After 11 years working as a science and tech journalist, Kris De Decker realised that low-tech is actually the way of the future.
He's the creator of Low-Tech Magazine - a solar-powered website hosted from his Barcelona balcony.
Kris De Decker's bike generator Photo: Supplied
Kris De Decker Photo: Supplied
After years of interviewing researchers and scientists, De Decker realised technological innovations are not really environmental solutions.
Electric cars are a good example of an invention that isn't quite an environmental solution, he tells Kim Hill.
Even though they don't use gasoline as fuel, e-cars are still reliant on a substance - lithium - for energy.
Many include unnecessary features that are wasteful of energy such as screens that aid parking and entertainment systems.
If you want a car without air conditioning and electrically operated windows, you can't even find one these days, he says.
And as standard cars and engines keep getting heavier, you can even risk your life driving a small one.
"What is inefficient in a car is its two tonnes of metal to transport one or two persons… 95 percent of the energy used by a car is actually used to transport the car and not the passengers.
"Most cars these days have a top speed of 250km an hour and there's no need for that - they accelerate in a couple of seconds.
"We need to reduce energy consumption no matter where the energy comes from."
De Decker has no car, no smartphone and hot-water bottles are his only heating system - yet he doesn't like to point the finger at the general public
"I don't blame people because they're kind of stuck in a system that you cannot escape. Yeah, you can take the time but it's much more expensive than the plane.
"Politicians need to make sure that it becomes the most logical choice, and they don't really do that."
Instead, politicians like to show off high-tech solutions, De Decker says, and our economic system thrives on environmentally destructive practices.
You know you're somewhere that takes a reliable electricity supply for granted when you meet an automatic door, he says.
"It's this kind of technology that appears in societies that take a continuous power supply for granted. It's normal, we always have enough power as if it's infinitely available so why don't we put in an automatic door?"
It’s tempting to think of the internet as a weightless thing but even it uses an increasing amount of energy.
De Decker's solar-powered website is hosted from his balcony in Barcelona.
Because Barcelona is so sunny solar power is the obvious choice there, he says, but the best form of renewable energy depends on the environment.
In the Netherlands, that would be wind. In Finland, you could power a website via a wood stove.
"You could even use human power if you're kind of a sporty type."
Solar power represents a more efficient use of fossil fuels but it's not a simple, clean alternative, De Decker says.
The manufacture of solar panels requires fossil fuels and they also need to be replaced regularly.
"Entire swathes of nature are disappearing under solar panels and that's not really what we mean by more sustainable.
"We need to reduce energy consumption no matter where the energy comes from."
In the winter, when De Decker's solar panels don't get enough sun, his website crashes till they warm up - and he's fine with that.
"We have this idea that the internet should always be available but the shops are not always open so it's not such a weird thing for it to be gone now and then."
The internet is an example of how technology can function as a kind of empty substitute for human interaction and cooperation, De Decker says.
"Everything is now going through the internet and people start losing interest in their real life.
"If you're sitting in a train these days you can basically get naked and nobody would notice because they're all glued to their screens."
