Mike Morris (mikem@ncat.org)
www.ncat.org
May 2009
View essay as PDF
Founded in 1976, the National Center for Appropriate Technology (www.ncat.org) is a national non-profit organization headquartered in Butte, Montana, with regional offices in Arkansas, California, Iowa, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania. Shortly after I started working for NCAT in 2000, I became interested in NCAT’s history and connections to other appropriate technology organizations in the U.S. and abroad.
· I knew that other countries had national centers for appropriate technology. Had NCAT ever communicated with these centers?
· I had heard that E. F. Schumacher was involved somehow in the founding of NCAT. Did he see NCAT as his outpost in America, the counterpart to his famous Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in England?
· Why was I finding so few references to NCAT by the writers and organizations most strongly associated with the appropriate technology movement?
· I knew there was an E. F. Schumacher Society in Massachusetts. Were there historical connections between NCAT and the Society?
I started looking through old documents in the NCAT library and others that I found in the basement, as well as talking to some of the people who were at NCAT from the beginning. There were many unanswered questions, and important parts of NCAT’s history had been lost.[2]
In the fall of 2003, NCAT’s Executive Director Kathy Hadley asked me to visit the E.F. Schumacher Society, and I interviewed Executive Director Susan Witt. At the Schumacher Society library, I also had the opportunity to look through some of Schumacher’s personal books, letters, and papers. The report that follows was written for NCAT staff at around that time, although I have added other notes from time to time since then, whenever I came across anything interesting. This is strictly the work of an amateur historian, and all opinions expressed are my own. I would be happy to hear from anyone who can shed further light on this history.
The influence of E. F. Schumacher
In the late 1960s, the British economist E. F. Schumacher wrote a series of essays, many of which appeared in Resurgence magazine. Schumacher used the terms “appropriate technology” and—more often—“intermediate technology” to refer to technologies that fit local conditions, are inexpensive, small-scale, simple to use, made from local materials, do not deplete natural resources, and help create fulfilling jobs and workplaces, especially for poor and rural people.
Appropriate or intermediate technologies are intended to promote self-reliance. They are tools that people and communities can readily build, maintain, and use for themselves. A list of definitions of appropriate technology is included at the end of this report. Schumacher campaigned against approaches to poverty and international aid that ignored cultural and practical realities.[3] He took a special interest in rural people and rural livelihoods, responding to what he saw as a disastrous worldwide stampede from the countryside into urban areas.
Schumacher never defined “appropriate technology” precisely, and he preferred the term “intermediate technology,”[4] which he defined in terms of cost and sophistication. For example, a well-made hand shovel can be viewed as an intermediate technology, far more useful than either a stick (low cost/sophistication) or a steam shovel (high cost/sophistication) for a villager trying to dig a hole or a trench. I’ve included a list of standard examples of appropriate technology at the end of this report. For some reason, the term “intermediate technology” never really caught on, while the term “appropriate technology” quickly entered into the mainstream.[5]
Scholars typically portray Schumacher as not so much a systematic thinker as a professional economist who challenged prevailing ideas and assumptions and argued for a more humane and sustainable economic system. He was hugely popular during the 1970s. You could not attend college in America without seeing posters of Schumacher on dorm room walls. You could not read newspapers or listen to the radio without coming across references to Schumacher’s book Small Is Beautiful. Some important themes in his writings include:
· The importance of human scale.
· The idea of natural capital; treating nature as capital and not as income.
· Including concern for workers and environmental integrity in business decisions.
· The “economy of permanence,” based on sustainable use of natural resources.
· Decentralism and a belief in community self-reliance.
Schumacher is sometimes mistakenly described as an “anti-technology” thinker. It would be more accurate to say that he was trying to find a middle-ground, distinguishing himself from writers such as Charles Reich, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, and Theodore Roszak, who led the anti-science and anti-technology movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Susan Witt, Executive Director of the E. F. Schumacher Society, stressed that Schumacher was interested in finding balancing points between extremes. She quotes him as saying, “If small were popular I’d be in favor of big.”[6]
Schumacher was famous for being strongly influenced by Buddhism, and his best-known essay was undoubtedly “Buddhist Economics,” originally published in 1966. Schumacher coined this term when he travelled to Burma as an economic consultant for Prime Minister U Nu. [7]
Browsing through Schumacher’s personal library at the E. F. Schumacher Society was an interesting experience. He read widely in philosophy (especially British philosophy), religion, Eastern philosophy (especially Buddhism), mysticism, psychology, finance, and economic development. Despite Schumacher’s famous interest in Eastern philosophy, he was strongly grounded in the Western philosophical tradition. My own interpretation of Schumacher is that his philosophy draws heavily on Aristotle, and begins from the question of how to achieve and promote human happiness or flourishing.[8] Looking at the titles on his shelf, you couldn’t miss the fact that he was a devout Catholic.[9] Unfortunately, he was not a heavy underliner or writer-in-margins. I thumbed through his complete set of Aquinas’s Summa Theologica, but found little underlining and few comments.[10]
In 1966, Schumacher founded the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG) in England, with the mission of “demonstrating and advocating the sustainable use of technology to reduce poverty in developing countries.”[11] Schumacher also served as an early President of the Soil Association, Great Britain’s leading organic agriculture organization.
In 1967, Bob Swann, a carpenter, contractor, and social activist from Ohio, traveled to England, met Schumacher, and encouraged him to publish his essays in a book. Schumacher’s 1973 book Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered became an international best seller and was translated into over 100 languages. Schumacher also wrote two other books: A Guide for the Perplexed (1977) and Good Work (1979).[12]
In 1974, Swann organized a North American book tour for Schumacher. This hugely successful tour is often credited with jump-starting the sustainable energy movement in the U.S. At the end of the tour, Schumacher suggested that Swann establish a U.S.-based group (analogous to ITDG) to work at the interface of economics, land use, and applied technology.[13]
In 1980, Bob Swann founded the E. F. Schumacher Society near Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In recognition of Schumacher’s close friendship with Bob Swann, Schumacher’s family donated his personal library to the Society, as well as a large collection of books, journals, correspondence, and other materials relevant to Schumacher’s work and to the history of appropriate technology.
So if the Schumacher Society was the U.S. counterpart to ITDG, then what was NCAT? And why had there been so little interaction between the Schumacher Society and NCAT? I asked Susan Witt what she thought about this. She told me that she was very aware of NCAT in its early days, but had completely lost track of us. Other people that I met during my trip to Massachusetts remembered NCAT from the late 70s and early 80s but were surprised to learn that we still existed.
The origins of NCAT
From the mid-1970s on, the idea of appropriate technology blossomed into a major international movement. National centers for appropriate technology sprang up in dozens of developing countries, especially in Africa and Asia. Many of these centers still exist and are active. (A list is included at the end of this summary.)[14] The best known appropriate technology organizations in the United States were probably the Farallones Institute in California, founded in 1968, and the New Alchemy Institute in Massachusetts, founded in 1971.[15]
In response to the Arab oil embargo of 1973-4, President Jimmy Carter initiated several energy conservation programs through the Community Action Agencies, including a weatherization program for low-income households. In 1974, a group of low-income advocates and social activists from around the U.S. began meeting and calling themselves the National Center for Appropriate Technology. In 1976, with the Community Action Agencies as its core, NCAT was officially created by an act of Congress, as “the federal government’s first significant venture in appropriate technology.” NCAT’s goal was “to encourage widespread use of appropriate technologies that help alleviate problems of low-income Americans.” In the same year, Governor Jerry Brown established an Office of Appropriate Technology in California.[16]
Whether NCAT’s existence is dated to 1974 or 1976, it is one of the oldest surviving organizations of its kind. For example, NCAT is older than the U.S. Department of Energy (1977) and has a strong claim to being America’s oldest energy conservation organization.[17]
Montana’s Senator Mike Mansfield insisted that the new NCAT be located in Butte. Senator Mansfield had worked in Butte’s copper mines as a young man, and he wanted to do something positive for the town. The organization was located in a historic building that had originally been the Silver Bow County Poor Farm, and had been standing vacant for many years.
It’s hard to say which was more unpopular: the decision to locate NCAT in a ruined mining town in Montana or the decision to embrace a British economist associated somehow with Buddhism as the group’s philosophical leader. The idea that poor Americans needed the same tools and approaches that Schumacher was advocating for extreme poverty in the developing world must have struck many people as puzzling, audacious, or even insulting.
Many of NCAT’s organizers and board members were dismayed, feeling that a more urban and ethnically diverse location would have been a better choice for serving America’s poor. Original NCAT board member Moses Freeman told me that when he learned about the decision to locate in Montana, he felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him.[18] In reading through NCAT’s early reports, the emphasis on serving low-income people is unmistakable, while the commitment to appropriate technology is somewhat downplayed.[19] For example, the first annual report begins this way:
“Appropriate Technology addresses the needs for small-scale technologies as solutions to the problems of rapidly rising costs of energy, the increasing shortages of non-renewable energy resources, and the continuing problem of devising ways in which individuals and communities can become self-sufficient and self-reliant. Although these problems affect the entire country, it is the low-income communities which have been most affected by the current energy crisis and which are most in need of effective assistance to achieve self-reliance.”[20]
The staff members who arrived to start work at NCAT in 1977 found themselves in an extremely troubled community. The area around Butte was contaminated with a century’s worth of toxic mine and smelter wastes. The end of underground mining around 1955 had devastated the area’s economy. Thousands of homes were demolished to make room for open-pit mining operations, and the city’s population fell from 115,000 in 1917 to about 30,000 in 1960. Between 1972 and 1975, arson fires destroyed more than 20 major buildings in Butte’s historic commercial district, and a quarter of the remaining commercial space stood vacant. [21] In 1976—while Senator Mansfield was pitching his NCAT proposal to Congress—a task force of civic leaders in Butte formally recommended that the town’s historic uptown business district should be abandoned. The city council initially accepted these recommendations, but later reversed itself, and the business district was spared.[22] Mining in Butte stopped completely in 1983.
Schumacher’s visit to Montana
In the spring of 1977, Schumacher, now world-famous, again toured North America, speaking to overflowing crowds. He spent two days in March in Helena, at a highly-publicized forum on the economic future of Montana. The event was staged as a quasi-debate, with the wealthy entrepreneur Malcolm Forbes as the other keynote speaker.[23] In his speech, Schumacher shocked Montanans by calling the state an “internal colony” of the United States. He urged Montanans to build local economies and cast aside their historic role as a provider of low-priced raw materials for industry. [24]
This event coincided with the opening of NCAT, creating at least the appearance of an official “blessing” by Schumacher. The new NCAT board met in Helena during the symposium, and at least some of the board members personally met Schumacher.[25] Schumacher made a passing reference to NCAT in his speech, but he probably played little or no direct role in the founding of NCAT.[26] Schumacher’s attitude towards NCAT will probably never be known; he died of a heart attack only six months later, on September 6, 1977.
NCAT’s early years
To say that NCAT’s first years were turbulent would be an extreme understatement. Staff members and a large 27-member board disagreed about the organization’s mission and splintered into factions: Some saw it as an engineering research and development center, while others saw NCAT as an advocacy organization for low-income people. NCAT’s first Executive Director, Jim Schmidt, left in disgust within a few months, saying, “If you want to help poor people, don’t give them technology, give them guns.” Others (including Senator Mansfield) continued to see NCAT as an economic development vehicle for Butte and Montana. The engineering staff was also split along political lines, with some viewing Schumacher as a socialist and preferring the more free market approach of Amory Lovins.[27]
From 1977 to 1981, NCAT operated an Appropriate Technology Small Grants Program, sending staff to work in locations around the country. The manifesto Energy and the Poor, written by NCAT’s Technical Director John McBride, brought national attention to NCAT as a champion of low-income people coping with energy costs.
By 1980 NCAT had awarded 360 grants totaling $2.7 million to community action programs and other community groups. The main focus of this work was renewable energy and conservation, but NCAT also worked on housing issues, food production, transportation, and economic development.[28] Hundreds of people traveled to Butte to receive technical training, then returned to their communities to launch projects.
Many of the grant recipients from NCAT’s first year of existence were small volunteer groups that have long since disappeared. But others are still in existence, including The Center for Rural Studies, The Trust for Public Land, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners’ Association, the Center for Local Self-Reliance (now called the Institute for Local Self-Reliance), The Land Institute, the Boston Urban Gardeners, and numerous Community Action Agencies around the country.
Decline of the appropriate technology movement
For the first three or four years of its existence, NCAT rode the wave of popularity surrounding the appropriate technology movement. At its peak, NCAT’s Butte office building housed over 100 staff members. In 1981, newly-elected President Ronald Reagan terminated the Community Services Administration, leaving NCAT without institutional or financial support. At NCAT’s low point, only four staff members joined Executive Director Jon Sesso in the Butte headquarters building.
During the Reagan years, many of the best-known appropriate technology organizations in the United States went out of existence. In 1982, newly-elected California Governor George Deukmejian abolished the California Office of Appropriate Technology.[29]
Historians debate the reasons for the decline of the appropriate technology movement. Certainly Schumacher’s death was a blow, depriving the movement of its charismatic leader. But other forces were certainly at work too. Pursell describes the decline of the appropriate technology movement as part of a broader campaign to “remasculinize” America after its defeat in the Vietnam War, noting that the movement consistently defined itself in feminine terms, related to “soft paths” and being “gentle on the earth.”[30]
You can make a case that the appropriate technology movement didn’t die so much as it went underground. The term “appropriate technology” was largely erased from the national vocabulary, although ideas and influences from the movement remained. Pursell comments, “The technologies themselves—solar energy, the generation of electricity by windmills, the utilization of abandoned dams for low-head hydroelectric generation, the development of methane gas and gasohol for fuel, a reemphasis on bicycles and mass transit, recycling and the use of natural materials, composting and sustainable (often organic) agriculture—survive, but without an ideological context which could give them political meaning.”[31]
While the term “appropriate technology” has fallen out of common usage in the United States, the term is still common in the world of international development. Many Peace Corps workers remember receiving a copy of Small Is Beautiful or the encyclopedic Appropriate Technology Library – now available as a set of CD-ROMs containing the complete text of 1,050 books covering “small water supply systems, renewable energy devices such as water mills and improved cook stoves, agricultural tools and implements, intensive gardening, conformal education, small business management, transportation, small industries and other topics.”
Somehow NCAT survived and diversified its funding sources. Many of these new projects had little connection to low-income issues. The NCAT website notes that “staff remained committed to the promise of appropriate technology, even though a low-income focus became harder to maintain.”[32] In 1984, NCAT started the National Appropriate Technology Assistance Service (NATAS), an information clearinghouse, technical assistance service, and toll-free phone line funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. In 1987, NCAT began operating a similar program designed specifically for farmers and rural people: Appropriate Technology Transfer to Rural Areas (ATTRA).[33]
NCAT and the E. F. Schumacher Society
NCAT today is a complex organization with a rich and distinguished history. NCAT was born in ambivalence about the appropriate technology movement, and that ambivalence continues to the present. Ten of NCAT’s fifteen current board members are affiliated with low-income advocacy organizations. There are strong cultural remnants from Schumacher’s writings, the appropriate technology movement, and Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, somehow coexisting with various elements of Butte’s own complex and tragic history. [34] Like Butte itself, NCAT was supposed to relocate or disappear, but it has survived.
Meanwhile, the E. F. Schumacher Society has never wavered from its mission of “presenting knowledge too valuable to be forgotten.” The term “appropriate technology” is not prominent in the Society’s website or literature, however. [35] Instead, the Society sees itself as preserving and supporting the tradition of decentralism, taking its motto from Kirkpatrick Sale: “Think locally, act locally, live locally - it is, really, our only hope.”
The society holds annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, “a public forum for scholars and activists working in the Schumacher tradition.”[36] One way to measure the influence of the appropriate technology movement is by scanning the list of distinguished speakers in this series. These include (to name a few) Peter Barnes, Thomas Berry, Wendell Berry, David Brower, David Ehrenfeld, Richard Heinberg, Hazel Henderson, Ivan Illich, Wes Jackson, Jane Jacobs, Andrew Kimbrell, David Korten, Winona LaDuke, Frances Moore Lappé, Amory Lovins, Jerry Mander, George McRobie, David Morris, Helena Norberg-Hodge, David Orr, Kirkpatrick Sale, Michael H. Shuman, Bob Swann, John Todd, Nancy Jack Todd, Greg Watson, and Judy Wicks.
The Society also maintains an eight-thousand volume library of books, pamphlets, and tapes, and specialized bibliographies, focused on decentralism, human-scale societies, regionally based economic systems, local currency experiments, and community land trusts. In 1998, a 25th Anniversary edition of Small Is Beautiful was published, with commentary from Robert Bateman, David Brower, Herman Daly, David Ehrenfeld, Paul Hawken, Hazel Henderson, Wes Jackson, Jane Jacobs, Winona LaDuke, Amory Lovins, David Morris, David Orr, Kirkpatrick Sale, Nancy Jack Todd, Susan Witt, and others.[37]
SOME DEFINITIONS OF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
(Many of these are from www.gdrc.org/techtran/a-tech/define-at.html)
"Appropriate technology is technology with a human face."
(Source: E. F. Schumacher)
“The central tenet of appropriate technology (AT) is that a technology should be designed to fit into and be compatible with its local setting. Examples of current projects generally classified as AT include: passive solar design; active solar collectors for heating and cooling; small windmills to provide electricity; roof-top gardens and hydroponic greenhouses; permaculture; and worker-managed craft industries. There is a general agreement, however, that the main goal of the AT movement is to enhance the local self-reliance of people on a local level.”
(Source: Mark Roseland, 25th Anniversary edition of Small Is Beautiful)
Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, cultural, social and economic aspects of the community it is intended for. With these goals in mind, AT typically requires fewer resources, is easier to maintain, has a lower overall cost and less of an impact on the environment.
(Source: Wikipedia)
“It’s cheap and it works.”
Source: Engineer Ray Schott, describing how appropriate technology was understood by the engineering staff at NCAT in the late 1970s.[38]
The application of current scientific knowledge and technology in such a way so as to conform with existing economic, infrastructure, social, and cultural conditions and practices. By extension, the concept implies the implementation of low-technology solutions incorporating simplicity of design, use, and maintenance.
Source: NALMS
Technology suitable to local conditions.
(Source: Cooperating for Development )
A technology that complements the factor endowments of the country.
(Source: Virtual Zambia)
A flexible and participatory approach to developing economically viable, regionally applicable and sustainable technology.
(Source: IISD Developing Ideas)
Set of useful technologies imposing least intellectual economic, social, or even environmental costs to the country.
(Source: Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences)
Designed to be used in developing countries and should be easy to use by the unskilled, and easily repaired on the spot.
(Source: Vestas, IUCN)
Appropriate Technology (AT) describes a way of providing for human needs with the least impact on the Earth's finite resources. Is the technology built locally or use local materials? Can it be built, or at least maintained, with a minimum of specialized training? Is its use sustainable over many generations? Does it cause suffering in its manufacturing or use, human or otherwise, disproportionate to its benefits? Can we financially afford it? It's a way of evaluating a technology, a way of thinking about the social, economic, and environmental impacts of introducing a technology into our lives, and a technology may be appropriate in some situations and not in others.
(Source: Campus Center for Appropriate Technology)
Appropriate technology is being mindful of what we're doing and aware of the consequences. Appropriate technology works from the bottom up; it is not an overlay to the situation; it is a genuine grassroots solution to economic needs.
(Source: Journey to Forever)
Appropriate Technology reflects an approach to technological development, characterized by creative and sound engineering, that recognizes the social, environmental, political, economic, as well as, technical aspects of a proposed technological solution to a problem facing a society. Generally appropriate technologies are smaller scale technologies, that are ecologically and socially benign, affordable, and often powered by renewable energy.
(Source: Dennis Scanlin )
Technology that is accessible and affordable to ordinary women and men to use in their own communities, and which is both economically and environmentally sustainable for them.
(Source: Center for Applied Community Technology Systems)
Technology that is essential, affordable, of low maintenance and furthers the sustainable use and management of resources and opportunities in arid lands with due discernment of the local environmental, social, economic and political settings, conditions and values.
(Source: Appropriate Technologies for Arid Lands)
SOME EXAMPLES OF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY
(from the Appropriate Technology Sourcebook[39])
· agriculture: environmentally sound, small-scale, simple, permaculture, organic farming, alternative crops, composting, recycling, integrated pest management and alternatives to pesticides, small-scale irrigation, hydroponics, aquaculture, small-scale livestock projects
· agricultural tools: small-scale, simple, low-cost, home-made, hand-operated, animal-powered, solar-powered, wind-powered, hydro-powered
· crop drying: preservation, and storage: small scale, simple, low-cost, home-made, solar-powered
· forestry: environmentally sound, small-scale, sustainable, income-producing
· aquaculture: environmentally sound, income-producing, small-scale.
· water supply and sanitation: environmentally sound, water-conserving, small- scale, healthy, suitable for rural areas and small communities, hand-powered pumping, simple inexpensive pumps
· energy: renewable, efficient, pedal-powered, alternatives to fossil fuel, fuel from farms
· improved cookstoves and charcoal production: fuel-saving, efficient, healthy, small- scale
· wind energy: for irrigation, small-scale, homemade, inexpensive,
· water power: micro-hydro electric, low-cost, small-scale, water wheels, water mills, small earth dams,
· solar energy:
· biogas:
· housing and construction:
· transportation:
· health care:
· science teaching:
· nonformal education and training:
· small enterprises and cooperatives:
· local communications:
· beekeeping:
· small industries:
· disaster preparedness and relief:
SOME APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZATIONS
The Alaska Center for Appropriate Technology www.acat.org
Founded in 1993, “ACAT is committed to promoting technological advances that can provide both rural and urban communities with diverse, sustainable economies to support future generations.”
Alternative Technology Association, Australia (Brunswick East, Australia) www.ata.org.au
With more than 3000 members, the ATA(Alternative Technology Association) is Australia's leading environmental organisation promoting sustainable technology and representing community issues. ATA provides practical information about harnessing renewable energy sources such as the sun, wind and water. ATA also offers advice on conserving energy, building with natural materials, reducing the use of and recycling natural resources and working with appropriate technology to create a sustainable future.
The Appropriate Technology and Community Development Institute (ATCDI) (Papua, New Guinea) www.unitech.ac.pg/Unitech_General/ATCDI%20Web/indwat.html
Aims to aid rural communities within Papua New Guinea. “We receive requests for assistance in the areas of water supply and civil engineering, small-scale electricity production, small industry and business and food technology.”
The Appropriate Technology Centre (Near Freetown, Sierra Leone)
“FOESL for quite a long time has viewed the current situation as a youth problem and decided to help solve this acute problem by developing an appropriate technology system to bring the situation to a sustainable horizon. These youths are sure to be trained to become useful in their different communities making Sierra Leone a safe and progressive society. The center is actually focusing on women and girls in the rebuilding process of a new Sierra Leone so that they can be active in decision making matters.”
The Appropriate Technology Program at Appalachian State University (Boone, North Carolina)
Founded in 1977, this is currently the only program of its kind in the country and is likely the oldest continuing operating university program for the study of Appropriate Technology in the United States. The Appropriate Technology (AT) concentration has been a program area in the Technology Department of Appalachian State University for 17 years and for an additional 6 years it was known as Earth Studies in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department.
ApproTEC: Appropriate Technologies for Enterprise Creation www.approtec.org (San Francisco, CA)
“ApproTEC is a non-profit organization that develops and markets new technologies in Africa. These low-cost technologies are bought by local entrepreneurs, and used to establish highly profitable new small businesses. They create new jobs and new wealth and allow the poor to climb out of their poverty forever.”
Aprovecho Research Center www.efn.org/%7Eapro
“Aprovecho is a center for research, experimentation and education on alternative technologies that are ecologically sustainable and culturally responsive. Our fields of study include organic gardening, sustainable forestry, and appropriate technology. The center is located on a beautiful 40-acre land trust near Eugene, Oregon.”
ApTibet: Appropriate Technology for Tibetans www.aptibet.org
An environmental NGO working at grass roots level with Tibetans in India, saving lives and helping them to build a sustainable future through the use of appropriate technologies.
ATA: Appropriate Technology Association, Thailand http://iisd1.iisd.ca/50comm/commdb/desc/d15.htm
A non-profit organisation with a mandate to carry out research and development, and promote novel, appropriate technology for the betterment of rural society. In 1985 the ATA initiated a major project called the Local Weaving Development Project (LWDP), which aimed to empower rural women in the north east (Esaan) provinces by providing them with leadership skills and managerial techniques.
BASIN: A Network on Appropriate Building Technologies www.gtz.de/basin
Founded in 1989 to disseminate qualified advice and information relating to appropriate and proven building technologies. It is a federation of non-profit-making organisations and was established by three, later four, European appropriate technology (AT) organisations - GATE, ITDG, SKAT and CRATerre.
Campus Center for Appropriate Technology (Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA)
www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/home/index.html
Founded in 1978, “Promoting sustainable living through education for 25 years.” Program areas include alternative building, biodiesel, conservation, non-toxic household, pedal power, recycling, renewable energy, solar cooking, solar heating, sustainable agriculture, water.”
Center for Appropriate Rural Technology (Mysore, India)
“CART is at present a very vibrant well established Appropriate Technology Resource center, which is enjoying excellent credibility from grass roots level practitioners, policy makers, and academic community. CART was started in 1991 as a project, it evolved into a department and today it stands as an independent center having attached to the National Institute of Engineering at Mysore, India.”
The Center for Appropriate Technology (Washington, DC) www.c4at.org
“An American non-profit organization that works on nonproliferation and appropriate technology development in Russia.”
The Center for Appropriate Transport (Eugene, OR) www.efn.org/~cat/
A non-profit organization committed to community involvement in manufacturing, using, and advocating sustainable modes of transportation. The first organization of its kind, the Center was founded in Eugene, Oregon in the fall of 1992.
The Centre for Alternative Technology www.cat.org.uk
Calling itself “Europe’s leading eco-centre,” CAT is “concerned with the search for globally sustainable, whole and ecologically sound technologies and ways of life. Within this search the role of CAT is to explore and demonstrate a wide range of alternatives, communicating to other people the options for them to achieve positive change in their own lives.”
The Center for Ecological Technology (Pittsfield, MA) www.cetonline.org
Since 1976, the Center for Ecological Technology (CET) has helped the communities of western Massachusetts meet the normal challenges of daily life with practical, affordable and environmentally sound solutions, especially in the areas of energy and natural resource conservation.
The D Lab http://web.mit.edu/d-lab/#
Founded by mechanical engineer and Macarthur Genius Award winner Amy Smith, the D Lab involves engineering students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in solving problems for extremely poor communities around the world.
Development Center for Appropriate Technology (Tucson, AZ) www.dcat.net
Founded in 1991, “The Development Center for Appropriate Technology works to enhance the health of the planet and our communities by promoting a shift to sustainable construction and development through leadership, strategic relationships, and education.”
The E. F. Schumacher Society www.smallisbeautiful.org
Founded in 1980. “Our programs demonstrate that both social and environmental sustainability can be achieved by applying the values of human-scale communities and respect for the natural environment to economic issues.”
The German Appropriate Technology and Ecoefficiency Programme www.5.gtz.de/gate
“Our objectives are to improve the technological competence of NGOs and other groups involved in self-help-oriented poverty alleviation and to develop information and knowledge management systems for NGOs and self-help groups.”
Global Village: the Institute for Appropriate Technology (Summertown, TN)
Global Village is a non-profit organization created in 1974 and chartered as a tax-exempt charity in 1980 for the purpose of researching promising new technologies that can benefit humanity in environmentally friendly ways. The philosophy of the Institute is that emerging technologies that link the world together are not ethically neutral, but often have long-term implications for viability of natural systems, human rights and our common future.
Institute of Appropriate Technology at Bangladesh U. of Engineering & Technology
www.buet.ac.bd/iat
Supports development of national indigenous capability in selection, generation and dissemination of technologies appropriate to the national development objectives of Bangladesh.
The International Center for Appropriate and Sustainable Technology [ICAST] (Golden, CO) www.ic-ast.org
A not-for-profit organization chartered to serve four main constituencies to further the understanding, development, and implementation of appropriate and sustainable technologies. The four constituencies include industry, education, partners, and communities in the developed world and developing world.
Middle East Center for the Transfer of Appropriate Technology (MECTAT) (Beirut- Lebanon)
www.oieau.fr/ciedd/contributions/at3/contribution/3mectat1.htm
“We promote the use of renewable sources of energy, energy conversation, waste minimization and management techniques. Also alternative agricultural techniques are promoted.”
The New Economics Foundation (London)
An independent think and do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being…We aim to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues. We work in partnership and put people and the planet first.
PATH: Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (Seattle, WA) www.path.org
PATH's mission is to improve health, especially the health of women and children. An emphasis is placed on improving the quality of reproductive health services and on preventing and reducing the impact of widespread communicable diseases. PATH identifies, develops, and applies appropriate and innovative solutions to public health problems. This is accomplished by exchanging knowledge, skills, and technologies with governmental and nongovernmental partners in developing countries and with groups in need elsewhere.
Practical Action (formerly the Intermediate Technology Development Group) www.practicalaction.org
Founded in 1966 by E.F. Schumacher and others, the U.K.-based Practical Action “aims to demonstrate and advocate the sustainable use of technology to reduce poverty in developing countries.”
Rain Magazine (www.rainmagazine.com)
“Rain magazine has gone through many incarnations. In the seventies and eighties it was the magazine of appropriate technology, and gentle communal culture. In the late 80's, it was concerned with the running of non-profit organizations. In the 90's, we concentrated on the initiation of successful community projects.”
Resurgence Magazine (www.resurgence.org)
“Since 1966 Resurgence magazine has been one of the pillars of environmental thinking, generating an ecological awareness essential for human and planetary well-being and survival.” Published many early Schumacher articles.
Schumacher College (Devon, UK) An international centre for ecological studies based in the beautiful Devonshire countryside of south-west England.
Schumacher U.K. www.schumacher.org.uk
Founded in 1978, Schumacher UK is devoted to “promoting human scale and sustainable systems for social, economic and environmental development.”
[1] Among the many NCAT staff who provided stories about the early days of NCAT, I would especially like to thank Moses Freeman, John McBride, Ray Schott, and Rose Sullivan. I would also like to thank Susan Witt, Executive Director of the E. F. Schumacher Society, for an interview in October 2003 and subsequent correspondence about the historical connections between NCAT and the E.F. Schumacher Society.
[2] Unfortunately, many of NCAT’s early papers were lost in an arson fire in the Butte office building during the 1990s.
[3] According to historian Carroll Pursell, “The Appropriate Technology movement had its origins in perceived failings of the post-World War II technical aid efforts…in Third World countries but also quickly developed into a critique of American domestic technology.” (“The Rise and Fall of the Appropriate Technology Movement in the United States, 1965-1985,” Technology and Culture volume 34, number 3, pp. 629-637, July 1993)
[4] The term “appropriate technology” only appears two or three times in all of Schumacher’s famous book Small Is Beautiful, while the term “intermediate technology” appears dozens of times, on at least 20 different pages.
[5] Schumacher was not the first person to use “appropriate technology” in this context. For example, in 1959 a group of engineers calling themselves Volunteers in Technical Assistance offered technical assistance “to enable low-income communities to use locally available and appropriate resources to meet their own needs for economic and social development.” (Pursell, op. cit., p. 632)
[6] Interview with Susan Witt, October 2003.
[7] From 1950 to 1970 Schumacher was Chief Economic Advisor to the British Coal Board, one of the world's largest organizations, with 800,000 employees. A good biography is on the Schumacher Society’s website, at http://www.schumacher.org.uk/about_efschumacher.htm
[8] This (if true) would make Schumacher ahead of his time. Aristotle’s “virtue-based” approach to ethics was widely seen as obsolete in the 1960s and 1970s, but interest in this approach has skyrocketed from the mid-1980s until the present day.
[9] If you go to the E.F. Schumacher Society’s website (www.smallisbeautiful.org), you can search through the book titles in Schumacher’s personal library, to see what he was reading.
[10] The Summa Theologica was a monumental 13th century effort—3,000 pages long in one contemporary edition—to use Aristotle’s terminology and theories to explain and defend Catholic teachings.
[11] In 2005, the Intermediate Technology Development Group changed its name to “Practical Action.” According to the group’s website, “Whilst we felt affection for our name, and it is part of our history, it was often not helping us deliver our work.” http://practicalaction.org/?id=practicalaction
[12] Given the popularity of Small Is Beautiful, it’s surprising how few people have even heard about these other two books. A number of Schumacher’s essays also remain unpublished. In the Schumacher Society library I found 27 articles by him published in Resurgence magazine, the majority of which have not been anthologized to my knowledge. There may have been articles in other places too.
[13] This history is told in the website of the E.F. Schumacher Society, http://smallisbeautiful.org/about/overview.html.
[14] Throughout its history, NCAT has worked almost exclusively within the United States, and has had little contact with these other national centers for appropriate technology around the world.
[15] There must have been interactions between the early NCAT and both organizations. Unfortunately, the Farallones Institute closed in 1990 and the New Alchemy Institute ceased operation in 1991.
[16] An Alaska Center for Appropriate Technology was founded much later (1993) and still exists, although it is a non-profit organization, not (like the California Office of Appropriate Technology) a state agency.
[17] There are older renewable energy organizations, such as the American Solar Energy Society (1954), at least one older energy policy organization, the Consumer Energy Council of America Research Foundation (1973), and a handful of state and regional energy organizations from the same era, like the California Energy Commission (1974), the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (1975), and the Massachusetts-based Center for Ecological Technology (1976). In 1977, an Appropriate Technology program was created at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, and still survives.
[18] For many years, NCAT maintained an office in Washington, DC, although that office was eventually closed.
[19] On the other hand, based on a congressional report that Rose Sullivan found in the NCAT Library, many of the Congressional leaders who voted to authorize funds for NCAT clearly thought they were getting a counterpart to Schumacher’s Intermediate Technology Development Group.
[20] “The National Center for Appropriate Technology: First Annual Report, 1977-1978,” p. 1.
[21] Brian Shovers, “Remaking the Wide-Open Town: Butte at the End of the Twentieth Century.” http://mhs.mt.gov/education/cirguides/buttearticshovers.asp
[22] This debate must have influenced the decision to locate NCAT in the old Silver Bow County Poor Farm. The Poor Farm is located a couple miles from Butte’s uptown business district, and would have been spared—and adjacent to the new urban core—if the business district on the Butte Hill had been relocated. It would have made little sense to locate NCAT in the part of town that was slated to be demolished.
[23] Forbes gave a rambling, nervous speech, which he admitted he had prepared the night before, including remarks like “There’s an awful lot of baloney in the idea that small per se is better” and “Gee, our guru that’s comin’ here this afternoon—his country, England, is flat on its—I was gonna say ass, but I’ll say on its back.”
[24] Schumacher’s Helena lecture was filmed and distributed under the title E.F. Schumacher: As If People Mattered. This film is available on videotape from the NCAT Library, and can also be purchased from Bullfrog Films, www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/efs.html.
[25] During the same tour, Schumacher visited the new Land Institute, in Salina, Kansas. For humorous stories from this visit, see the Land Institute’s website, www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/1999/12/01/3aa417d49.
[26] This is the opinion of Susan Witt, Executive Director of the E. F. Schumacher Society. She could not remember seeing any reference to NCAT in Schumacher’s letters or writings, although it’s possible that a more thorough search of Schumacher’s personal papers would turn up something.
[27] The stories in this paragraph are from a 2002 interview with John McBride.
[28] This history is told in detail on the NCAT website, at www.ncat.org/about_history.html.
[29] Pursell, op. cit., p. 633.
[30] Of 69 employees currently listed in NCAT’s staff directory, 47 (over two thirds) are women. On the other hand, during his lifetime Schumacher got some well-deserved criticism for saying—in “Buddhist Economics”—that only a sick society would encourage women to work outside the home. In the Schumacher Library, I looked through Schumacher’s personal book collection for anything that would shed light on his views on women, but I came up empty-handed. I found no books whatsoever on feminism.
[31] Pursell, op. cit, p. 629.
[32] NCAT website, www.ncat.org/about_history.html.
[33] NATAS ceased operations in 1994. ATTRA (www.attra.ncat.org) is a thriving project with a $2.5 million annual budget, widely considered America’s largest and most trusted source of “how to” information on organic and sustainable agriculture.
[34] Before it became famous as the most environmentally devastated city in America, Butte was known as the place where the battle for Socialism in America was fought and lost, and was known as the Gibraltar of the American union movement. For much of the century every miner in Butte was paid an identical wage per day, regardless of seniority or skill level. Butte was one of the cities in the West with the greatest ethnic diversity. The two wealthiest men in the world lived in or near Butte at the beginning of the 20th century, and Butte was the most important and cosmopolitan city between Minneapolis and Seattle. Until the arson fires of the 1970s and 1980s, Butte had (along with San Francisco) the most magnificent collection of historic architecture in the western United States. Butte unapologetically embraced its image as a “wide open town,” where every form of vice was freely available. Butte’s miners and their families accepted without complaint countless deaths, horrific injuries, and respiratory diseases that were commonplace in the mines. People in Butte today believe, not unreasonably, that their efforts, sacrifices, and copper made it possible to win the Second World War.
[35] Adding to the confusion about which organization (if either) was supposed to be the American counterpart to the Intermediate Technology Development Group, NCAT has a much more practical emphasis (like ITDG), and has been a much larger organization than the Schumacher Society at most times since the late 70’s.
[36] See www.smallisbeautiful.org
[37] NCAT is not mentioned anywhere in the 25th Anniversary edition of Small Is Beautiful.
[38] Interview with Ray Schott, 2004.
[39] Darrow, Ken and Mike Saxenian, Appropriate Technology Sourcebook: a Guide to Practical Books for Village and Small Community Technology. Stanford, California: Volunteers in Asia, 1986.
Visit the National Center for Appropriate Technology website for more information.
