Technology
The Green Revolution: no way to feed a hungry planet
Feeding a growing world population has been a serious concern for decades, but today there are new causes for alarm. Floods, heat waves and other weather extremes are making agriculture increasingly precarious, especially in the Global South. The war in Ukraine is also a factor. Russia is blockading Ukrainian grain exports, and fertilizer prices have…
Read MoreTransgenic Rice Proposed as a ‘Solution’ for Africa
Scientists with an international rice initiative have been raising the alarm about a strain of bacterial blight causing outbreaks in rice fields in East Africa, and they say the patented transgenic varieties they have developed are the solution. The scientists are with the Healthy Crops Project, a non-profit consortium funded by the Gates Foundation that…
Read MoreA Revival of Natural Building in Ladakh
In Ladakh and elsewhere in India, the built environment is increasingly dominated by structures that required unsustainable construction methods and non-renewable materials. Meanwhile, older traditional buildings are usually marginalized and neglected. A primary feature of this shift involves the use of concrete, “the most destructive material on Earth”, rather than locally-sourced wood, straw, and earthen…
Read MoreEmbrace Your Crookedness
I don’t know why exactly we gravitate to certain writers or thinkers, not just as convenient citations we drop here and there, maybe to add a bit of heft to our own flimsy pronouncements or to have the sheen of their prose shine on our lackluster sentences – but as people, people we want to…
Read MoreRethinking Technology and the Good Society
Despite suffering from debilitating headaches and generally poor health, Weil completed her work during a remarkable burst of activity. She died later that year at the age of 34. The report was published in 1949. The first English translation appeared in 1952 as The Need for Roots: prelude towards a declaration of duties towards mankind.…
Read MoreStop Solar Geoengineering
Geoengineering is the intentional, large-scale technological manipulation of the Earth’s systems, often discussed as a techno-fix for combating climate change. Climate geoengineering technologies include so-called solar radiation management, greenhouse gas removal and sequestration and weather modification. None of these technofixes address the root causes of climate change, and would allow CO2 emissions to continue, creating…
Read MoreAI Chatbots and the Power of Language
In the mid-1960s, the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created the world’s first chatbot. It was a relatively simple program modeled on the techniques of Rogerian psychotherapy, in which the therapist mirrors the patient’s statements often in the form of a question. Weizenbaum was absolutely clear that ELIZA was not a therapist in any meaningful sense,…
Read MoreHumility and the myth of limitlessness
I might be wrong about this, but it seems that over the last couple of years more and more people have been working their way to the conclusion that modern society is fundamentally broken – not just broken in a way that can be fixed with a little tinkering here and there, but somehow broken…
Read MoreLow-tech solutions
Most mainstream responses to climate chaos today rely heavily on high technology and big business. We rarely hear about solutions – often rooted in the past – that are localized, low-tech, and don’t advance the interests of large corporations. These are precisely the kind of technologies explored in depth on Low-Tech Magazine. What follows is…
Read MoreHow the FCC shields cellphone companies from safety concerns
The health complaints started rolling in within weeks of the activation of a new cellphone tower in August 2020 in Pittsfield, an old factory town in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Mountains. Seventeen residents reported headaches, dizziness, insomnia or confusion. A few children had to sleep with “vomit buckets” by their beds. Like many people, Bobbie Orsi had…
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