Posts by — Katie

Ecomagination for all

Evelien Matthijssen went on a skill-sharing weekend for system shifters who want to experience the future (and help bring it about).

Ardennes Belgium, 25-27 April 2008 (more…)

Daniel Start goes wild

Britain’s freshwater rivers, lakes and waterfalls are cleaner, safer and more accessible than at any time in living memory.

To celebrate, photographer and travel writer Daniel Start has set out to find Britain’s 150 favourite swimming holes in a new photo-guide book Wild Swimming: 150 Hidden Dips in the Rivers, Lakes and Waterfalls of Britain. There are sections on skinny dipping, waterfalls, wild swimming with children, canoe camping,raft making and riverside wildlife too You can find an interactive map, plus guidance and articles, (more…)

They’re all at it

Surprise, surprise. The media has finally woken up to the fact that the major energy companies are engaged in a major conspiracy to rip off the consumer. The six biggest energy companies meet regularly to fix prices, according to the London Sunday Times. The Observer newspaper also carries a similar report this morning: “the government can’t � or won’t � do a thing about it,” the left-wing paper says.

But it has always been thus, ever since the earliest days of gas and electricity in the UK and the US, the utilities have attempted to defraud the ordinary consumer. (more…)

Blackle founder Toby Heap

Off-Grid will shortly be announcing a deal with the inventors of the off-grid computer to bring a souped up version to our readers. Low energy computing and communications technology are subjects we will be devoting considerable time to next year, but meanwhile, please check out Blackle, a brilliant, low-energy version of Google. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search, so you lose no search power, just save electrical power. By simply having a black screen instead of a white one, Blackle saves energy, although how much depends on your screen. (more…)

This is the first in a series about going off-grid in the city center,not in the literal sense of cutting off the mains power and water, but focusing in on what matters: by Jaana Nykanen

Jaana: unplug and relax

Its not easy to live simply in a complex society. Or is it?

Ever since I was a little child, I have spent a lot of time outdoors. Growing up in Sweden, long, bright summers would be spent in a house without running water or sewer. My father took me for walks in the forest, teaching me how to find my way, and occasionally we would even find discarded tools and other treasures which we took home.

As my enthusiasm for being in nature grew, I read all the survival guides I could, learning about edible plants and how to bake bread in a homemade, underground oven. It was an amazing place which I hope to describe in another article. I was fascinated by the mission to be able to sustain oneself and live off what nature offers. Quite naturally, a dream of living self-sufficiently started to sprout.

However, many years later, I find myself (more…)

Renewables, please

OPEC is once again under pressure to boost production ahead of a winter supply crunch in northern Europe. The group decided to hike a small amount, an extra 500,000 barrels of oil a day, as of November. ” We don’t see sufficient evidence that there’s a need [for an output hike],” was how Chakib Khelil, the Algerian energy minister, explained the decision last week. “We still have a meeting [in November] and an extra meeting in December where we could make the right decision,” he added.

The market reacted as if nothing had happened: oil broke through the $80 mark on Thursday night.Speaking in Canada last week, Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said he saw no fundamental reason why crude prices had breached such levels. “There is a lot of psychology in the price,” he said.

Van der Veer has a point, but he would no doubt admit that the era of cheap oil has been over for some time. (more…)

Burgh Castle 1818

Self-employed Richard Thorne amd his family live a simple lifestyle near Burgh Castle, Great Yarmouth — they recycle everything, grow their own vegetables and “kill for the table”. Their back-to-basics existence was not bothering anyone, but now they have been given a year to leave their own patch of land neatr a nature reserve. The right wing, anti-green Borough Council sent Mr Thorne an eviction notice three years ago, and a recent public enquiry confirmed the eviction order. (more…)

Nick Rosen in his research RV

Thousands of people are choosing to live in homes without mains electricity, gas or water. Are these the eco-townies of the future? The Guardian newspaper today features Nick Rosen’s call for changes to the law to encourage off-grid living. Here is the article in full.

I reckon there are 75,000 people living in nearly 25,000 off-grid homes in the UK. These are homes not connected to mains gas and electricity, water and sewage or even the phone lines that bind the rest of us into a system that wastes energy transporting it around the country, and loses up to 30% of water through leaks.
To get some idea of how many are living this way, I travelled round the UK for most of last year researching a book, How To Live Off-Grid. I met some of the thousands of normal families living this way, in everything from brick houses to yurts. (more…)

View from Lost Trail Lodge

Brits and Americans are turning to eco-holiday homes, eco-lodges and time shares. It is senseless to own a property standing empty for six months of the year, but there is an alternative — from converted stately homes in England, to purpose-built rented cabins in California, retreats are springing up to satisfy both your limited budget and your conscience.

Lost Trail Lodge in California’s Sierra Nevada near Donner Memorial State Park, the Lodge is a series of four private cabins connected to a shared kitchen with private Jacuzzis, and wooden lofts where kids can sleep. There are large windows looking out on snow-covered trees, and stone hearths that always glow with a wood fire. There is no Internet, and you bring your own food on the mile long hike to get there. (more…)