Forget AI and 5G, it’s low-tech solutions that will help our planet
Low-tech could reduce overconsumption and rising emissions
Origins of low-tech
Critics have proclaimed thedownsidesof excessive technology for centuries, from 19th centuryLudditesto 20th-centurywriterslike Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford. But it was the westernenergy crisisin the 1970s that really popularised these ideas.
British economist E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 bookSmall is Beautifulpresented a powerful critique of modern technology and its depletion of resources likefossil fuels. Instead, Schumacher advocated for simplicity: locally affordable, efficient technologies (which he termed “intermediate” technologies), like smallhydroelectricity devicesused by rural communities.
Schumacher’s mantle has been taken up by a growing movement calling itself “low-tech”. Belgian writer Kris de Dekker’s onlineLow-Tech Magazinehas been cataloging low-tech solutions, such aswindmillsthat use friction to heat buildings, since 2007. In particular, the magazine explores obsolete technologies that could still contribute to a sustainable society: likefruit wallsused in the 1600s to create local, warm microclimates for growing Mediterranean fruits.
In the US, architect, and academic Julia Watson’s bookLo-TEK(where TEK stands for Traditional Ecological Knowledge) explores traditional technologies from using reeds as building materials to creating wetlands for wastewater treatment.
And in France, engineer Philippe Bihouix’s realization of technology’s drain on resources led to his prize-winning bookThe Age of Low Tech. First published in 2014, it describes what life in a low-tech world might be like, including radicallycutting consumption.
Bihouix presents seven “commandments” of the low-tech movement. Among others, these cover the need to balance a technology’s performance with its environmental impact, being cautious of automation (especially where employment is replaced by increased energy use), and reducing our demands on nature.
But the first principle of low-tech is its emphasis on sobriety: avoiding excessive or frivolous consumption, and being satisfied by less beautiful models with lower performance. As Bihouix writes:
Ancient solutions
Crucially, we can apply low-tech principles to our daily lives now. For example, we can easily reduce energy demand fromheatingby using warm clothes and blankets. Food, if it’s packaged at all, can be bought and stored in reusable, recyclable packaging like glass.
Architectureoffers multiple opportunities for low-tech approaches, especially if we learn from history. Using ancientwindcatchertowers designed to allow external cool air to flow through rooms lets buildings be cooled using much less energy than air conditioning. And storing heat in stones, used by theRomansforunderfloor heating, is being considered today as a means of dealing with the intermittency of renewable energy.
Design and manufacture for sustainability emphasize reducing waste, often through avoiding mixing and contaminating materials. Simple materials like plain carbon steels, joined using removable fasteners, areeasy to recycleand locally repair. Buses, trains, and farm machinery using these steels, for example, can be much more readilyrefurbished or recycledthan modern cars full ofmicroelectronicsand manufactured from sophisticated alloys.
In some places, the principles of low tech are already influencing urban design and industrial policy. Examples include “15-minute cities” where shops and other amenities areeasily accessibleto residents, using cargo bikes instead of cars or vans for deliveries, and encouraging repairable products throughright-to-repair legislationin the EU and US.
Meanwhile, in Japan, there’s emerging interest in the reuse and recycling practices of theEdo period. From 1603 to 1867, the country was effectively closed to the outside world, with very limited access to raw materials. Therefore, extensive reuse and repair – even of things such as broken pottery or utensils with holes that we’d now regard as waste – became a way of life. Specialist repairers would mend or recycle everything from paper lanterns and books to shoes, pans, umbrellas, and candles.
By following examples like these, we can make discerning technological choices a central part of our search for sustainable ways of living.
This article byChris McMahon, Senior Research Fellow in Engineering,University of Bristolis republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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