Technology for Luddites
“If you want to grow food but don’t have a garden or an allotment then lack of space is probably one of your biggest challenges. But it’s amazing what you can do with even a small outdoor space. Indeed, lack of space can be a great inspiration to get creative.”
Vertical Veg – high yields from tiny spaces. Has very good links, too.
“In the late 14th century, England’s King Richard II commissioned a new building, College Hall, at Oxford University. The carpenters who built College Hall knew that the massive oak beams spanning the great hall’s ceiling would probably need to be replaced in a few hundred years, so next to the building, they planted a row of oak seedlings from the trees they used for the beams. Sure enough, the beams needed to be replaced about 300 years later, and the new carpenters had mature oaks right there, ready to be milled and turned into new beams.”
Greening Main Street Buildings (more). The picture shows an example of a recessed entryway – a characteristic common to many traditional commercial buildings that helps prevent hot or cold air from rushing inside when a door is opened.
Once more, hat tip to Lloyd Alter.
“Gardeners are among the world’s most charming snobs. Rightly so: As
with music and mathematics, the more you know, the more elegant your
work. Erudition is valued, and so is a smattering of pretension. If you
are a geek looking to put down roots, welcome to gardening. We offer
you common ground. Think of it as localized terraforming, if that helps.”
Instructions at Wired. Hat tip to Lloyd Alter. Also:
“At the beginning of the 20th century, all essential transport and machine movement, even in the building trade, was by water or rail. This left its marks on the cranes of the day, and a large number of rail-mounted crane structures were utilized – including the rather strange looking ‘crane locomotives’. These were steam locomotives to which a steam crane had been added.”
Quote & picture from “The History of Cranes (The Classic Construction Series)
“Like all cultures, industrial civilisation will collapse at some point. Resource depletion and climate change are likely causes. But I don’t believe it will happen soon: not in this century, perhaps not even in the next. If it continues to rely on economic growth, if it doesn’t reduce its reliance on primary resources, our civilisation will tank the biosphere before it goes down. To sit back and wait for what the Dark Mountain people believe will be civilisation’s imminent collapse, without trying to change the way it operates, is to conspire in the destruction of everything greens are supposed to value.”
George Monbiot versus the Dark Mountain Project.
