When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency, 2nd Edition - Softcover

Stein, Matthew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1933392452 ISBN 13: 9781933392455

Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

There’s never been a better time to “be prepared.” Matthew Stein’s comprehensive primer on sustainable living skills—from food and water to shelter and energy to first-aid and crisis-management skills—prepares you to embark on the path toward sustainability. But unlike any other book, Stein not only shows you how to live “green” in seemingly stable times, but to live in the face of potential disasters, lasting days or years, coming in the form of social upheaval, economic meltdown, or environmental catastrophe.

When Technology Fails covers the gamut. You’ll learn how to start a fire and keep warm if you’ve been left temporarily homeless, as well as the basics of installing a renewable energy system for your home or business. You’ll learn how to find and sterilize water in the face of utility failure, as well as practical information for dealing with water-quality issues even when the public tap water is still flowing. You’ll learn alternative techniques for healing equally suited to an era of profit-driven malpractice as to situations of social calamity. Each chapter (a survey of the risks to the status quo; supplies and preparation for short- and long-term emergencies; emergency measures for survival; water; food; shelter; clothing; first aid, low-tech medicine, and healing; energy, heat, and power; metalworking; utensils and storage; low-tech chemistry; and engineering, machines, and materials) offers the same approach, describing skills for self-reliance in good times and bad.

Fully revised and expanded—the first edition was written pre-9/11 and pre-Katrina, when few Americans took the risk of social disruption seriously—When Technology Fails ends on a positive, proactive note with a new chapter on "Making the Shift to Sustainability," which offers practical suggestions for changing our world on personal, community and global levels.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Dear Editor:

We are pleased to submit WHEN TECHNOLOGY FAILS: A Manual for Self Reliance & Planetary Survival, by Matthew Stein, for your review.

No home is complete without this essential resource. M.I.T. graduate Matthew Stein spent 15 years compiling the information for When Technology Fails. This easy-to-use manual is designed for self-reliant living in today's changing world.

As we begin the 21st Century, the rapidly expanding world population is quickly depleting the available natural resources and fossil fuel supply while increasing the demand for basic human needs-food, shelter, clothing and energy. This combined with the current worldwide infrastructure dependent on instant global communication and next-day distribution grids means that any disruption of the norm due to technology breakdowns, weather patterns, solar spots, techno-terrorism or natural upheavals can create massive disruptions to daily life.

When Technology Fails is the first book to offer basic instructions and recommended resources for the wide range of skills and technologies necessary for self-reliant living, achieving mastery of all kinds of emergency conditions, and treading lighter on Mother Earth. When Technology Fails is a user-friendly manual for the 2lst Century in the tradition of the Whole Earth Catalog.

We hope you enjoy reading this important book and can recommend it to your readers.

Thank you

Harmon Houghton
Publisher

From the Author:

With all my being, I know that humankind cannot continue behaving as if the world was an infinite reservoir of natural resources that we may do with as we wish, consumed in ever-increasing amounts by an ever-increasing population. One of the things that defines humanity is the dual power of creativity and free will. We have the power to choose wisely or foolishly, but choose we must. To choose to do nothing is still making a choice.

We may choose a planetary future from two paths traveling in opposite directions. We may choose to accept our responsibility in the co-creation of ourselves along with planet Earth-the source of everything around us and everything that we have come to be over the millennia. This type of responsibility requires a fully conscious and compassionate awareness of the consequences of our actions for the long-term health of both the Earth and our humankind.

On the other hand, like lemmings rushing to the ocean, we can proceed toward famines, collapsing ecosystems, wars, and plagues. This is the path of business as usual, waiting for science and technology to come up with solutions, and ultimately suffering the consequences of the collapse of natural systems that took thousands of years or even more to evolve.

We are all in this together! Let us create a future that we can all live with.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1933392452
• ISBN 13: 9781933392455
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 493