Shouting for Less
A Conversation with David Holmgren
by Rob Vollmar
Rob Vollmar: The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration here in the
United States announced recently that 2018
was the fourth hottest year on record, which
completes a trend to make the last five years
the hottest five in recorded human history.
Your focus as a designer and a writer is very
localized to where you live. How are those
elevated temperatures expressing there in
Central Victoria and, more broadly, across
the landscapes of Australia?David Holmgren: Rains come in our Medi-
terranean climate primarily in the winter
and the spring, and then, historically, the
rain breaks out in the autumn after a long
pause in the summer. That was a critical
factor for broadacre pastoral farming in
Australia. We had a name for it, the autumn
break. I started saying twenty years ago,
“What is this autumn break?” I’ve lived in
Central Victoria for a decade and haven’t
seen one. So, that shift has been significantfor a long time. The more general predic-
tion of the drying of the climate, of less rain,
especially of less rain in winter and spring,
has been evident. The thing that used to
frustrate me most about climate predictions
is that there would always be this foot-
note about extreme weather events. Because
there was great difficulty in modeling that,
scientists tended to focus on the predicted
average temperature increases. I saw that
these more extreme events were the criticalDavid Holmgren is an environmental designer, writer, and co-creator of the permaculture concept, which
uses systems theory to create by design the resiliency found in natural systems. He is the author of several key
texts associated with the sustainable, living movement, including Permaculture: Principles and Pathways
Beyond Sustainability (Holmgren Design, 2002), Future Scenarios (Chelsea Green, 2009), and, most recently,
RetroSuburbia: The Downshifter’s Guide to a Resilient Future. He lives with his partner, Su Dennett, in Central
Victoria at Melliodora, Hepburn Springs, where they have conducted research in the lived permaculture experience
for more than thirty years.PHOTO: BRUCE HEDGE
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