There have been many books written about what we can learn from the
failures of the past, but I want to take a more optimistic view,
focussing on what we have to learn from past successes. This book
is about sustainable agriculture and architecture in the past, and
the engineering works that supported them, but it also looks to the
future. Ancient technologies are what engineers define as
'intermediate', which means that they are often simple, low in cost
and they depend on local materials. Significantly, they don't
require fossil fuels. There is a lot that we in the West can learn
from the past and from developing countries where people still
practice traditional agriculture, and there is now broad agreement
among many governments, non-government organisations, engineers and
agronomists, as well as the United Nations, that intermediate
technologies are often the most appropriate way forward in
developing countries. The New Green Revolution is looking to
traditional knowledge to solve problems of decreasing yields and
environmental impoverishment, rather than to technology that is
dependent on the diminishing resource of fossil fuels. This subject
is controversial and I have been accused of suggesting 'pie in the
sky' ideas, but the re-introductions I'm suggesting are already
being carried out in countries all over the world. Water harvesting
and other dryland systems are being re-introduced in Egypt, Iraq,
Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen,
Afghanistan and Oman. Other early technologies are being put back
to work in Peru, Bolivia, India, Bangladesh, Niger, Burkina Faso
and many more. I would like to raise awareness of the fact that we
already have the technology to make sweeping improvements to the
way that we grow food and manage the environment; we could be
producing more food per hectare, and we could be doing it more
sustainably. I introduce many case studies of successful
reintroductions that demonstrate how this can be done. These
studies demonstrate that sustainable agriculture is often not only
cheaper than industrialised agriculture, but it is also more
productive per hectare. As the climate changes, it is imperative
that we come up with new ways of managing our environment. Deserts
are spreading, wetlands will expand as the sea level rises, and we
need to find ways to cope with a growing population. Climate change
is increasing the severity of storms, and I discuss the varieties
of vernacular architecture that are better suited to withstanding
storms and other extreme conditions. I am not advocating a
wholesale return to past technologies, nor am I suggesting the
adoption of early technology in place of modern engineering and
agriculture. What I am suggesting is that we combine some aspects
of early technology with new systems and inventions such as solar
energy, to create a healthier, more sustainable and environmentally
richer planet.
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