Description of Challenge
To get through the veil of assumptions and misinformation that promote mass urbanisation and high technology, covering up the huge benefits that smaller scale, simpler technologies can provide. Hidden subsidies and regulations have driven up the price of human labour, while artificially lowering the price of centralised, polluting forms of energy. This means that a multitude of renewable energy technologies that would be particularly beneficial in the global south, are being ignored.We have to move beyond layers of false assumptions to recognise that decentralised renewable energy could provide for all our needs.
Solution
To raise awareness about the potential for a human and ecological development path, based on a diversity of decentralised renewable energy technologies. We need to devote time, money and effort to counter the corporate energy path through educational campaigns. At the same time, we need to provide information about the multitude of renewable energy solutions. These range from those suited for high-rise, urban living, to those appropriate for rural villages in the global south: solar electricity, small-scale hydro, ram pumps and passive solar, including space heating (one being Trombe wall), water heating, cooking, drying and greenhouses.
