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February 2015

People

Book Review – The Utopia Experiment

dylanevansThe Utopia Experiment by Dylan Evans – Picador, $15.99, UK version €15.99

LIFE wasn’t so bad for author Dylan Evans in 2006. He was about to turn 40. He’d a good job at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence research, working in a robotics lab in Bristol. He lived in a cottage he’d bought in the Cotswolds and he’d found a girlfriend he fell in love with.

He tossed it all to one side, however, so he could live in a field in the Scottish Highlands.

Evans wanted to find out what it’d be like to live in a post-apocalyptic world — a real-life role- play where people had to make their own clothes, generate energy and forage for their food.

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Community

A wonderful off-grid couple

stonecampThere are many off the grid tutorial videos about nearly anything having to do with off-grid life, there are a precious few about the people themselves, the why instead of the how. I enjoyed watching this video about Teddy and Kathy Carns and their off-grid life. Not only does it show some of the how, but it shows the why as well as their journey they are on. There is reality too, Kathy quit work to join Teddy living off-grid, but they soon discovered, much like us, that there needs to be some income coming in to pay for the things that you can’t barter for, things like taxes and such. I love it that it is Kathy who went back to work, in a field she obviously loves, this mirrors our life in so many ways, even down to the saving and dividing their trash into things that are biodegradable and those that are not, they don’t get rid of what isn’t biodegradable, they clean it and save it for future use.

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Community

UK Green Leader Needs New Script. We Can Help Her.

Natalie Bennett, leader of the UK Green party, had a car-crash interview today as she attempted to explain the party’s housing policy to an unsympathetic radio host.

Their aim, she said, is to build 500,000 new homes at £60,000 apiece, but she seemed to have forgotten how these homes would be built, how they would pay for the land and in fact anything at all about the homes.

She told Nick Ferrari on LBC that the money would come from cancelling mortgage tax relief for Landlords, raising £2.7 billion.

How are you going to pay for the land? Ferrari asked repeatedly.

Here’s how Natalie: there is a national housing crisis, a national emergency, and special measures are called for.

They would, for starters, be Tiny Homes.

As long as the homes are not allowed to be resold at a profit by their new owners, and as long as they are eco-homes — not connected to the grid in any way, they can be seen as falling into a special category.

The land could be agricultural land, costing roughly £8,000 an acre, or as little as £500 per home.

Because the homes would also be smallholdings, where the residents could cultivate crops and livestock, there is a pre-existing legal category for these homes, known as agricultural tied.

Local councils would give planning permission for a change of use on the land from agricultural to residential only after the land had been secured by a specially created development company, to avoid speculators cashing in. The councils would benefit from an influx of ratepayers and employment opportunities.

Because they would collect their own water and generate their own energy, the homes would require very little infrastructure – only good road access and public transport.So the £60,000 figure is perfectly achievable.

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Alsford forecasts Australians unplugging from the system
Urban

Why Australians are getting off the grid

New South Wales, 22 Feb – Dr Kristin Alford, a futurist and founder of Adelaide-firm Bridge8 which consults to governments and the private sector, describes her work as getting people to think “more efficiently” about the future. She says part of the problem is that governments look at future problems with a “past or present mindset”.

Forget about the complex tax arrangements of Google and Amazon that are sapping governments’ ability to collect tax. These problems will be dwarfed as technology and the economy evolves to the point where ordinary taxpayers turn their backs on the mass-market, mass-distribution model that has dominated society since the Industrial Revolution. Instead local products and services will be king.

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looking to join or start a off-grid community

hi my is adam i am 26 yo i love to cook and hunt i am looking to join or create a off-grid community i have been researching and planing this since i was about 16 yo my skills include cooking hunting skinning traping fishing.. if i was going to start a off-grid community i would need a couple other like mindead people to help with the planning, securing land and the other several details. hope to hear from others soon

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Community

Mobile living

Mobile living
A few months ago, a long lost friend appeared back in my life, a friend I knew when I was an early teen but lost contact with, all these years later we reunited and picked our friendship right up where we left off. I learned that my friend lived in her van, that does not mean she is “homeless”, she lives this way by choice and actually lives a pretty interesting life. You can read about her here.

Through following her on FaceBook and making friends with her friends on there, people who also live a mobile life, I found a very interesting fellow, Bob Wells, he is an experienced, long term, successful and happy vandweller. After perusing his website, where he shares so much of his experiences to help other people live this life, I had to share him with you. I am so very impressed with him, turns out I’m not the only one impressed with him, he is in a documentary about people who gave up a permanent stick built home, who have gone off the grid, on the road, who travel where they wish, when they wish, the freedom these folk enjoy is beyond words.

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Community

On demand water heater

waterheater1

There are a few needs, requirements for life, food, water, shelter, once those basic requirements are met, after that come the things that make life pleasant. When we first moved to our off-grid home, we lived in little more than a box (16X16) with few amenities. Most wouldn’t even consider living this way, but for me, for us it was paradise, living rough was just a small inconvenience, a small road bump on the road of our life.

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Show the Love for Valentine’s Day


Stars including Stephen Fry, David Harewood, Dermot O’Leary, Jarvis Cocker and Emilia Fox are spearheading a new global environmental campaign.
Together with over 100 organisations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, RSPB and WWF – The Climate Coalition’s has launched an ongoing campaign to ensure world leaders make decisions to protect our planet.

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Food

49 Raw Food Recipes

rawfood_hat50 Raw Food Recipes
By
Audrey & Matt

You may:
– already be following a raw food diet (100% or less)
– know about raw food and want to learn more about how to prepare certain dishes
– be completely new to it

Regardless, this post will get you through 50 delicious raw food recipes as they should be eaten, leading you to a life where you:
can eat tasty meals everyday without putting on weight.
can have deserts that don’t make your insulin spike in your blood stream.
can enjoy creamy dishes even if you’re lactose intolerant.
can still eat ‘pasta’ and be gluten-free!

Processed and junk food are too easily available and marketed outrageously, it is difficult to
follow the path of health. That’s why we want to share our passion for healthy and real food
with you and make you aware of the infinite possibilities that the raw food diet allows.

In the raw food diet you will find only:
– vegetables
– fruits
– nuts and seeds
– seaweed

In the raw food diet you are avoiding all the “bad foods” which are unhealthy for you:
– dairy
– gluten
– animal products
– refined and processed food

When eating or juicing raw food you will need to choose organic food as often as you can in
order to eliminate:
– pesticides,
– herbicides,
– synthetic fertilizers etc
These chemicals are harmful to your health. And you wouldn’t want it anymore once you
realize that organic products may be tastier and more nutritious.

With the raw food diet, you are making the most of the “good foods” by not heating above
115degrees. In fact, you are dehydrating instead of cooking the food. Why is cooking above
115degrees bad? Several reasons:

– It destroys enzymes. Enzymes are essentials molecules in the digestion process and
the absorption of food nutrients
– It changes the molecular structure of the food. The food then becomes
unrecognizable by the body which triggers a defensive reaction by sending white
blood cells for protection
– It destroys the nutrients of the food

By cooking the food above 115 degrees, you are making your food “dead”, i.e.: without
enzymes or nutrients.

The satiety feeling we have is caused by the body’s demand to have enough nutrients to
function for a certain period of time. With food deprived of nutrients and enzymes, your
body will keep on telling you to eat until it feels it gets what it asks for. Your tendency is to
eat more that you should really be eating.

Raw food is the ultimate diet for achieving and maintaining good health and ideal weight, a
great well-being and staying young so go ahead and immerse yourself in the kitchen with all
the recipes you are about to try!

Enjoy!

Table of Contents – Download Link to full PDF at end
1- STARTERS…

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Community

Fantasy castle on wheels

06When I first saw this, I wondered how interesting this might be, then I watched the video, I’m blown away, so is PB, he was even impressed, and that’s no easy task.

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Community

Squeezing the photons

photonssm

Squeezing those photons, that’s what I call it when we don’t have much power. Our solar system is small, and most of the time, it holds us pretty well, we usually have an abundance of sunshine, and as typical in Texas, even on those overcast days, the sun often shines for a while during the day.

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