Designing Ecological Habitats - Gaia Education

Existing conversations about appropriate technology within a sustainable community
setting generally overlook the important arena of communications technology – perhaps
because we’ve all become so accustomed to the Internet we take it for granted.
According to Dr. Jonathan Scherch, the Internet is a fragile, energy intensive system
that could easily become unreliable in any number of possible future scenarios. For
that reason, Jonathan lays out his rationale for installing ‘amateur radio’ stations –
decentralized, repairable, community scale technology with global outreach – as part of
comprehensive permaculture design. Tips for setting up your own system follow.
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Getting the Word Out on
Sustainability Innovations – via
Amateur Radio Communications
Jonathan Scherch, Ph.D. – Antioch University, Seattle, USA
Introduction
Increasingly, the beneficial impacts of local-through-global sustainability
efforts originating from communities of permaculture design (PD) practitioners
are gaining visibility and popularity. Around the world, people are
engaging in local efforts at improving food, water, and energy systems,
building healthy homes and community relationships and, essentially,
demonstrating acts of sustainable living.
And yet, much needs to be done to advance ways of expanding visions,
sharing insights and building collaborations across our communities. The
tools deployed to do so often include training courses and workshops,
printed materials and/or internet resources and require various physical,
technological and financial inputs to support them. How about adding a new
tool to our collection, one which can add resilience, flexibility, and community
engagement at once? I propose that we enlist the global amateur radio (AR)
community in service of our global sustainability.
I am a Professor within the Environment & Community Program
at Antioch University Seattle (AUS) and have taught regional and
international courses on social work, social change and permaculture
design (PD) for over 20 years, and recently launched at AUS the Sustainable
Food Systems & Permaculture Design concentration. Within my courses,
I have complemented the standard 72-hour PD course content with a new
dimension not typically covered among most PD courses (or topical textbooks
on sustainable living, urban/rural homesteading, etc.) – an orientation