Freeconomist without a cent Today is ‘Buy Nothing Day’, a chance for the wealthy to ease the pressure on their conscience - but pretty galling for anyone in genuine poverty.

We are all encouraged to take a “global holiday from consumerism” and have a 24-hour break from any kind of shopping. It certainly has an added resonance in the credit crunch.

It’s quite another thing to go without spending any money for a whole year.

That’s what Mark Boyle (29) says he planning to do. Starting today Boyle,
>>Keep reading “Buy Nothing Year”

Seth Price art work

In , artist Seth Price’s new book from Leopard Press, reams of information on how to leave your life and escape into the vast cloud of America is culled from Internet sites aimed at helping everyone from abused spouses to off-the-grid hippies. Price happens to be neither, but is a brilliant manipulator and re-brander of mass production. His work is as much about getting found as it is about getting lost. His new book is not be confused with . Reena Spaulings talks with the New York artist.
>>Keep reading “How to disappear in America”

Hannah:her hands are clean “I can’t stand the word “green,” says actress and biofuel campaigner Daryl Hannah. And she’s not the only one. All over the environmental movement we’ re sick of Greenwash, and we’re not going to take it any more.

“It’s become a pedantic, smug, judgmental word that is unrelated to the rest of one’s life,” she tells The Guardian newspaper. The word ‘green’ “is being so overused as a marketing tool that it has no credibility,” says Hannah.

She is right, of course. Advertising people love the word Green – they have rendered it almost meaningless – reduced it to a mix of lifestyle choices, expensive organic whimsies, unaffordable building codes and ridiculous gadgets such as an over-designed composter for your marble kitchen counter-top.

Their shade of Green is the color of Astroturf – synthetic, ugly and potentially damaging.
>>Keep reading “Brown is the new Green”

…in our off grid home. As far as I’m concerned, this was the best Thanksgiving I have ever had. we have been here for nearly a year now, a few days before Christmas will be one year, it’s been a challenging time, but we have done it, and with style!
>>Keep reading “Our First Thanksgiving…”

keep on goingLaptops have never been faster, cell phones never fancier, and plug-in electric cars are just around the corner. But batteries are not keeping up.

Computer chips double in speed every two years but the batteries powering those devices are improving by only about 8 percent a year. Across the country, an industry is working to reinvent the humble battery.

“Everybody is screaming for more power,” says Michael Thackeray, a battery expert with Argonne National Laboratory. It’s not just about gadgets. Many of today’s big issues—like reducing dependence on foreign oil, or greening the electricity supply with solar and wind power—depend on a device invented two centuries ago.
>>Keep reading “The weakest link: batteries”

Dickinson: must fly - planet to saveThe Carbon Disclosure Project is a self congratulatory group of rich and powerful companies whose combined carbon consumption is off the scale.

The corporate CEOs meet at the annual Carbon Disclosure Project jamboree, having flown in by plane, and stay in the best hotels to hear how much carbon they have consumed in the past year.

But the Carbon Disclosure project is not willing to disclose its own carbon footprint.

The co-ordinator of this Greenwash farrago is Londoner Paul Dickinson, a former secretary, who now flies extensively around the world
>>Keep reading “No carbon disclosure here, thanks”

Element Four’s comical little fellaThe number of disgusting things found in the typical urban water supply seems to multiply annually. But is the public ready for a $1200 gadget that bypasses the drinking tap? As reported here last year, apart from chemicals like fluoride, there are steroid-based drugs including contraceptive pills which cannot be eliminated by filtering. These considerations, together with the dangers of bottled water - and the eco-damage caused by plastic bottles, mean Element Four’s new gizmo that sucks moisture from the air and turns it into pure water, may be a world-beater.
>>Keep reading “Pure water without mains”

…that you may not know about me. … This is a continuation of a list 100 things that you might not know about me. Well, let me start out by saying, YEAH I finally got my memory installed! I have waited a long time to get this memory, and I must say, it’s nice to have.

>>Keep reading “3 of 100 things…”

Canals and forests, going, going….goneHaving nationalised the banks, Britain’s Labor government looks set to sell off the country’s forests and waterways to private buyers, in an attempt to balance the books ahead of the next election.

The Forestry Commission which manages the country’s forest stock and British Waterways,the body that manages Britain’s rivers and canals, both control huge swathes of land that would be ideal for off-grid living. In the event they were sold, these possibilities may disappear, although they may also move up the agenda as the new owners attempt to maximise profitablity.
>>Keep reading “UK forests & rivers may be sold”