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Industrialism?



I have a question for permaculturalists :

My understanding that "permaculture" is an attempt to create "permanent 
culture", ie sustainable cultures ...

It seems there has been a great deal of focus on sustainable homes and 
food-production, which is excellent ...

But what sorts of dialogue exist in the community regarding industrial 
production of material goods? It is very, very hard for me to imagine an 
ecologically sustainable industrialism, and this comes out of no inherent 
luddite temperament, simply an increasing awareness of what is involved in 
the process of industrialism itself.

For example, can someone create for me a model of "sustainable mining"?? On 
any scale required by industrialism? The phrase itself sounds oxymoronic! I 
think of Fukuoka, and I try to imagine the Fukuoka of mining, and it is very 
difficult .... "just let nature do the mining for you ... just leave the 
system alone and the metals will grow on their own" ... it is true for 
example that Native Americans mined some copper in Canada, but on a very 
small-scale basis, certainly not reaching the Minimum Inputs required on an 
industrial scale ... and without mining, the whole industrial system pretty 
much comes to a halt ... so has anyone thought about these questions? It 
seems as if we've built an entire culture on an infrastructure that is itself 
toxic and requires a constant input and output of toxicity ...


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