Building a Better World in Your Backyard

WE CAN HAVE A BETTER WORLD
AND A MORE LUXURIANT LIFE.
WITHOUT INVOLVING POLITICS.

About the Book

The list of global problems is massive and overwhelming. When confronted with such significant problems, our first instinct is to tell the bad guys to stop being bad. Of course, doing so would be on a rigged playing field. And for each person that actually does write a letter or confront the bad guys, there might be a thousand people that simply develop an ulcer.

We think the reason we see so many people angry is because they genuinely care. But they seem to get stuck at being angry. Some people spend a hundred hours a week for 20 years being angry and not much changes. We think that if you spend a tiny fraction of that time doing the things mentioned in this book, your global positive impact will be a thousand times greater.

For nearly every global problem there are solutions we can implement in our backyard that, at the same time, save us money and help provide more luxuriant lives. If a few of us do these things and bask in the glow of the opulence and extra cash, others will observe and think “I want extra luxury and money too! Not fair!” So they emulate. And on and on it goes. Then the global problems sorta just dry up and blow away. That’s what this book is all about.

Something for Everyone

This book is filled with tips and tricks for building a better world, regardless of whether you live…

In an Apartment

Whether it’s cutting your home energy footprint by 90% or eliminating household toxic gick, there are some things you can do regardless of where you live.

On a City Lot

Reducing your power footprint even further, breaking the toxic water cycle, and starting to break the link between your food and global footprints can all happen in your backyard.

On a Rural Homestead

With this much space and the right tricks, we can actually cover not only our own footprints… but maybe those of 20 other people too!

About the Authors

Paul Wheaton, dubbed “The Duke of Permaculture” by Sepp Holzer and Geoff Lawton, is an author, producer, certified advanced master gardener, and tyrannical ruler of two on-line empires. After a successful career as a software engineer in aerospace, Paul became obsessed with everything permaculture. He has created hundreds of youtube videos, hundreds of podcasts and written dozens of articles, all of which can be found at permies.com.

Shawn Klassen-Koop‘s passion for building a better world grew while working at a summer camp in Manitoba. Seeking to solve world problems with clever thinking, Shawn also studied computer engineering and learned about the importance of good design. After a few years, he stumbled upon and fell in love with permaculture as a way to use his design skills to work with nature, rather than against nature, to build a better world.

The Building a Better World Podcast