Think low-tech (it's key to our future too)

It's really comforting to believe we can innovate ourselves out of the path of the environmental and economic hurricane looming in the conscience. That seems to be the big hope.

Is it yours?

In the face of more and more throat-drying hard facts about how we have been living a lie, the hard-sell now is high-tech sustainability, which is really clever because not only are there are good things happening with increasing velocity, but it means another shot in the arm for the religion of commerce: AND we don't have to adjust our affluent lifestyles too much so long as we keep on consuming. The innovators will facilitate our sustainability and we have to go with it, to trust them.

Hang on a minute.

First, I don't believe commercially-driven innovators alone will get us through this, and I sense that a growing number of you don't either.

Second, we all need to attempt something that is incredibly hard in this sound-bite age of the image-driven society with its treadmills, trivia and inherent insecurities. Individually we have to somehow find the time to get into the detail of our great predicament, to weigh carefully everything that “they” and each and everyone one of us is doing to make a positive difference.

Third, the over-riding motive must be sustainability not profit. A real risk is that we are passive, that we allow the only driver to be economic.

Not all problems need new solutions, and now is very much the time for us all to explore low-tech answers too, many of which we can take direction action on. Old wisdom and old ways can teach us a great deal and in some cases can be part of innovation as we rethink how we impact our world.

That has been very much part of our ongoing education here at Mother's Garden in The Priorat; trying to find the right path without leaving lasting footprints, teaching ourselves and our children about the natural world, symbiosis, communities working together, sharing, problem solving.

The more I learn the more I realise how much there is to learn from the past and from nature, and the daily challenge is to weave this into a modern life in a sustainable way.

Like the vast majority of people I use a modern wonder, the worldwide web, to search for forums and knowledge in my quest for answers. We all know how frustrating that can be, so let me save you some valuable time and point you in the direction of a significant, thought-provoking and accessible blog by Barcelona-based writer Kris de Decker – www.lowtechmagazine.com.

Take some time and read. And then let's debate how we see our world changing and what we need to do as individuals to make that vital difference. Write to me.