Low-tech Magazine

Bring back the horses

Replacing tractors with real horse power could be the revolution that agriculture needs.

Horses and other draft and pack animals revolutionized transportation, war, hunting, manufacturing and agriculture. Work horses formed the backbone of industrial society until the first decennia of the 20th century, mining coal, ploughing fields and transporting goods and people in fast growing cities. Reintroducing horses in city traffic would be a bad idea - cars might be noisy, dangerous and polluting, but mounts are even worse. In agriculture, however, animal power would bring surprisingly large environmental profits. Horses could also guarantee food security.

Leave the algae alone

While the first generation of biofuels is wreaking havoc on the environment and the food markets, the second generation is set to make things even worse.

Since it has become clear that ethanol and biodiesel made from food crops are doing more harm than good, the hope for finding a substitute for oil has shifted to algae and cellulose. If we can believe the advocates of this ‘second generation’ of biofuels, these combustibles will deliver way more energy than it takes to make them, without threatening the world’s food and water supplies. Upon taking a closer look, however, this is very hard to believe. They might even cause bigger problems than biofuels made from food crops. Maybe this time around we could sort this out before the damage gets done?

Photoshop in the early 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century some clever photographers specialized in Photoshop before the term existed, faking postcards from mainly rural communities. Images of oversized vegetables, fruits and animals created a utopian myth about a town or region and served as a way of encouraging settlement and population growth. Some noteworthy collections of these so-called "Tall Tale Postcards" can be found here (Wisconsin Historical Society) and here (American Museum of Photography). UPDATE: Things magazine has found another weird example of postcard manipulation.

Why bottled water is good for the environment

Drinking bottled water is a much more ecological choice than consuming soft drinks, coffee, fruit juice or beer. Water drinkers should be praised instead of criticized.

Bottled water is under attack from environmentalists who preach that tap water has a similar quality and saves a lot of energy since it does not need to be transported by trucks. That might be true, but bottled water is not our biggest problem when it comes to drinking habits. All other beverages consume huge amounts of water and energy during their production processes, which makes their ecological impact far more detrimental than that of bottled water. Like bottled water, most of them are distributed in bottles and cans, too. (Illustration: plan59)

Life before television

Turn off your flat screen television and get lost in 17th, 18th and 19th century optical entertainment.

Nowadays, televisions and cinemas have a remarkable image quality and size, computer games boast impressive graphics, and portable media devices make it possible to watch movies anywhere you want. But, before the birth of modern multimedia, our ancestors were all but cut off from vivid graphics and virtual reality. Innovative low-tech devices delivered amazing effects and fulfilled almost the same role that television, cinema and media players do today. Some features of these even modern multimedia does not match.

The ugly side of solar panels

New research shows, albeit unintentional, that generating electricity with solar panels can also be a very bad idea.

The manufacture of just 1 square meter of solar panels generates between 7,500 and 31,400 kilograms of greenhouse gases. An average household needs at least 8 square meters of solar panels for electricity generation alone, which boils down to a global warming debt of a whopping 60,000 to 940,000 kilograms of CO2. These numbers equate to 12 to 188 intercontinental flights (see comments). In some cases, producing electricity by solar panels releases more greenhouse gases than producing electricity by gas or even coal. (Picture: Sungazer)