CHGathering 2011: Inspiring the evolution of spaceship 'Earth'

"I have to wake up every morning and be optimisic... I'm designer."

– William McDonough

"The blending of architecture, solar, wind, biological and electronic technologies with housing, food production, and waste utilization within an ecological and cultural context will be the basis of creating a new design science for the post-petroleum era."

– John Todd

"Permaculture is the use of ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing
appropriate technology and community development. It offers a practical, creative approach to the problems of diminishing resources and threatened life support systems now facing the world."

– Simon Henderson

"Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the
diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way."

– Graham Bell

"Adopting permaculture in your garden could be the first step towards limiting your personal consumption and planning your life to become more creative as time goes by."

– Graham Bell

"Permaculture is revolution disguised as organic gardening."

– Graham Burnett

"Observe Nature thoughrully rather than labour thoughtlessly."

– Masanobu Fukuoka

"Permaculture is defined as consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre and energy for the provision of local needs…more precisely I see Permaculture as the use of systems thinking and design principles that provide the organising framework for implementing the above vision."

– David Holmgren

"... everything is in continuous motion."

– Goethe

"Biomass is the keeper of organization."

– Ramon Margalef

"Organisms that inhabit similar environments in different geographical localities often resemble each other even though their evolutionary backgrounds differ... Form and function converge under the mantle of similar selective forces in the environment."

– Robert E. Ricklefs

"Function reforms form, perpetually."

– Steward Brand

"Ecological communities are not as tightly linked as organisms, but neither are they simply collections of individuals. Rather, the community is a unique form of biological system in which the individuality of the parts (i.e., species and individuals) acts paradoxically to bind the system together."

– David Perry

"... theory gives fresh meaning to old places, connects the seemingly unrelated, and guides action."

– Anne Whiston Spirn

"The map is not the territory."

– Eric Bell

"As far as possible, men are to be taught to become wise not only by books, but by the heavens, the earth, oaks and beeches."

– Comenius

"We see things not as they are. We see things as we are."

– The Talmud

"By mimicking a natural vegetation structure, farmers can copy a whole package of patterns and processes that have developed and worked in an ecological or evolutionary time frame. With this structural approach, a multitude of beneficial processes can be incorporated into agroecosystems."

– Judith Soule and Jon Piper

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

– Aldo Leopold

"We all have the forest in our blood."

– Robert A. de J. Hart

"We cannot solve the significant problems we face at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

– Albert Einstein

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."

– Masanobu Fukuoka

“All knowledge is connected to all other knowledge. The fun is in making the connections.”

- Arthur Aufderheide

“For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option to become enduringly successful.”

- Richard Buckminster Fuller

"Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early successes, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same as optimism."

- Vaclav Havel

"Cathedrals are incredible testaments to human endeavour. It is not only their grandeur or splendour, but the thought that they often took more than fifty years to build. Those who designed them, those who first worked on them, knew for certain that they would never see them finished. They knew only that they were creating something glorious which would stand for centuries, long after their own names had been forgotten.....
We may not need any more cathedrals but we do need cathedral thinkers, people who can think beyond their own lifetimes."

- Charles Handy

“Truly appropriate technology is technology that ordinary people can use for their own benefit and the benefit of their community, that doesn't make them dependent on systems over which they have no control.”

– John F.C. Turner

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”

– John Eliot

“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what yo truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

– Steve Jobs

"It's not enough to have handful of heroes, what we need is generations of responsible people"

– Richard Lamm