I’ll be publishing reworked sections from my 2016 book, Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail?, updated for today, with a special emphasis on health and COVID, but also discussing other social problems we face. … More COVID Hubris, Collapse, and Resilience: Social Hubris and Resilience (Part 2)
I’ll be publishing reworked sections from my 2016 book, Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail?, updated for today, with a special emphasis on health and COVID, but also discussing other social problems we face. … More COVID Hubris, Collapse, and Resilience: Introduction (Part 1)
Correlation does not equal causation. In this case, COVID-19 has reduced our travel and use of fossil fuels for transport by 31 percent overall (source in graphic). Although we are not seeing a decline in the use of fossil fuels leading to reduced transportation (rather the reverse), it can be considered a small-scale dry run … More COVID-19 Disruption is Just a Foreshadowing of Later Problems
Now is the time to start gardening, not just the time, but the perfect time.
#LowTechResilience
By the time the grasshoppers begin to worry about the stability of the food system, ants will have to have been storing food all summer. Don’t be a grasshopper. #BeAnAnt … More Low-Tech COVID-19: Gather Gardening Supplies Now
As COVID-19 begins to spread more widely across the United States, prompting closure of schools, public services, and events, many of us are finding ourselves with more time at home. For some of us this is an inconvenience, for others it is a hardship. The driving thought behind the Low Technology Institute is that someday … More Low-Tech COVID-19: Plan for the Worst, Hope for the Best
The first episode of our webseries, Foodmageddon, is out this morning. Have a watch. Comment, share, and let others know about the project. This episode is a little heavy with explanations, but we need to set up the series a little.
The news is full of talk of recession. The dreaded inverted yield curve (short-term bonds have higher yields than long-term ones — the inverse of the typical state) has occurred less than two years before every recession since 1955 (and the one time it happened without a recession following was the economic slowdown of the … More Low-Tech Recession?
Last month, research professors Matt Fitzpatrick and Rob Dunn took a look at 540 urban areas and created a tool to help us understand exactly what high- and medium-emissions futures mean for us. As they point out in their paper, “A major challenge in articulating human dimensions of climate change lies in translating global climate … More What Does Climate Change Mean for Your City? Check Out this Useful Tool for Visualizing Your “New Normal”
Low Tech Podcast, No. 38 – 08 Mar 2019
Discussing the #GreenNewDeal and Low Tech New Deal. … More Low Tech Podcast, No. 38 — Low Tech New Deal
The Green New Deal (GND) has garnered support and opprobrium since it was published. While this plan at least acknowledges the problem of climate change and identifies the proper scale of our reaction, we can point to large gaps in the plan that must be remedied: All this construction while still limiting emissions? Who will … More Green New Deal: How About A “Low Tech New Deal”?