A few luminous green illuminations…

for now, some h2g

fortune

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. -Buckminster Fuller

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

Even though it's clearly impossible and intellectually fraudulent in some strict sense, *somebody* ought to “predict the future.” I mean, not just do demographic models and some dry corporate trend forecasting, but actually wrap the future up in a big-picture package and sprinkle some Tinker Bell dust. That job really needs doing. -Bruce Sterling

The benefits of future predictions may be more in thinking in the larger scope/scale than in the accuracy of any one prediction. This is like the idea that planning is worthwhile even if a specific plan need to be taken with a significant quantity of salt. -Bruce Sterling

If one fathoms deeply one's own neighbourhood and the everyday world in which he lives, the greatest of worlds will be revealed. -Masanobu Fukuoka

Innovating to solve the wrong problem usually fails as a strategy, and the problem we have today, I believe, is not that our climate is changing, per se, but that we have created an unsustainable civilization which is deeply instable. Therefore our task is not just to reduce our carbon emissions, but to do it in the context of a renewed and restored international order; not just to grow a more efficient economy, but a more dynamically fair one as well; not just to stave off the worst effects of cooking the planet but to protect and promote the health of ecosystems around the world; not just to fear runaway global warming but to move strongly towards a civilization which doesn't destroy nature and people's lives to generate fleeting advantages for a tiny fraction of a percentage of the world's population. This, I am sure, is an all-or-nothing fight, because all these issues – climate, biodiversity, population, poverty, conflict, public health, toxics, terrorism – are all bound together and part of the same fabric. To think otherwise is to suffer from a carbon blindness which could lead us actions which undermine the future, taken in the name of the future itself. -Alex Steffen, Worldchanging

I do not believe that the world is fundamentally short of the resources, capital or technology to offer a decent life to all of the eight billion inhabitants it will soon have. I do believe we are short of the capacity to put those resources capital and technology together in ways that are sustainable. And we are increasingly short of time. -Tom Burke

“Permaculture design principles: [1] Observe and interact; beauty is in the eye of the beholder [2] Catch and store energy; make hay while the sun shines [3] Obtain a yield; you can't work on an empty stomach [4] Apply self regulation and accept feedback; The sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation [5] Use and value renewable resources and services; let nature take its course [6] Produce no waste; a stitch in time saves nine / Waste not, want not [7] Design from patterns to details; can't see the wood for the trees [8] Integrate rather than segregate; many hands make light work [9] Use small and slow solutions; the bigger they are, the harder they fall [10] Use and value diversity; don't put all your eggs in one basket [11] Use edges and value the marginal; don't think you're on the right track just because it is a well beaten path [12] Creatively use and respond to change; vision is not seeing things as they are, but as they will be. -David Holmgren

We must be the change we wish to see. -Gandhi

The process of unfolding goes step by step, one pattern at a time. Each step brings just one pattern to life; and the intensity of the result depends on the intensity of each one of these individual steps. -Christopher Alexander

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. -Gandhi

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. -Alan Kay

Here is a clear way to understand a complex idea. -Bruce Mau

Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. -Albert Einstein

De architectuur van de toekomst zal ecologisch zijn of zal niet zijn en ook het Europa van de toekomst zal ecologisch zijn of zal niet zijn. -Geert van Istendael

This revolution is founded on nature's surprisingly effective design principles, on human creativity and prosperity and on respect, fair play and goodwill. It has the power to transform both industry and environmentalism as we know them. -McDonough and Braungart

The tree is not an isolated entity cut off from the systems around it: it is inextricably and productively engaged with them. This is a key difference between the growth of industrial systems and the growth of nature. -McDonough and Braungart

I was tired of working hard to be less bad. -William McDonough

The boiled frog is jumping. It turns out that a boiled frog always jumps. To think otherwise was a mere urban legend. -Bruce Sterling

We Viridians have beaten that clock. There is no need to wait for distant 2012 to declare victory in our war to make green trendy and to create “irresistible demand for a global atmosphere upgrade.” Green will never get any trendier than it is this year. The atmosphere upgrade is on the way. That process won't be pretty, but it's going to happen. -Bruce Sterling