Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper

In the face of today's environmental and economic challenges, doomsayers preach that the only way to stave off disaster is for humans to reverse course: to de-industrialize, re-localize, reduce consumption and forswear development. But in this timely and much-needed rebuke, Robert Bryce shows that the real solutions to our problems are to be found in the innovations and technologies of the future, and in the force that inspires their invention: the inexorable human drive to make things smaller, faster, lighter, denser, cheaper.

Utilizing on-the-ground reporting from Ottawa and Panama to Bakersfield, California and Canadian County, Oklahoma, along with an easy-to-read narrative, numerous company profiles, graphics, and photographs, Bryce shows how things are getting better, a lot better. They are getting better thanks to technologies that improve the quality of our lives and help preserve the natural world -- technologies like the vacuum tube and mass-produced fertilizer, the printing press and mobile phones, nanotech medicine and advanced drill rigs -- all provide vivid proof of our desire to find smaller faster solutions.

He profiles well-known companies like Ford and Intel, along with newer ones like Khan Academy and M-PESA, to show how businesses are helping to create a world in which people are living longer, freer, healthier, lives than at any time in human history. "Smaller, Faster, Lighter, Denser, Cheaper" reveals that the tools we need to save the planet aren't to be found in the technologies or lifestyles of the past. Nor must we sacrifice prosperity and human progress to ensure our survival. The path to a sustainable future will be forged by innovators and businesses all over the world who will continue making things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper because, well, that's what we humans do.

About the Author

Robert Bryce is an American author and journalist in Austin, Texas. His articles on energy, politics, and other topics have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Counterpunch, and Atlantic Monthly.