Anyone here already read it? Certain points raised seem interesting, I will perhaps get it.
Some reviews found on the net that caught my curiosity:
http://www.nonfiction.fr/article-7209-s ... t_top_.htm (read also the two comments below, there are new points of reflection quite relevant).
A manifesto for happy sobriety through a critical analysis of technical society.
Even the least green among us generally agree that "no, it can't go on like this", as illustrated for example by the "Day of passing" reached a few days ago (August 19, 2014: Symbolic date on which global consumption exceeds the production capacity of the planet). In this context, Philippe Bihouix succeeds in rethinking a new society from a more reasoned and less greedy use of technologies, without falling, at least most of the time, into a primary technophobia. Quite readily quoting Barry Commoner, Matthew Crawford, Jacques Ellul or Ivan Illich, of whom he appears to be a somewhat turbulent disciple, the author thus draws the technical profile of a friendly and properly decreasing society.
Very educational, the work is divided into four sections: a first act explains "how we got there" and why the solution to the environmental crisis is not to be sought from the technology side; a second act sets out the basic principles of low technology, based above all on questioning needs; a third detail, sector by sector, what daily life would look like in the days of low technology; finally a fourth act questions the feasibility of the transition.
The first quarter of the book will not teach much to those already familiar with the subject, apart from some anecdotal data to glean. For others, however, the book has the merit of recalling some fundamentals. Thus on the energy issue (go directly to the next paragraph for experts ...), the author, an engineer by training himself, very pedagogically explains the importance of taking into account the energy efficiency of each site, or EROI (Energy Return On Energy Invested), i.e. the amount of energy needed to produce energy. The problem is not that there will be no more oil or gas to be extracted in the more or less near future, as the media may sometimes suggest, but the energy necessary to extraction of this oil or gas. To give the figures quoted in the book, an onshore field in Saudi Arabia has a yield around 40 (a barrel of oil required to produce 40) while in Canada, the asphalt sands of Athabasca do not exceed a yield of 3, with an input in the form of natural gas. “Clearly, we burn gas to produce two to three times more oil. "
A similar analysis of the situation of metals leads to the idea not only of a peak in oil or another resource, but in a "peak everything": "We could afford tensions on one or the other. other resource, energy or metals. But the challenge is that we now have to deal with it at about the same time: more energy needed for less concentrated metals, more metals needed for less accessible energy. "
But what about innovation? The author twists his neck to what he calls “high tech cream pies”, such as the bioeconomy, nanotechnologies or the dematerialization of information, which are far from being technically sustainable. A good reason is, for example for nanomaterials, that they are dispersive applications, that is to say using tiny quantities of metals certainly, but without any hope of recycling, which refers to the initial problem of access to primary resources.
Our society would thus find itself in a triple dead end, linked to the scarcity of resources, to the explosion of various pollutants, to the consumption of space finally - on this subject, the author puts forward the figure, properly incredible, of 1% of the surface of artificial French territory (a nice word which very often means agricultural land or a forest which becomes a commercial area, a new housing estate or a parking lot) ... in less than 10 years! It is to respond to this triple impasse that the author invites us to think of a radically new society.
The top priority is to rethink our needs, because “the issue is not between growth and decline, but between the decrease experienced (…) or the decrease chosen. "
To do this, several tracks are envisaged and detailed by the author, the most important of which are without doubt the exit from the all-car, a form of moratorium on the built (renovate rather than build), an agriculture based not on an increase always increasing productivity (production per worker) but concerned with the area yield (production per hectare), a relocation of the industry while remaining vigilant to the effects of scale, finally for the financial world the end of the loan at interest, which mechanically leads to a need for growth.
Interesting as they may be, these proposals partly match those of a Pierre Rabhi or a Serge Latouche, whom the author cites elsewhere, with an accent it is true more pronounced on industrial questions in general and the mineral resources in particular. But Phippe Bihouix goes further, and tackles in a very serious way questions which seem much less so. So on the question of leisure he offers us a table with the number of m² needed per player for different sports, to determine which sports are the most demanding on the surface, and therefore to avoid. Readers who are already wriggling in your seats wondering if you should cancel your Sunday match, rest assured: if you play ping-pong, basketball or volleyball, your "area performance" is completely honest. On the other hand, fans of golf, football or tennis, it would be good to restrict yourself - or at least to play doubles (in the case of tennis)! For the others, I invite you to consult the figure "Kant applied to ball sports"
.
All these measures, from the most systemic to the most harmless, have as main objective to reduce the overall consumption of energy and resources. According to the author, to be sustainable, our energy production should thus reach 20 to 25% of our current consumption, hence the many changes to be made. The question of the feasibility of such a transition therefore naturally occupies the last quarter of the book, which answers overall (but we suspected a little) that yes it is possible, if everyone puts their own, d 'as much as we would be happier. And this is where my adhesion to the book cracks a little. Why this need, among the decreasing and sympathizers, to sell us a necessary measure as deeply desirable? Is this not to impose a normativity on backward smells which risks unnecessarily removing the most addicted to modernity? Some examples among others: "Learning to click a mouse, is it necessary in kindergarten?" I didn't learn at that age, and yet I'm doing pretty well. "
. It seems to me that we are here on another debate (in this case two other debates since there is the question of education) that of the desirability of decrease without any environmental consideration. If I can be sensitive to the humor you show, Mr. Philippe Bihouix, let me tell you that the world you describe below does not make me dream at all: "I take myself to dream of a world in which, when arriving at friends, instead of bringing a bouquet virtually scented with kerosene, we will suggest to the hostess to urinate in the vegetable garden to return some nutrients to the soil and increase her vegetable production to come up. "
Because in real Philippe, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have a confession to make. I love the smell of cut flowers, and abomination, the taste of Macdo's chicken nuggets or travel to distant lands. If my life choices do not always reflect my tastes, so recently I bought train tickets for a professional trip of 15h rather than 1h by plane, it is not that I do not find these avatars of the practical and really attractive modernity, but it is because I am aware, like you, of the dead ends to which they lead us. Or as you say in such a poetic way "No, we can no longer afford to continue to consume like pigs, to produce and throw like goujats, thanks to the circular economy and renewable energies, with some adjustments, here and there. "
. There we agree Philippe. But stop taking us for a child to whom we would confiscate his Miko cone by saying to him "no but here are Brussels sprouts, it's much better and you are going to enjoy it, you will see! "
