Appropriate technology
One of the drivers of our energy-intensive economy is the quest for convenience, usually made possible by using machines to do our work for us. This not only wastes valuable energy and material resources, it can lead us to work longer hours to pay for the latest "labor-saving" device. Rethinking our basic energy needs means asking whether we can meet more of our genuine energy needs in simpler, more low-tech ways.
One strategy being pursued to address the climate crisis has been to shift from fossil fuels to electric power as the energy source for common activities. But electric power has environmental costs, too, even when renewable energy is used to create it. Consider using human power and passive renewable energy instead.
Take action
- There are many ways to produce hot water using solar energy. Mother Earth News' article How to Build a Passive Solar Water Heater describes five simple, inexpensive heaters for home use. LowImpact.org's book Solar Hot Water: Choosing, Fitting and Using a System, provides a detailed overview of the topic, whether you choose to build a system yourself or hire a plumber and use off-the-shelf components.
- Solar Cookers International has been working for decades to design and promote passive solar cooking, especially in the "less developed" parts of the world. They provide solar cooker construction plans for many kinds of cookers, including a portable one made from cardboard and aluminum foil.
- Preserving food by canning or freezing usually requires fossil-fuel or electrical energy, but there are other ways to preserve food that are just as effective. The National Center for Home Food Preservation has put together a comprehensive overview of preservation methods for various foods. You can also build your own solar fruit dehydrator with these plans from North Dakota State University.
- Learn about various non-electric tools and techniques for satisfying basic needs from the Atelier Non-Electric in Japan. The text is in Japanese, but many of the design images are self-explanatory.
- Low-Tech Magazine contains a wealth of thought-provoking articles, from discussions of "obsolete technologies" to the possibilities of low-tech solutions to modern problems: a great way to encourage out-of-the-box thinking.
- Often the best solutions are the simplest. Rather than use electricity and fossil fuels to dry clothes, hang them on a clothesline. Rather than building fleets of electric-powered vehicles, promote walking and bicycling. Find other ways to satisfy genuine needs without using mechanical, fuel-based or electric means, and rethink technology with the help of No-Tech Magazine.
Get inspired
- In Can Decreix, a degrowth community outside the French town of Cerbère, the embrace of simple technologies is a joyful way of life. The use of solar ovens and cookers is standard practice, and their many self-designed tools include a pedal-powered washing machine. Website in French and English.
- Maya Pedal is a Guatemalan nonprofit that turns donated bikes into water pumps, grinders, threshers, tile makers, nut shellers, blenders, trailers and more. They also recondition bikes for their traditional use as transportation. In English or Spanish.
While cutting down forests to feed wood-fired power plants is a bad idea, there are simpler and more sustainable uses of wood as a fuel. In places where wood is abundant, for example, a single woodstove can simultaneously heat your home, cook your food, and heat the water to clean up afterwards. Using wood as a fuel also creates many local jobs. Woodstoves aren’t appropriate for dense urban areas where the air is already burdened with other pollution, or where the fuel must be delivered from long distances. The article The Argument in Favor of Wood Heating, from woodheat.org, sums up the pros and cons.
Take action
- Learn how to make rocket stoves for various applications – from space heating and cooking to water heating – with the Permies.com Energy forums and with LowImpact.org's article Rocket stoves and mass heaters: introduction.
- Many cultures have evolved sustainable methods of harvesting wood, including coppicing and pollarding, which involve periodically cutting trees and other woody plants back, after which the roots and branches send out multiple new stems that grow quickly. This allows wood from the tree to be “harvested” every few years, providing a sustainable and local source of renewable fuel.
Get inspired
- To learn more about the history of coppicing, pollarding, and other techniques – some of which have been used since the Stone Age – check out Low-Tech Magazine's article How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again.
Throughout the Global South, millions of rural people cannot afford fossil fuels for cooking, and there is very little wood available. One result is that in India alone, an estimated 750 million tons of another biofuel – cow dung – is burned annually for cooking or heating. A healthier alternative is to use a biogas digester to turn the dung into methane, similar to natural gas, which is then tapped and piped to the kitchen for cooking. Biogas digesters reduce air pollution, and leave behind solids that can be used as a fertilizer.
Take action
- LowImpact.org's article Biogas: introduction offers a detailed discussion of the theory and practice of biogas digesters, as well as links to videos by people who have built their own.
- The Pakistan-based site DoScience's article Design, Construction, and Installation of Biogas Plant has instructions for building biogas digesters in English and Urdu.
- The appropriate technology site Appropedia's article Home Biogas System has detailed plans for a biodigester design used in the Philippines.
Get inspired
- The humanitarian aid organization Anera has designed and built a biogas digester for a West Bank Bedouin community in Palestine. Most cooking there was previously done on open fires, which is both expensive and unhealthy. Since most people in the community raise animals, a biogas digester to provide cooking fuel was a logical solution. Read more on the Anera website.
In a world increasingly saturated with mass-produced, high-tech, energy-intensive gadgets and machines, the knowledge and skills needed to meet our needs with simpler, manually-powered tools and crafts is rapidly disappearing. Fortunately, many people and institutions are working to remedy this problem through various learning programs. Many such training opportunities exist around the world; the following are just a few ideas of where to start.
Take action
- The Berea College Student Craft program (Kentucky, US) offers a tuition-free education in traditional crafts. Learn more in the article At Berea College, Students Craft a Bright Future, Tuition-Free from The Craftsmanship Initiative.
- The Wendell Berry Farming Program at Sterling College (Kentucky and Vermont, US) offers a tuition-free farming curriculum focused on ecological agriculture and forestry using draft animals and other appropriately scaled mixed power systems.
- The Building Craft Program of the Prince's Foundation (UK), seeks to "preserve the wisdom and knowledge that embodies many of the traditional building skills."
- The short courses offered by the Centre for Alternative Technology (Wales) and workshops run by the Low Technology Institute teach various practical appropriate technologies and sustainable solutions.
- Training courses by L'Atelier Paysan (France) aim to reclaim and create skills and tools for self-sufficient small-scale ecological farming systems.
- Learn everything from compost toilet making to soap making to weaving with LowImpact.org's online courses.
Get inspired
- L’Atelier Paysan is a French cooperative that helps farmers design tools appropriate to the needs of small-scale farms practicing agroecology. The group makes plans for its tools available for free on its website and organizes trainings and workshops. Learn more in the Commons Transition article Julien Reynier and Fabrice Clerc from L’Atelier Paysan on self-build communities in farming.
In many cultures and for many generations, human "night soil" was composted and returned to the fields on which food was grown. Modern sewage treatment facilities break that loop, using significant amounts of energy while depriving soils of much-needed nutrients. Composting toilets are a solution to these problems, though they are mainly appropriate in rural areas. Designs can range from very simple and inexpensive toilets that anyone can build, to manufactured models with off-the-shelf components.
Take action
- The authoritative guide to all things composting toilets is The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. Learn and apply the basics quickly with the 12-page condensed instruction manual.
- Find 13 different models of home-built composting toilets – from the basic to the "fancy" – at MorningChores.com.
- This short video, Compost Toilets Online Course, from Low Impact TV, will tell you what you need to know to build your own simple composting toilet.
Get inspired
- In Ladakh, India, the ancient dry composting toilet, called the dechot, has been safely and successfully recycling valuable human waste into local soil fertility while protecting scarce water for centuries - a truly sustainable technology! This system is not a relic of the past, but a beacon of hope for the future; to learn more, read Tanya Dubey's article This ingenious toilet system in Ladakh could help India reach complete sanitation by 2022.
- In Kenya, 41% of the population lacks access to basic water services and 71% lack sanitary services. Kenya Connect is working to improve this situation by constructing composting toilets, with the first at two primary schools. The compost will be used on nearby gardens and trees.
- Compost toilets are catching on in more industrialized settings too. Read about rise of the no-flush movement in the UK by Emine Saner, and about applications in the US in What We Waste When We Flush the Toilet, by Deb Habib and Ricky Baruch.
- In the podcast episode Survival of the Most Symbiotic on Team Human, Julia Watson – designer, activist, academic, and author of Lo-Tek, Design by Radical Indigenism – discusses how we can respond to climate change by utilizing millennia-old knowledge about living in symbiosis with nature through 'lo-tek' radical design.
- In his lecture Look Back, Move Forward, Kris de Decker explains the rationale behind Low-Tech Magazine, and the promise of a shift to low-tech solutions in a downscaled economy.
- The podcast and videos produced by the Low Technology Institute (US) explore various theoretical aspects and practical applications of low-tech designs and approaches.
- In his book The Age of Low Tech: Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization, Phillipe Bihouix argues that "high" technology will not solve global problems and only a shift to simpler "low" tech will enable us to build a more resilient and sustainable society.
- Author Eric Brende shows how "a world free of technological excess can shrink stress – and waistlines – and expand happiness, health, and leisure" in his book Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology.
- In Lo-Tek: Design By Radical Indigenism, Julia Watson takes inspiration from age-old, deeply sustainable technologies from cultures around the world to call for a design movement "building on indigenous philosophy and vernacular infrastructure to generate sustainable, resilient, nature-based technology." (Also see 'Voices from the field' above for a podcast interview with the author.)
- No Tech Magazine and Low Tech Magazine, created and run by Kris De Decker, offer a wealth of both theoretical critiques of "high" technology, and detailed explorations of practical, low-tech alternatives.