A few months ago, contributor and writer Matt Miles came to visit us. The result was a story in Earth Island Journal about the institute and the ethos behind it. “Small is Beautiful: Seeking simple, human-scale solutions to the challenges of everyday living,” is available on the Earth Island Journal‘s website and print edition for Autumn. It is part of a special edition edited by Paul Kingsnorth, co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project (which I covered in Low Tech Podcast, Episode no. 13 a while back).
The story is wide ranging, covering the founding of the institute, our studies, the tool library, the Low Tech New Deal, and much more.
Thanks to Matt for coming out with the idea for this write up. We’re excited to get the word out about what we’re up to.
I first became acquainted with the Low Technology Institute (LTI) two years ago, ironically enough, through the Internet. Visiting the LTI website, I was impressed by the quality of information there — a blog and a podcast among other resources — freely available to anyone interested in low-tech solutions to current sustainability challenges. Providing this valuable data lies at the heart of the institute’s mission, and it is something Johnson is passionate about. He aims to provide simple, scalable, pre-industrial alternatives to everyday necessities — like growing food and providing and maintaining shelter — that are easy to implement at home or in the community. “These projects should be doable for anyone with a high-school education and should only require the help of maybe one other person,” he says.