A Fork in the Future: Fighting Darkness with Design

The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed the world. One year in and the lucky ones have only witnessed unspeakable atrocities, some unfolding in real time on live television. According to UN statistics, roughly 13 million people — from a pre-war population of 44 million — have either fled the country or have been “displaced internally,” losing their homes. And about the same number require urgent humanitarian assistance.

In US terms, that would be the equivalent of more than 110 million people suddenly being forced to flee for their lives. Another another 110 people barely hanging on.

The destruction, ongoing with no end in sight, is impossible to comprehend, much less imagine how it could possibly get worse. But with Putin’s repudiation of the last shred of the last nuclear treaty it just did. The professional worriers at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set the “Doomsday Clock” to its closest ever to “midnight.” Now it ticks a little closer.

So what can the average person do to make any kind of difference beyond, of course, supporting Ukrainian relief efforts?

According to the BBC’s Food Programme podcast, one, admittedly small, move in the right direction involves fishing out the slow cooker (aka “crockpot”) that’s been stashed and forgotten in the depths of your cupboards—and, you’re at it, pressure cooker and the air fryer, too. This isn’t about food relief exactly, but rather about the energy needed to cook food.

An eye-popping 45% of the Russian federal budget comes oil and gas revenues, so the more the world doesn’t need what Russia has to sell, the poorer and weaker Russia gets. In fact, transitioning away from fossil fuels — no matter where they’re sourced — in favor of renewables puts global commodity prices in the cross-hairs. At least that’s the general, big picture idea. Bonus: reduced greenhouse emissions and a steadier climate.

There are many factors that drive the cost of energy up and down, from government subsidies to embargoes by cartels such as OPEC. As the Russian war machine ramped up in 2022, so did the political posturing for sanctions (the West) and supply cut-offs (Russia). The upshot in the near term was sky high utility bills for rate-payers in countries far from front lines.

Which brings us to the slow cooker’s unexpected rise as a symbol of justice in the UK, along with its kitchen compatriots the pressure cooker, the air fryer and the ubiquitous microwave.

“It’s quite amazing. For certain foods, up to 60% of the environmental impact can be at the cooking phase,” notes Christian Reynolds from the Centre for Food Policy at City University, London. It costs about a pound (US $1.20) to fire up a oven to bake a a potato for an hour, notes Reynolds, versus 20 pence (24¢) for a brief stint in a microwave. Although more potatoes can fit into an oven at no extra cost, the microwave can zap as many as four potatoes serially and still deliver an energy bargain.

Meanwhile, restaurants, feeling the bite of soaring energy prices, have embraced old-fashioned pressure cookers that leverage trapped steam to speed up cooking.

Slow cookers are having a moment in part thanks to Nathan Anthony, an Irish home cook who began posting recipes on TikTok and Instagram during the Covid lockdowns. His first book, “Bored of Lunch” became a bestseller, knocking Prince Harry’s “Spare”off the top of the UK charts. A second book of air fryer recipes is due out in March.

Countertop appliances may seem like, well, small potatoes, but collective efficiency adds up.

Fat Pipes / Small Motors

Amory Lovins, co-founder of RMI, an influential energy think-tank and consultancy, has long championed a whole systems methodology called integrative design. Rather than focus on any one particular technology to deliver energy savings, this approach leverages synergies. It is not about the return on investment (ROI) of any single component, but rather the performance of the aggregate: capital cost (CapEx) and operational costs (OpEx).

For his own home high up in the Colorado Rockies, he “tunneled through the cost barrier,” installing far more insulation than would be justified by a typical ROI analysis. The combination of super-insulation, super-efficient windows, and a custom-designed ventilation and heat recovery system cost only slightly more than installing an HVAC system with pricey duct work. The capital pay back was measured in months. Four decades later, the energy savings continue to accrue.

There are three guiding principles to the methodology:

• Start with outcomes: What does success look like?
• Select from an ever-expanding assemblage of technologies, strategies and business models
• Make sure each part of the system serves at least two or three functions.

Integrative design works at every scale. Using the methodology, the Empire State Building was able to slash energy demand by 38% a decade ago. And because the assemblage of tools is always expanding, yesterday’s spectacular results can always be improved.

With a focus on systems rather than parts, solving for “x” often leads to “virtuous circles” with better, bonus answers for “y” and “z,” too.

Even small changes that require nothing more than Victorian-era engineering can have astonishing ramifications.

By designing a plumbing system that used fat pipes and 30° to 45° bends, instead of conventional skinny pipes with sharp 90° “elbow” joints, Lovins was able to reduce the friction caused by liquids pumping through the pipes by as much as 90%. This means much, much smaller motors needed to power pumps, which means much less energy required to power motors. Given that half the world’s electricity is used to run motors and half of the motors are used to power pumps, it adds up.

“The only obstacle is force of habit,” says Lovins. “We should bend minds. Not pipes.”

A Fork in the Future

It is so easy to go down the path of the possible. Add insulation. Use a slow cooker. Transition to renewables. Rethink plumbing. Turn bus systems into de facto “peaker” power plants, kitted out with EV charging infrastructure. Create a food system based on healthy, carbon-sequestering soil microbiomes instead of fossil fuels. Develop environmentally-compatible materials. Design with instead of against nature.

An big yes to every innovation that gets us to a climate-stable, cleaner future. We have everything we need to dramatically move the dial right now. Even on a planet with finite resources, we have it in our collective power to do far, far more with much, much less.

We have it in our power to be better.

But it is also in our deeply flawed human nature to be worse.

Big Lies. Fake News. Racism. Sexism. Too many “isms.” Madness at scale. Putin’s delusions about Peter the Great—dead now for over 300 years—and his visions of a Greater Russia (MRGA — Make Russia Great Again) have left a trail of death, broken bodies, broken families, broken buildings and broken dreams. The war has also slashed the grain harvest from one of the world’s most important “breadbaskets. So higher food prices for everyone and for the poorest, hunger.

Ukraine stays in the headlines because of its proximity to Europe: the frontline of “WWII, cont’d” Or, with the demise of the last nuclear treaty, possibly WWIII. Today, February 24, is the bitter anniversary of a war that didn’t have to happen, moment to remember thousands of lives that didn’t need to be lost.

But there are so many places around our battered world where suffering has become the status quo: Afghanistan, Venezuela, South Sudan.

And in the background, greenhouse gases continue to build up in the atmosphere, turning Earth into a kind of planetary pressure cooker. Extreme weather systems are locked, loaded and aimed straight at us. Cars bobbing up and down flooded roads have become a defining symbol of the 21st century.

So what is it to be? Which future will prevail? The one I want, the one with the smarter plumbing and slow cooker feasts, is going to take work. The default is the menacing future. It is always easier and faster to destroy than to build.

Our species, Homo Sapiens, is the last of the hominins, a two million-year experiment that has seen mostly failures as one after another of our relatives have gone extinct. By contrast, there are nearly 3,000 species of mosquitoes (only 200 of which present a disease vector threat — mostly they’re fish and frog food and pollinators).

It is extremely rare in nature to be the last of a kind. At least it was before our species set in motion what has been called the “sixth mass extinction.”

Yet here we are, remarkably still with the power to set our destiny, to reverse the odds, to choose prosperity over misery.

Will we?