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April 2012

People

Bollywood star’s off-grid home

India is one of the world’s most off-grid countries – mainly because so many of its inhabitants were never on the grid in the first place.  As hundreds of millions struggle to get connected, Bollywood actress Gul Panag will throw open the doors of her weekend home, one of the first in India to be built to eco standards.

Indians say it’s a leg up for the green home movement, and in that upwardly mobile culture, want to move away from just the symbolic rain-water-harvesting-and-solar- panel installation design to an expensively laid out vision, capped by a system of evaluation, rating and certification.

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We were an island

Art and Nan Kellam bought an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine in 1949 and lived there for more than 35 years, content with little more than each other’s company. They had no electricity or running water, and heated the house they built with firewood from their forest. To fetch supplies, they rowed a dory several miles to the mainland and back.

New Jersey native and avid conservationist Peter Blanchard III tells the unusual love story of Art and Nan Kellam in “We Were an Island,” a book based largely on journals kept by the Kellams.

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People

Fred Eaglesmith

Canadian Country singer  Fred Eaglesmith is our kind of environmentalist.

“I’m not part of the trend. I’m not part of the Green Revolution,” he tells the Globe and Mail. “I don’t like the green revolution. Fashion is always a bad thing. It is very fashionable to be green right now. That means it will go away.”

He’s pushing a new album at the moment – needs to be a bit controversial, but we’re liking it.  Nick Rosen wrote an article a couple of years back – Brown is the new Green, and Eaglesmith is echoing that philosophy when he says “Corporations love it. Now they are marketing green. It’s just horrible. Green will go the way of the wide-legged pant.

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Now even Zillow heralds off-grid housing boom

Government may not heed it – when do they ever listen to the people?  – but big business is getting the message.

Zillow, a division of Forbes, is celebrating the off-grid housing boom in a blogpost titled “Stories of People Who Are Doing it: Living Greener, Off-the-Grid.” Here is an excerpt:

“Off-the-grid” may conjure images of die-hard survivalists, but the term actually has a spectrum of meaning.
“Now more people are starting to understand how quickly we are driving toward the edge of our ecological capacity on the planet,” said Katrina Morgan, principal architect for Fermata Consulting, a green building consulting firm. “They are not just fringe types anymore.”Many of those disconnected from the electrical grid are living in homes powered by renewable resources like wind and solar. Some eschew other public utilities, like municipal water and sewage systems. Others forage for building materials. Many live communally. Here are a few of their stories.

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Periogen trial and review

I am finally ready to give Periogen a final review (though there may be followups in the future), I must say that I am very happy with it, it does what it says it does, it is removing the tartar from my teeth.

Living off-grid and making very little money, dental and health insurance is pretty much out of the question, so being proactive about my dental health is something that has really become something important to me. I know that many health issues are directly influenced by the state of your dental health, mainly from bacteria and infections that might be simmering just below the surface.

My dental history:
Growing up, no one of my family went to dentists, it was just too expensive. We must have had pretty good teeth though, none of us had any dental problems or emergencies. When I was 16 years old, we were unceremoniously taken to the dentist for the first time. I have to say, that dentist had a terrible bedside manner, this was my FIRST trip to the dentist, of course I had a tartar buildup, he decided the best thing to do was deride me about it, making rude comments and making me feel very bad. Needless to say, it was many years before I went back to another dentist.

As an adult I decided I needed braces, I had very crooked teeth and knew if I wanted to take better care of them, they needed to be straight, and of course there was a bit of vanity in there too, I wanted to smile without feeling self conscious. Well, 5 years and many many many hundreds and thousands of dollars later, I had straight and healthy teeth.

I loved going to the dentist, not to see my dentist though, I had a great hygienist named Beverly, she really knew me and my mouth. All too soon though, she moved away and I just wasn’t happy with anyone else. No one would spend the time she did, no one would baby me like she did, and I need babying when it comes to my teeth and mouth, I tend to be a major wimp about my mouth. I eventually stopped going to the dentist all together.

Move ahead 15 years and even though I still have pretty good teeth, but I had a major buildup of tartar, I knew this wasn’t a good thing, I worked on it myself from time to time with dental picks but that only got some of the worst buildup, it didn’t do a thing for what was below the gum line and between my teeth. I started looking for products that might help remove tartar, I had even looked at some of those tartar removers for dogs, yes I was that desperate. I know I should go to a dentist, but I already know …

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Spirit

Conservative press goes potty over toilets

Lot of stuff about off-grid toilets in the right wing media at the moment.

At the top of the tree, Fox News has been contemplating the horrors of composting toilets. At the other end of the media power spectrum, the Sun newspaper in Corsicana Texas has been railing against men who defecate in the wild.

We had a conversation in our office the other day about men who want to leave their modern lives and go “off the grid,” says the papers prim writer.  Essentially, the women in our office were wondering why anyone would want to sacrifice indoor plumbing, while the guys were simply saying “who wouldn’t want to?”

Meanwhile at Fox they are sniggering about the crazy people who compost their poo:

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Water

Dig a borehole for free water

Thames Water and six other water companies in southern and eastern England have imposed hosepipe bans – but keen gardener Alison Brown can carry on regardless. Like an increasing number of homeowners, she has a plentiful supply of clean, free water from a borehole in her garden.  As the water companies focus increasingly on profits and the quality of the water continues to fall, anyone with a garden could consider providing their own household water by digging a well or borehole as it is known in the UK.

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Mobile

Car is my home, FedEx is my office

By Mooch, owner of Inspired Design & Development – an international Website & Branding company.

I’ve been living out of my car since September 2010; 19+ months now. I have a full-time security job, a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness and utilize public wi-fi spots to work on client projects. And I’ve never been happier or more successful in my life.

Some say I’m homeless by choice, however, I feel that’s a blanket statement labeling my situation. In mid-2010 I could no longer pay rent at my apartment in California, so my Dad said I could live with him rent free.

Thirty days later he asks me for rent, which I could not pay, so I had to leave. Having nowhere to go and no money or steady work, I decided to drive down to Los Angeles to live out of my car, and grow my new Website & Branding business, since I can do that from anywhere.

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Food

Five tips for preppers

From food to money to to water sources – things to consider when preparing for the worst

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