What a great guy
David de Rothschild has revealed he prefers life off-grid and can’t stand carbon off-setting. “There is just something more satisfying about living off grid,” he told me at the launch of the NatGeo control room in London which will be the land HQ for his next great adventure. “You are much more aware of your resources, managing them …. making decisions about what I can use and when I can use it.
“Especially on an expedition you are really aware that you only have limited resources - I prefer living off-grid, “ he said.
The aristo-adventurer, and rumored former boyfriend of Cameron Diaz, is about to set sail on his vessel made from plastic bottles. The Plastiki is a 60-foot catamaran which will be home to David and his crew for an 11,000-mile voyage due to kick off next month, out the Golden Gate and across the Pacific to Sydney Harbor.
His point: If the world continues to create 260 million tons of plastic products each year, it’s critical to find ways to reuse the non-biodegradable material.
Otherwise, some of that trash can wind up bobbing in a spot Plastiki will soon set sail for, weather and sea-trials permitting: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a borderless swath of floating debris that sprawls across much of the Pacific. It is symbolism at its simplest, a boat made of recycled plastic plying a sea of wasted plastic.
He hates being called an eco-celebrity – “It makes me want to puke and you can quote me on that” he said – his normally good-natured tone switching to a menacing growl.
He calls it like he sees it, which is refreshing and all too rare in the privileged world he occupies.”I hate the hypocrisy of carbon offsetting,” he reveals to my delighted surprise. “I call it carbon off-putting.”
He retreated to a farm near Christchurch in New Zealand when he was 19, and set about reducing the divide between man and nature. The place has its own water and is now off-grid ready – it would be completely off-grid but he can’t overcome local NIMBY opposition to his proposed wind turbine. He grows his own food and sells it locally – veg, meat,honey.
For de Rothschild, the Plastiki Expedition combines adventuring with activism, which is the aim of his Adventure Ecology organisation,which raises awareness of climate issues. This one already has scored news media coverage in more than 30 countries. Nickelodeon’s British website has carved out a permanent niche for Plastiki, while National Geographic Adventure has dedicated a full-time blogger.
There will be enough food for three weeks plus emergency rations. Though there will be island layovers, de Rothschild and crew will mostly fish for their supper and collect rainwater for hydration. “There’s a certain degree of self-sufficiency,” he says. “But otherwise, we’re definitely out there on our own.” Some of the crew’s challenges will be self-imposed. The cramped nature of the geodesic cabin means the sailors will be hard-pressed to find privacy, which may come only from hopping on a bicycle straddling the pontoons. Its pedal power converts to electricity.
“Pushing people to confront climate issues requires a range of actions, from policy changes to projects like David’s,” says Josian Heyerdahl, 26. She’s the granddaughter of Norwegian ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl, who in 1947 sailed a balsa raft named Kon-Tiki — Plastiki’s inspiration — west from Peru to show that early South Americans, and not just Asians sailing east, could have populated Polynesia.
A few eureka moments stand out. One was discovering how to make rigid the otherwise crushable bottles that adorn the flanks of Plastiki’s pontoons, there as much for effect as to cushion the blow from punishing waves.
Turns out, when you place a little dry ice powder into a bottle and cap it, the powder turns to gas, expands and makes the receptacle as solid as a brick. So the gang dropped powder into 12,000 bottles — by hand.
“Our boat is just one giant floating water bottle,” he says.
This simple image, de Rothschild adds, could be enough to shift people’s attitudes toward recycling and the environment.
Off-grid Olympians
Fox buys John Twelve Hawks
Take a walk on the wild side….
Robin hood tax pressure grows
Fight to stop the new Super-Grid
Up in the Air
Soccer’s swampy bugs out
Living for free
Johnson & Johnson zillionairess dies, ignored by family
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I bet he picked up all the empty bottles after this bash and recycled them on his eco farm or his eco boat or somewhere down in ol mexico. Me thinks its just another “Contiki” Scrowl down the page until you see Mr. Plastiki making people aware of the dangers of plastiki.
http://www.summerrayne.net/index.php/tag/david-de-rothschild/
Thanx for the link lost sailor, how lame.
out of boredom one day someone on my job showed me that if you spray Quick Freeze aerosol into an empty plastic water bottle, hold it in cold water till said bottle hardens like said brick (after capping) and throw it against wall it explodes violently. This is not a lie.
The latest issue of Outside magazine… guess who is on the cover, with an arrogant look on his face….
Not too surprising.
Look up the history of his family. Whooooooooo!
One only hopes the old Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter on Mars series also applies to planet Earth. The last volume… that’s what’s advertised today.
This guy is a eugenicist, a con artist, and hier to the murderous Rothschild banking cartel. He is all for carbon trading, and world government. He is a fraud. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuNLahhZFJ0
This guy is the spawn of the elite. They think they own the world. Thier days are numbered and thier legacy will be that of traitors. You can spin this boy-child’s life anyway you want, but bottom line… he’s a new generation of the same old, interbred and arrogant king wannabees. Look into his projects further and you’ll see a side of him that the media simply won’t talk about. I wander why that happens? Fear, of those really in charge, keeps the media quiet and has kept them that way for the past forty years.
I’m not sure how to take this weblog. I’m not sure what’s really being advocated here.
Most the Hollywood types that advocate any of these pet leftist issues are closet fascists who support telling the rest of us how we should live our lives. I get the feeling this is eco-fascist oriented, and definitely not libertarian in spirit, which is what most off-the-grid folks I know are.
One does not have to look too far to see inside this twisted soul.
I had hoped for sure he was headed for Davy Jones’ locker room on his latest plastic trip… but we should be so lucky i guess.
Heir to the greatest fortune in history… decendant of the greatest robber barron family in history.
This sick excuse for a tree hugger will soon see how fortunate he really is.
I am just confused as to how I can respect this guy knowing his family’s background, how can such selfish oligarchs expect us to believe they now sincerely care about the greater good? It’s more likely us proles will be pushed further into slavery this time under the premise that we are ’saving the planet’. Why not just ask your grandpa to foot the bill David? He’s more than profited from it’s near destruction, after all.
I do not suppose this man asked to be born into a rich family – it is hardly his fault. The snide comments above suggest that no-one can ever escape their family background, or ever want to try to lead a better life than their parents. This is nonsense. Why blame someone for what their forebears did? Judge them on what THEY do.
I don’t care where or from what this guy came from, self sufficiency is the soul of freedom and people in persuit of self reliance is a mother of invention for the self sufficiency that will be needed to prevent all people from domination by their government. I don’t believe in man-made global warming, green eco bla bla, or the carbon problem. But for the human condition to improve people have to produce enough to provide for oneself and others. I tip my hat to you, from a MN farm boy. I am persuing similar objectives, and it will be easier if others invent and do so I dont have to make mistakes, i can just read about other peoples and avoid the wasted time
Jelousy is a sign of poor charactor, David, go do great things, not all people are pond skum, some appreciate accomplishments from the great and the small. good luck
If he was publicly renouncing his families crimes against civilization, I would consider having a different opinion of him. But he loves daddy’s (stolen) money too much to risk being cut off from his criminal family. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and these Rothschilds are some of the most vile sorry excuses for humans throughout history. He’s definitely pushing an agenda. Just research his banking cartel family and you’ll realize he’s just a different side to the same coin.
Its true. The rothschilds empire hasnt ended at David. He is continueing his ancestors work as will his grandchildren.
The reason he is so worried about the ocean is because it is his playground. The rich love the ocean, It is where they spend thier free time. Rather it be on thier own island or yot, doesnt matter. The rothschilds want us to keep the ocean from pollution so he can soak in the sun with all the worlds money at his disposal.
Mr. Rothschild is doing good for the people and he has done nothing wrong. It is an ignorant mindset to judge someone for assumptions or for something they have not done.
I agree to this article, too. An action to the environmental safeguard of David is important worldwide. I hydrogenate water; with fuel. In addition, I can reduce harmful exhaust gas on the earth 90%. I feel that I sew it with an environmental safeguard ideal of David sometime and am put together.
HAA live off the grid!!?? Your people invented “the grid” !!! Global warming survival handbook…right…come on people wake up!! Do your research on who these people really are! (Huummm Rothschild …humm the same people that started banking..humm the same people that…could they all be related?? hummm..think about ..think about it lol! You prob wont think about it because this here may offend you and so you will dismiss it and not do your research, that’s okay go back to sleep now.
This guy is a complete fraud. I’m not talking out of jealousy. Look into his family background and more importantly their agenda and you will understand is ECO scam fits right into their plan. I am judging him for what He does and what He does is pushing false propaganda on global warming so his familiy and other scums can benefit from a worldwide carbon tax. Global warming is a scam based on fraudulent IPCC report (just google IPCC false report). His family worth is estimated to be around 500 Trillion, yes 500 TRILLION I will write it again 500 TRILLION dollars. Just research it for yourselves and you will see.
I cannot sense that he is himself “a fraud” as a human being.. I see him more as a sort of silver-spooned utopian (well not silver… not platinum.. er something veeery expensive we cannot even comprehend) who believes all he says and is a perfect front to show the world that these people aren’t bad… His family etc.. let him do his thing like say an adult would let a child play.. because at best it’s entertaining to watch and useful as a bait to look the other way.. But I do sense that he as a human being, if we try and forget his background, is honest in the sense of believing in his worldview which must include that the “Elites” are charitable as they do a lot of charity work indeed.. don’t they all.. considering all the Evil they perpetrate.. it is pathetic and ultimately a complete smokescreen. These families/backgrounds do spawn oddities just as Bin Laden was an oddity in his family.. Albeit a very different one.