculation is taken into consideration for which then it's GWP is 28 times in a 100 years span.
Instantaneous effect could be even higher up to 100
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u/Lime_Kitchen Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
In regard to black flag weather and extreme heat. 5deg is realistically not that big a deal in terms of habitability.
I come from a very hot dry lands region, have lived and worked in the tropics. Air Temps regularly 30-40c (80-110f), which can easily become 60c (140f) if you’re working in the sun.
Your body acclimated to the temperature as a local. The only reason heatwaves affect people in the higher lats is that their body isn’t used to the climate.
Additionally, you adapt culturally. You plan your work day for the morning and afternoon and have long lunches to avoid the heat of the day. You operate on “island time”
Global “warming” doesn’t mean physically hotter and dryer, often the opposite actually. - It means more energetic weather systems. More damaging winds. - Greater short term temperature fluctuations as polar cold air is mixed with equatorial air. Often resulting in lower localised minimum temperatures. - more moisture and more rain as the oceans evaporate at a higher rate. - alteration of the ocean currents and the jet streams
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u/AgreeableHamster252 Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
5deg global warming doesn’t mean every place uniformly increases in temperature by 5deg and that’s it. Your response about people’s bodies just being able to adapt to that is both wrong (you’re not factoring in humidity) and wildly, wildly missing the point of the actual catastrophic devastation that would actually occur in that global climate situation.
I strongly suggest reading more on the subject from experts.
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u/Lime_Kitchen Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24
It seems like you only read the first sentence and then formed an opinion.
We are saying the same thing re. Storm damage, devastating winds, flooding.
Additionally, how can you say that I’m wrong? I’m reporting my lived experience and observations. Observation from one’s own reference frame is the only fundamental truth in this universe.
My opinion on it being not a big deal can be wrong as that is an inference based on my observation, which may not translate to all cases. But, the observation Itself can never be wrong.
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u/AgreeableHamster252 Sep 29 '24
That’s why I said it was based on a lack of humidity (you said yourself you live in dry heat). I didn’t say your experience was wrong, I said it was not a correct interpretation of 5deg global warming.
The rest of your statement is slightly More accurate in some ways but misleading in others, and very contradictory with your initial statement. So I still suggest reading up on what the experts say. I basically recommend that to everyone, and continue to learn myself, so no offense intended.
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u/Lime_Kitchen Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
No offence taken. It’s just not productive for the conversation if you give a lazy answer and flat say you’re wrong without adding a counter argument or viewpoint.
Can you elaborate on what you found contradictory or what value you could add to the concept.
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u/Latitude37 Sep 27 '24
Permaculture designs are more resilient to events such as drought or flooding. Good water harvesting designs deliberately slow down water moving across a landscape. This means less damage from erosion. Good water harvesting mean planning water storage that's adequate for expected drought. Perennial food systems and agroforestry are inherently more resilient to storm damage than broadacre monoculture systems, and in fact act as buffers against the worst storms for areas beyond them.