Time to Think Small: How Nimble Environmental Technologies Can Solve the Planet's Biggest Problems

by Todd Myers

Leverage the growing power of smartphones and other technologies to face our climate crisis.

Personal technologies are creating what the Environmental Defense Fund calls “a transformational shift” in how we address environmental problems. Time to Think Small explores how these brand-new approaches are already playing a huge role in winning some of the most difficult and important environmental struggles of our day–from fighting climate change, to ensuring drinkable water for everyone, to saving endangered animals, to keeping plastic out of the ocean.
 
Learn how these technologies magnify and multiply the power everyone has as individuals to save our environment and how this tremendous power is not only growing, but also has the huge benefit of being independent of sudden shifts in political leadership.
 
Drawing on two decades of environmental policy and a career working with endangered species mixed with his previous career in tech, Myers looks at the different ways we can be empowered to find environmental solutions.

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Brian S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book worth reading for the awareness it brings to the range of grass-roots environmental actions that are being enabled by now widely available, low cost technologies -- in particular smart phones. Granted, the book can be viewed as more of a collection of anecdotes as opposed to building a cohesive thesis, and it certainly isn't comprehensive, but the examples of environmental projects provided is enlightening and inspiring. I also appreciate that the author provides a balanced assessment of when "top down" (large government programs) approaches are appropriate/inappropriate versus grass-roots ones. Included in that assessment, the author points out how providing positive incentives for change (while providing detailed examples like collecting and recycling plastics in poor regions) often works better than penalties which we often see applied by governments.

[Colin Ng · Rating 3 out of 5]

A call-to-action for utilizing technology to confront environmental issues, Myers does a solid job of providing case studies in which readily available, current technology can be used by ambitious environmentalists to transform society. Additionally, he does confront the issues of the lack of innovation due to the consolidation of new technology by tech companies.

I think this would have been more enjoyable as a visual medium due to the sheer scope of different types of technologies and how they are applied to confront environmental issues. It becomes repetitive to read how someone realized they could use technology to help aid their cause. At a certain point, all things can be made easier, and more efficient, by having more exposure to technology.

[Seth Dunn · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's not horrible, I just can't stand the prose. I can't find any overarching logical or argumentative structure within the book as a whole or within individual chapters. There are very few numbers or mathematical figures used.

A lot of it reads as simply listing and describing environmental startups. The use of thinkers like Ostrom and Coase was a bit fast and loose for my taste. Taken at face value, the thesis is mostly harmless, if overstated. Mostly, I was just bored.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, optimistic, and exciting review of a couple of dozen "small" ideas to create large, positive environmental changes. The author points out that when change is dropped on our heads from above, putting all our eggs in one basket, often the controlling authority has it wrong. He provides a few examples of expensive government-mandated environmental policies that went nowhere.

The flip side? When we each have a computer in our pocket and the ability to aggregate the data collected by these computers, our phones, we can make individual decisions that are in our own best interest AND, in the aggregate, benefiting all of us. Myers gives us several interesting examples, none of which I'd ever heard of before, all of which I enjoyed reading about.

Myers writes with enthusiasm and a positive spirit. He conveys that results that are not economical are not "good" results, even if the outcome may be positive. Good results are positive and make economic sense. These types of results are self-replicating.

A very fun and satisfying read.