The Big Idea: Small scale permaculture is the solution to most environmental problems.

Ch 1: A Different Approach to Solving World Problems

• Nearly all environmental problems are mostly solved with a combination of homesteading and permaculture.

Ch 2: Environmentalist vs “Environmentalist”

• Most people who call themselves “environmentalist” are probably very wasteful of natural resources.
• Energy use is the best metric for defining an environmentalist.
• The average American adult spends $83 a month on heat and electricity.

Ch 3: The Wicked Lies About Light Bulbs

• The LED light bulb is a good metaphor for environmental thinking.
• It sounds environmentally friendly, but mathematically, the incandescent bulb is better (lower toxicity, more efficient for those in cold climates, better light quality.)

Ch 4: Carbon Footprint

• The average American adult generates 30 tons of annual carbon emissions.
• Focusing on 80/20, the big winners are to reduce your heat usage in cold climates and to grow your own food.

Ch 5: Petroleum Footprint

• The unsubsidized price for a gallon of gasoline is actually three times higher.
• Lots of ways to reduce fuel consumption.
• 80/20 says to telecommute and to grow your own food.

Ch 6: Toxic Footprint

• Sources of toxins that probably cause cancer and other diseases: sugar, high fructose corn syrup, plastic with BPA, aspartame, sucralose, saccharine
• What to do: stop using toxic soaps and shampoos, stop using toxic household cleaners, don’t drink chlorinated water, stop using teflon, stop using plastic containers, live in a home built with toxin-free materials, avoid city pollution

Ch 7: The Wheaton Eco Scale

Ch 8: Moving Way Beyond Recycling

• There is no such thing as waste in nature. Everything is recycled.
• Even better than recycling is not using packaging in the first place. Grow as much of your own food as possible.

Ch 9: Vote with Your Wallet

• Stop buying traditional, industrial-grown food.
• “If you think organic food is expensive, have you priced cancer recently?”

Ch 10: Radically Deviant Financial Strategies

• If your life doesn’t change if you had a million dollar, then is it fair to say you’re living the life of a millionaire.
• Want to learn how to live without a mortgage? Read Rob Roy’s book Mortgage Free.
• Jacob Lund Fisker has a blog “Early Retirement Extreme” which says basically live frugally and save 75% of your income.
• An alternative is to build one or multiple side businesses.
• Another alternative is to try community living and pool your resources.

Ch 11: Organic vs Local

• Permaculture >> organic >> local

Ch 12: Vegan vs Omnivore vs Junk Food

• Veganism is a noble path.
• In terms of impact, polyculture/permaculture >> vegan >> junk food.
• Cowspiracy stats are a load of manure.
• The lowest-impact and most healthy source of food is your own backyard.

Ch 13: Really Reducing Home Energy Usage

• Nearly all war and pollution is related to energy usage.
• Most energy usage is related to heating and cooling, including heating water.
• Use more blankets, insulate your home better, take shorter showers, use a toaster oven, get a smaller house.

Ch 14: More People Living Under One Roof Without Stabbing Each Other

• Keep the common areas clean by charging more rent and hiring a cleaning service.

Ch 15: Toxic Gick vs 20 Years of Your Life

• As a cleaner, water alone is enough 90% of the time.
• Vinegar and baking soda can clean most surfaces fine.
• Cast iron >> teflon.
• Use diatomaceous earth for insect control.

Ch 16: The Huge Link Between Food and Global Footprint

• Learn permaculture concepts to grow your own food with minimal effort.

Ch 17: Double the Food with One Tenth of the Effort

• Direct seeding >> transplanting.
• No-till >> tilling.
• Hugelkultur raised beds.
• Perennials >> annuals.
• Chop-and-drop is an ideal approach to mulching.
• Incorporate deciduous trees in your permaculture design.
• Polyculture is required.
• Include mushrooms for diversity and resiliency.

Ch 18: The Dark Side of Native Plant Enthusiasm

• Better understanding of horticulture >> blind advocacy for native plants.

Ch 19: 20 Things to Do with the Twigs That Fall n Your Backyard

• Mulch, hugelkultur, brush piles.

Ch 20: Not Composting

• Instead of composting, feed kitchen scraps to your chickens.

Ch 21: Better Than a Solar Panel – A Solar Food Dehydrator

• Properly dehydrated food can last for years.

Ch 22: Breaking the Toxic Water Cycle with Greywater Recycling

• Read Create an Oasis with Greywater by Art Ludwig.
• Build a laundry-to-landscape system, and use environmentally friendly laundry detergent.

Ch 23: Harvesting Electricity in Your Backyard

• Going off-grid forces to you question your energy usage.
• The best off-grid power source is micro hydro.

Ch 24: The Conventional Lawn vs a Mowable Meadow

• Mow higher and always leave the clippings.
• Water deep and less often.
• Build earthworm towns once and pile on organic matter regularly for them to eat.

Ch 25: How Vegans Benefit from Caring for Farm Animals

• If you’re a vegan, either your farm animals do the work, or you do the work.
• Pamper your animals with a movable paddock shift system.
• Get a livestock guardian dog.

Ch 26: Replacing Petroleum with People

• Try to incorporate people and hand tools when possible.

Ch 27: Wrestling with Poop Beasts and Peeing in the Garden

• Build a dry outhouse on an elevated mound.
• Urinate near plants or use a urine diverter and use diluted urine to fertilize plants.

Ch 28: The Solutions to Colony Collapse Disorder are Embarrassingly Simple

• Organic beekeeping >> conventional beekeeping.

Ch 29: Destroy Your Orchard to Make a Food Forest

• A monocrop orchard is not permaculture.
• Trees from seeds >> trees grown from starters.
• The bottom third of a fruit tree is for critters, the middle third is for humans, the top third is for birds.

Ch 30: A Building Design that Solves Almost Everything

• A straw bale house has walls made from natural materials, but is otherwise the same as a conventional house, only with thicker walls and more expensive.
• A cob house is similar to a straw bale house, but more labor intensive, and, maybe more fun and beautiful.
• The ideal permaculture home is an underground home, in the style of Mike Oehler – a wofati.