In 2008 fifty thousand visitors from all over the globe made the journey up the water-powered funicular railway to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT). Located near Machynlleth in the very center of Wales, CAT has been a haven for green thinking and sustainable design over the last three decades. In the past it attracted the tuned-in, the passionate, and the curious. Now, with climate change a front-page newspaper story and sustainability an element of everyday life, CAT has become a hub for environmental communication, research, and development.

I have been living and working at CAT myself for more than twenty-five years as a ...