[Scpg] Permaculture Politician in Quebec, Canada

Mon Jun 30 11:57:06 PDT 2003

>
> La Presse de Montreal, Monday April 14/ 03 
> By: Charles Coté 
>
>                         The Chicken that laid the Green Egg 
>
>         There’s a world of difference between the glitz of Hollywood and
> Rustic Isle LaMotte. A difference more philosophical than physical. 
>
> Claude Genest has traveled from one end of the American Dream to the other.
> Son of Emile, the recently deceased actor, and himself an actor, Claude
> Genest has spent the last three weeks as a full time politician. He is the
> Vice-President of the Quebec Green Party and a candidate in Verdun,
where he
> lives. 
>
>         Quebec Green Party Vice-President Claude Genest is inexhaustible
when
> it comes to speaking out on the vices of the current system of production
and
> the advantages of his vision of an ecological economy based on natural
> capitalism. 
>
> He hosted La Presse on the small farm he inherited from his father, an hour
> south of Montreal on Isle LaMotte, in Lake Champlain, where he practices
what
> he preaches. 
>
> Q: La Presse - How did you come to be elected V.P. of the Green Party ? 
>
> A: Claude Genest - At our first Congress, three weeks ago, I spoke up
several
> times and I guess people felt I had a solid handle on the various
dossiers. I
> was nominated for the post and I was voted in. 
>
> Q: Where does your environmental consciousness come from ? 
>
> A: When I arrived in Vermont five years ago, I knew I didn’t want to
waste my
> time mowing this huge lawn I had inherited ! I found Permaculture over the
> internet. It’s a system of ecological design that uses Nature’s resources to
> foster a regenerative agriculture. 
>
> Q: for example? 
>
> A: For example, currently orchards keep lawn under their fruit trees. But
> grass is the natural enemy of young fruit trees. Here we’re planting around
> the trees with plants that attract beneficial insects, repulse pests, and
> others that fix nitrogen. We want to do like the Native Amerindians did:
They
> grew their corn, beans and squash together - The corn served as a trellis
for
> the beans, the beans fertilize the corn, and the squash kept weeds down and
> soil moisture in. 
>
> I put in a greywater system near the house. All the household water, except
> that coming from the toilets, is purified by a constructed wetland which
then
> releases the water to nourish a planted out “berm” - Everytime I brush my
> teeth I water my garden ! I’m turning a waste into a resource the best way I
> know of to keep that pollution from reaching the lake. 
> I was happy to see that a system just like this one has been approved for
use
> in treating blackwater (toilet water) in Quebec. Here in Vermont, I was only
> able to put this system in because the age of my house gave me an exemption
> to current rules. 
>
> What worries us permaculturalists is the loss of our soils. So many
> civilizations declined as a result of soil loss - Greece, North Africa,
> Israel - these are all man-made deserts. When we lose our soil, we lose our
> natural capital, but in industrial agriculture, that’s called profit.... 
>
> Q: Your father, Emile, was, for so many Quebecois, the incarnation of the
> American Dream. How did he react to your new ideas ? 
>
> A:  When I got home after my father’s funeral, I had a bunch of unheard
> messages on my answering machine. One of them was from dad ! These were
> literally his last words to me: “ this green party business of yours son...
> It’s good... I’m proud of you ....”. 
> But I certainly had to battle with the old boy for a lot of years before
> convincing him ! 
>
> By the way, I got quite a taste of American style health care with my dad in
> Florida. At one point he had 17 different doctors on his case. They’d come
> in, take his pulse, and bill the insurance companies. It was crazy ! He
and I
> would laugh at it together. In the entrance of the hospital there was a
> Mcdonald’s - I took pictures of it.  When a patient was brought in for a
> heart attack, the nurses would jokingly refer to it as another “Big Mac
> Attack”. I guess you could say it was good for business. 
>
> Our Green Party platform stresses that Health Care doesn’t begin at the
> hospital.  It begins in the soil. After all, a dollar of prevention is worth
> how many of cure ? 
>
> Q: What’s wrong with the current economy ? 
>
> A: People don’t realize that in the last decade, the chemical companies have
> merged with seed companies and pharmaceutical companies. And these people
> have devised the business plan of the century: Sell you the stuff that makes
> you sick, and then sell you the stuff that makes you well. 
>
> The seven deadly sins have become the seven consumer virtues. We’re
> encouraged to be gluttonous, envious,  lustful, prideful etc. 
>
> The entire unsustainable transport system is made possible  because the oil
> industry is subsidized. If we were to tallly the real costs of gas, we
> wouldn’t be paying $3.00 dollars at the pump, but more like $25.00. Amory
> lovins of the Rocky Mountain institute estimates the hidden costs of
> transport in the U.S.  at nearly a trillion dollars per year !  100 billion
> in wasted gas and labor productivity from sitting in traffic - medical costs
> from disease and accidents at 300 billion, and another 350 billion for the
> damage to agriculture from acid rain and emissions. That adds up to about
> 7.5.% of the Gross Domestic Product. And all these costs are ‘externalized”
> meaning they don’t show up on the balance sheets of the companies who cause
> them. 
>
> 80 % of everything manufactured in North America is thrown away within 6
> months. We’ve got to close the loop on the cycles of production. In
> Burlington for example, a beer manufacturer decided that their wastes could
> become resources for others. Now, their waste heat is piped into a
> greenhouse, and their waste materials, barley and hops, becomes substrate
for
> mushroom growing while the spent substrate becomes high quality pork and
> chicken feed. The waste of the animals becomes methane gas for the
production
> of electricity, and once that is spent, the material becomes compost for the
> greenhouse. No pollution, more jobs, more profit. I wonder who’s against
> getting more for less? 
>
> Capitalism clearly postulates that  there must be healthy competition. But
> we’re going in exactly the opposite direction. Today, a mere 1000 companies
> manufacturer 80 % of all goods worldwide, and they employ less than 1 % of
> the world’s population. 
>
> The economy in its present  state can’t be sustained. We need to begin
> transitioning. It is literally acting like a cancer which by consuming its
> host, sows the seeds of its own destruction. How is it that at the end of
the
> biggest economic boom in the history of mankind, Quebec finds itself with a
> 108 billion dollar debt and is incapable of financing basic services like
> health and education ? 
>
> Q: Isn’t all this a bit radical ? 
>
> A: Not at all. We are the real conservatives since we aim to conserve. We’re
> talking about creating more jobs and more profits by turning wastes into
> resources, instead of resources into wastes. Let’s stop taxing the goods and
> services and start taxing bads and disservices. In every debate i’ve been
in,
> people agree with these arguments - they recognize the truth when they hear
> it. 
>
> Q: But overall, industry must be against your approach ? 
>
> A: Industry has yet to realize how profitable it would be to change their
> approach. 
>
> Q: You must get called a utopianist 
>
> A: I’ve always dreaded being marginalized. But Utopianism is thinking that
> more of the system causing the problem can be the solution. It’s like
> realizing your headed for a brick wall at 100 M.P.H., and being told the
> solution is to accelerate. We’ve been lead to believe that we have to choose
> between jobs and the environment. But it’s not true. We can have both. 
>
> Q: Do you think you’ll ever be elected ? 
>
> A: I don’t know if that will ever happen, but it won’t keep me from speaking
> out. I’ll be running in the next Federal election as well. I don’t care
to be
> a politician, but I do care to see this information promulgated. I’m working
> to produce a television series “Regeneration, the Art of Sustainable Living”
> and it’ll be optimistic because there are so many positive and profitable
> solutions out there. 
>
> After the elections I’ll be speaking at business luncheons and Chambers of
> Commerce. I’m going to carry this message right into the belly of the
beast !
>
>
> Visit Claude Genest’s web sites: 
> www.greenmountainpermaculture.com 
>
> www.regenerationshow.com 
>
> Best Regards, 
> Claude William Genest 
>
> www.greenmountainpermaculture.com 
> Green Mountain Permaculture: Solutions, Sustenance, Sustainability 
>
> "What Permaculturalists are doing is the most important work being done on
> the planet." 
> David Suzuki 
>
> "The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable
> living from a small piece of land." 
> Abraham Lincoln 
>
> "Clever men solve problems, wise men avoid them." 
> Albert Einstein 
>
> Listen up ! <http://www.democracynow.org/>http://www.democracynow.org/ 

Best Regards, 
Claude William Genest 

www.greenmountainpermaculture.com 
Green Mountain Permaculture: Solutions, Sustenance, Sustainability 

"What Permaculturalists are doing is the most important work being done on the
planet." 
David Suzuki 

"The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable
living
from a small piece of land." 
Abraham Lincoln 

"Clever men solve problems, wise men avoid them." 
Albert Einstein 

Listen up !  <http://www.democracynow.org/>http://www.democracynow.org/ 

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>
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> or on his child's head
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