Slow-tech - Andrew Price

A sailor crossing the Atlantic in a small yacht would want to minimize
excess baggage. But it would be unthinkable not to carry more fresh
water than seemed necessary, to survive unexpected calms or storms. Yet
the imperative of profit, especially over the last century, has driven
modernity towards 'lean, mean' strategies in every area of life;
squeezing waste out of commercial, technological and environmental
systems may make money in the short term, but is our highly geared,
highly strung way of life sustainable? Andrew Price, sailor,
explorer and environmental scientist at the University of Warwick argues
that in the long-term, spare capacity actually pays. From the
destruction of New Orleans to the loss of the world's fish-stocks and
intractable problems such as MRSA, Slow-Tech demonstrates how the
reckless pursuit of efficiency and cost-effectiveness frequently
backfires. It makes the case for robustness as an equally important
measure of performance in fields as diverse as healthcare, military
operations and engineering.Unexpected and counter-intuitive yet convincing and timely, Slow-Tech
offers an alternative vision for life in the twenty-first century - a
rounded vision of balance and robustness that would be healthier for the
planet - and healthier for us.