DO IT ENERGY AND TRANSPORTATION
How to use non electric energy where you are
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.
“We are on the cusp of the fastest, deepest, most consequential transformation of human civilization in history…” — Tony Seba & James Arbib, Co-Founders of RethinkX
Humanity is on the brink of existential transformation, but we’re blind to the deeper processes of change. To recognize the mind-blowing possibility space of the next decade, as well as its catastrophic risks, we must grasp the patterns of history to understand how they can illuminate today.
Rethinking Humanity takes viewers on a whirlwind tour of the rise and fall of civilizations through a powerful lens that makes sense of the past, so that we can step into the present and create our future. During the 2020s, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors that underpin civilization, and with them every major industry in the world today. In information, energy, food, transportation, and materials, costs will fall by 10x or more, while production processes an order of magnitude more efficient will use 90% fewer natural resources with 10x-100x less waste.
The knock-on effects for society will be as profound as the extraordinary possibilities that emerge. For the first time in history, we could overcome poverty easily. Access to all our basic needs could become a fundamental human right. But this is just one future outcome. The alternative could see our civilization collapse into a new dark age. Which path we take depends on the choices we make, starting today. The stakes could not be higher.
Source: RethinkX
