Often the design feature of a suburban yard is a big shade tree. What do you do when that big tree in your yard begins to die? For a suburban lot there can perhaps be no greater change.

For anyone eating on a budget, or living in a food desert where it is difficult to get to the grocery store, protein and fresh vegetables become luxuries. Without protein and fresh vegetables human health is compromised.

According to the literature, hügelkultur can remain fertile for up to 30 years without adding new materials. However, it can be difficult to plant into the logs and branches.

One of nature's key strategies to respond to environmental change is maintaining the genetic diversity of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the trends are toward decreasing genetic diversity while the risk of climate change is increasing.

Have you heard of the vanishing bees? You may know that commercial beekeepers are reporting losses of more than 30% of their colonies every year. Implicated in those losses is a class of pesticides known as systemics that show up in both the pollen and nectar of plants that have been treated.

At this point in the development of the Living System on this Planet there are precious few of us who have developed this tertiary drive to take responsibility for the health of our place. Our influence can only grow as we connect and begin to work together. Through that act of connecting and growing our influence we will be the Living System on this Planet becoming aware of itself.

The amount of waste our culture produces is a measure of sustainability. Less sustainable processes produce more waste. As we integrate processes we begin to reduce waste. As we approach no waste, our processes will move beyond sustainable and begin increasing the resources we have to work with.

Every interaction requires an edge between one thing and another. Every thing flowing is generated on one side of an edge and flows across the edge. Reducing the edge reduces the flows.

An alternative is a Cell of Sustainability created by embedding ourselves in a complex pattern of plant processes, animal processes, fungal processes and bacterial processes.

As Agents of Habitat it is our task to make our place in the world more conducive to life.