SUMMARY - The Age Of Low Tech: Towards A Technologically Sustainable Civilization By Philippe Bihouix PDF Download

Author: Shortcut Edition
Publisher: Shortcut Edition
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will learn how "low-tech" could help create a more sustainable world. You will also learn : that shortages of natural resources are not new; that high-tech is not an answer to resource scarcity; that you have to give up some of your comfort in order for society to be more sustainable; that the concept of low technology combines an ideology with techniques; that there are obstacles to the transition to a sustainable society. The risks of a major climate and social crisis are now undeniable. Consequently, many solutions are emerging in an attempt to curb the possible collapse of civilization. In the scientific world, researchers are betting on technical progress through high technologies. These are supposed to save the planet thanks to intelligent networks, nanotechnologies or renewable energies. However, these technologies consume ever more scarce resources and their complexity makes them difficult to apply on a global scale. Shouldn't a solution be found on the "low tech" side instead? *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

Author: Bihouix, Philippe
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529213282
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
People often believe that we can overcome the profound environmental and climate crises we face by smart systems, green innovations and more recycling. However, the quest for complex technological solutions, which rely on increasingly exotic and scarce materials, makes this unlikely. A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on how we should be marshalling our resources to preserve the planet and secure our future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to build a more resilient and sustainable society.

Author: Clara Barbiani
Publisher: Ethics International Press
ISBN: 1804412376
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
The call for establishing a right to bank holds valid premises, yet this right has never been contemplated before. The book argues that introducing a right to bank under international law can offer a new route to ensure that the banking sector acts as a force for good like ethical banks currently do. The right to bank aims to address the fundamental issues that customers can experience while dealing with banks, introducing the paradigm: “get access; be respected; trust the system”. The right to bank is a right for everyone: in the transition from a financial crisis to a climate crisis, it empowers individuals to play an active role in the financial system through ethical and sustainable decision-making. It also stimulates financial institutions and governments to reflect about the fundamental role they play and to act wisely in furthering the ecological transition. The book therefore presents a proposal for establishing a right to bank, explaining the issues that this right aims to address, the benefits linked to its adoption, and the intended change it can trigger. Within this context, the author also presents the 10 Principles of Banking Social Responsibility, a new framework that the author decided to create in order to give concrete traction to the positive transition that the banking sector crucially needs to embrace in this challenging historical moment. This innovative work will be valuable for lawmakers, banking and finance professionals and researchers, governments and NGOs, including UN bodies.

Author: Bihouix, Philippe
Publisher: Bristol University Press
ISBN: 1529213274
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
People often believe that we can overcome the profound environmental and climate crises we face by smart systems, green innovations and more recycling. However, the quest for complex technological solutions, which rely on increasingly exotic and scarce materials, makes this unlikely. A best-seller in France, this English language edition introduces readers to an alternative perspective on how we should be marshalling our resources to preserve the planet and secure our future. Bihouix skilfully goes against the grain to argue that ‘high’ technology will not solve global problems and envisages a different approach to build a more resilient and sustainable society.

Author: Hessel, Anne
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529219140
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
The COVID-19 pandemic gives an opportunity to relaunch global economic systems with a better balance between the social and environmental dimensions. There is a need for a scientifically-based step towards a strong Green Deal: a Climate Pact for the EU. Based on a bestselling French book, this English translation provides a summary of the facts on the climate issue, the solutions available and their costs. It outlines the political advantages and challenges current policy, practice and thinking at a time when populist leaders are transforming politics worldwide. This timely book will contribute to a renewed political vision for the EU, the European Economic Area, the UK and Africa.

Author: Kitchin, Rob
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 152921128X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Digital technologies should be making life easier. And to a large degree they are, transforming everyday tasks of work, consumption, communication, travel and play. But they are also accelerating and fragmenting our lives affecting our well-being and exposing us to extensive data extraction and profiling that helps determine our life chances. Initially, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown seemed to create new opportunities for people to practice ‘slow computing’, but it quickly became clear that it was as difficult, if not more so, than during normal times. Is it then possible to experience the joy and benefits of computing, but to do so in a way that asserts individual and collective autonomy over our time and data? Drawing on the ideas of the ‘slow movement’, Slow Computing sets out numerous practical and political means to take back control and counter the more pernicious effects of living digital lives.

Author: Reades, Jonathan
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529216001
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Why do businesses still value urban life over the suburbs or countryside? This accessible book makes the case for Face-to-Face contact, still considered crucial to many 21st century economies, and provides tools for thinking about the future of places from market towns to World Cities.

Author: Kōzō Yamamura
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447335651
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Where has capitalism gone wrong? Why are advanced capitalist economies so sick, and why do conventional policy solutions--such as reduced taxes and increased money supply--produce only wider income disparity and inequality? We are now living in a new world in which a majority of people enjoys the highest living standard in history, acquiring more and more goods and services as necessary luxuries. But as Kozo Yamamura shows, despite our apparent lust for gourmet food and designer clothes, for larger homes, the latest gadgets, and exotic vacations, demand for these goods actually grows slowly, so relying on them to reinvigorate our economies will not succeed. With Too Much Stuff, Yamamura upends conventional capitalist wisdom to provide a new approach. He calls for increased tax-funded demand to address a range of societal needs--such as environmental concerns, social safety nets, infrastructure, and better education and housing for all. By addressing these needs, argues Yamamura, we can also take huge steps toward reducing the growing wealth gap that threatens global democracy. Both solutions-oriented and accessibly written, this book draws on fascinating case studies from the United States, Japan, and Germany, as well as convincing evidence from across the Western world, to suggest practical steps forward that we can all understand and support. Too Much Stuff boldly challenges the economic orthodoxy and, in so doing, challenges us to think outside the box for the betterment of all.

Author: Kris De Decker
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9780359478330
Category : High technology
Languages : en
Pages : 712

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Book Description
Low-tech Magazine underscores the potential of past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices. Sometimes, past technologies can be copied without any changes. More often, interesting possibilities arise when older technology is combined with new knowledge and new materials, or when past concepts and traditional knowledge are applied to modern technology. Inspiration is also to be found in the so-called "developing" world, where resource constraints often lead to inventive, low-tech solutions. Contains 159 images in black & white.

Author: David Wallace-Wells
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 052557672X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books