Portland Permaculture Guild

What is the Portland Permaculture Guild?

We are an informal group interested in learning and promoting permaculture in the Portland, Oregon area. Permaculture is a system of conscious, sustainable, ecological design. See the glossary for more information.

We hold free monthly educational meetings that are open to everyone the 3rd Monday of each month. We offer classes, workshops, and other activities as time and public interest warrant. In addition to permaculture gardening techniques, we explore topics such as water catchment systems, ponds & greywater systems, earth-friendly structures, and alternative energy sources. We also provide networking information about other local groups that you can contact for more information about these topics.

We form partnerships with other organizations to promote sustainability education and implementation in our region, and welcome inquiries from any group with similar goals.

We are also interested in creating permaculture demonstration sites in the Portland area. If you know of a good potential site, we would be happy to discuss it with you! An ideal site would have wide public access and a volunteer support base.

 

What is permaculture? 

Permaculture is a system of ecological design. It is the only design system which incorporates ethics as an integral part of the design process. The ethics of permaculture are Care for the Earth, Care for People, and Share your Surplus. By designing within these guidelines, we can all help to nurture and even regenerate our small portion of the planet.

One of the important tenets of pc (permaculture) philosophy is that of providing for as many of your own needs as possible. Few of us can manage to grow all the food we eat, but all of us are able to contribute to our own diet in some way. This makes gardening a prominent (and popular) feature in pc design, and there are many principles and techniques utilized in our gardens. However, there are many more aspects of pc that do not relate to gardening that anyone can do, anywhere. We invite you to explore them with us at our various events - and feel free to ask questions!

Watergy - the interconnection of water and energy

Submitted by Jeremy on May 14, 2010 - 12:35pm
Article Info
Two Line Description: 

Every time we consume power we consume water. This is because water is used in the generation of our power – in Arizona this figure ranges from 0.001 to 56 gallons of water per kWh of power consumed. Therefore, anything we can do to reduce our power consumption also reduces our water consumption. 

Link: 
http://chelseagreen.com/blogs/bradlancaster/2010/05/13/watergy/

 Typically the amount of water consumed during power generation is much greater when the power is generated at centralized power plants, as opposed to on-site with renewable power production such as rooftop solar, whose water consumption is negligible.

Introducing a Watergy Cost Calculator for You and Your Community
How much water is expended in the generation of electricity from different sources?
How much energy, and subsequently embedded water, do average U.S. and Arizona households use per month, depending on where their energy comes from?
How about you and your community?
Use this one-page Community Watergy Calculator (PDF version – non-interactive) or Community Watergy Calculator (Excel version – interactive) to find out.
Click the image for a larger size.
The Watergy Cost Calculator. Notice how a Tucson, Arizona, household consumes 558 gallons of water per month via its electricity consumption if it gets its power from coal (the primary source of electricity in Tucson), but consumes only 1 gallon of water per month via its electricity consumption if it gets its power from rooftop solar. Now let’s go up in scale. Notice how all Tucson households combined consume 112,161,890 gallons of water per month via their combined electrical consumption if they get their power from coal, but they would consume only 219,925 gallons of water per month via their combined electrical consumption if they were to get their power from rooftop solar. In the Excel version of the spreadsheet, you can enter the number of households in your community to generate ballpark numbers for how much water your community consumes through its power generation.

PPG meeting Monday May 17 - Geoff Lawton's DVD Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way

Event
When: 
Monday, May 17, 2010 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm

 Join us Monday May 17 at 7pm for Geoff Lawton's DVD Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way. Geoff will take us through construction of a dam and swale on a small acreage farm using the principles of permaculture to harvest water passively.  This information is especially relevant as we attempt to increase local food production - how do we supply the increased water needs that arise from it?  Geoff Lawton is a noted permaculture instructor and has worked in 27 different countries for communities, governments, NGOs, corporations, and individuals. 

  The DVD running time is something under 90 minutes, leaving time for discussion afterwards.   PPG meets at Pacific Crest Community School at NE 29th and Davis.  Meeting topic starts at 7pm  We are not currently holding potlucks, but you are welcome to bring a snack if you wish!

Location

Pacific Crest Community School
NE 29th and Davis
Portland, OR

Introduction to the Transition Town Model

Event
When: 
Sunday, June 6, 2010 - 11:00am - 12:30pm

 Are you interested in learning how you can organize your community and neighborhood to create resiliency in the face of an uncertain future?  Come get an introduction to the Transition Town model, which gives a framework to help bring the heads, hearts and hands of a community together to work towards energy descent.

Location

St. Francis Che Room
1131 SE Oak St.
Portland, OR

Panel and Community Fishbowl Conversation with Paul Cienfuegos and other community leaders-“Despair and Personal Power in an Age of Corporate Rule and Climate Crisis”

Event
When: 
Tuesday, June 8, 2010 - 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Panel + Community Fishbowl Conversation with Paul Cienfuegos, Barbara Ford + you!

“Despair and Personal Power in an Age of Corporate Rule and Climate Crisis”

June 8th, 6:30-9:30, St. Francis Church Dining Hall, SE 11th and SE Pine St., (Transition PDX is sponsored in part by St. Francis Church)

Location

St. Francis Dining Hall
SE 11th and Pine St.
Portland, OR

VBC Evening session with Transition PDX and Andrew Langford!

Event
When: 
Saturday, June 5, 2010 - 5:00pm - 11:00pm
Link: 
VBC homepage - tickets are $20

A Pattern Language for Transitioneers - Andrew Langford - 7:00 to 7:50pm

Andrew, 61 and now a seasoned transitioneer, tells contrasting stories of his own and other peoples transitions including 'How I survived the "Hammer of the Universe" and "Kairos moments? - Bring 'em own!" before revealing that transitions, at least for individuals, have patterns. Knowing about these ahead of time (or even in the middle of chaos) allows a person to make some sense of what’s going on when their world is falling apart and, for the bold veteran, opens the possibility of willingly sought, artfully designed, deep and thorough quantum transformations.

Now that’s just what human cultures all over the planet need to do and now! Andrew will propose that the capacity for profound transition in any culture is helped or hindered by the attitudes toward change held by its individual members.

Nurturing the Connective Tissue of Community Resilience: Transition, Collaboration and Emergence - Transition PDX - 8:00-8:50pm

Leaders of Transition PDX will present the seven principles of the Transition Town model which works to bring the heads, hearts and hand of communities together to deal with the challenges of climate change, peak oil and an uncertain future. They will share with you how these principles can be found, applied to and nurtured within Portland metro organizations to create a cohesive connective and collaborative tissue of resilience that can nurture the common shared goals of energy descent, sustainability and self sufficiency within our metro region. How can we honor and share our unique skills and interests while exploring the emergence that takes place when we collectively come together around shared goals? Often in social and natural systems properties emerge from the cooperation of the whole that don’t exist in the individual components.

The mission of TransitionPDX is to inspire, to encourage, to network, to support and train the communities and neighborhoods of the Portland metro area as they consider, adopt, adapt and implement the transition model in order to establish Transition Initiatives.

Music!

Two amazing bands, world twang and eco funk converge for a night that you won’t want to miss! Find full descriptions of all the musicians online at vbc.cityrepair.org

Location

St. David's Church of Wales
2800 SE Harrison St
Portland, OR
Link: 
http://www.thedirt.org/ppg