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COMMUNITY

Independence or a new dependency?

by Nick Rosen on February 5, 2010 · 4 comments

in COMMUNITY

Don't mess with our forum moderator

Don't mess with our forum moderator

Off-Grid forum has a new moderator – meet Elnav, and listen to his wise words – he has walked the talk for many years.

“To most people going off-grid conveys the impression of independence but in reality they are in many cases simply exchanging dependence on one thing with dependence on another.
I live in the central interior of BC in the Canadian north where the forestry industry has for a long time been the main economy. Recently an initiative to build a cellulose digester was begun. The idea being, scrap wood leftovers such as leaves, bark and even gardening debris such as grass cuttings is converted into methanol fuel. Wonderful ! It captures something that was previously unused waste and produces something useful.

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Cabin Fever

January 5, 2010
Cabin Fever

By Tia Meer

My dream home is an oddball. It doesn’t quite fit it. It’s unlike anything in the surrounding neighborhood. It is, in fact, unlike anything in Central Florida. That’s exactly why I love it. It’s a beautiful log cabin, just 30 minutes from Walt Disney World, but world’s apart. It is simple living at its best. My husband, Terry, and I built it ourselves after getting married in 2007. The goal was to make it as sustainable as possible. Three years later, the finished product puts a smile on my face every day.      

»Keep reading 'Cabin Fever'

Blueprint for sustainable living

December 29, 2009
Blueprint for sustainable living

An off-grid Community in the UK has been awarded £350,000 of central government money to help it spread its low-carbon lifestyle to families across the country.

The Lammas project in the Welsh hills involving nine "ordinary" families living in eco smallholdings in the Preseli Hills, Pembrokeshire, has been named by the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change as one of 10 low-carbon communities.

Lammas (named after a Pagan harvest festival)  will spend the moneyon a "community hub" building. It is seen "a blueprint for sustainable living" and the money is intended to facilitate educational visits. The local government in the area has pioneered one of the most favorable regimes to enable planning permission for off-grid developments and Lammas owes its existence to this planning framework.

The new building will help launch its low-impact housing initiative and pioneering farming and land-use technologies, as well as promoting carbon-positive food and fuel.

»Keep reading 'Blueprint for sustainable living'

A few stocking fillers

November 29, 2009
A few stocking fillers

SO much pointless stuff gets passed around at Christmas. We've tried to suggest a handful of gifts which are both useful and unlikely to be things you have seen before

The Energenie Automatic standby shutdown is a clever little device (sold in the UK only) that powers down your flatscreen TV or any other annoying, badly designed, unecological electronic goods that have been supplied without a proper on/off switch.

You plug it in between the unit and the wall socket, and it does the rest.  Once the TV is switched to standby, the Energenie detects it, and switches it off properly.  

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Senators back mini-nuke

November 22, 2009
Senators back mini-nuke

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 -- The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee issued the following news release: Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Mark Udall (D-CO) today introduced legislation to direct the Department of Energy to develop innovative, low-cost nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Power 2021 Act (S.2812) proposes a program to design and certify small modular reactors (< 300 megawatts) which can be built and operated in combination with similar reactors at a single site.

»Keep reading 'Senators back mini-nuke'

David de Rothschild loves life off the grid

November 15, 2009
David de Rothschild loves life off the grid

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.

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2012 and the age of stupid

November 12, 2009
2012 and the age of stupid

2012, the Movie, is aimed at really stupid teenagers, and was made by a really stupid foreign guy.

The Europeans, as we all know, hate America, but Roland Emmerich born 1955, in Stuttgart,  has such a bias, one has to wonder if he's French.

Emmerich blew up the White House and New York and most other American cities in "Independence Day" (1996). In 1998, he picked on the Big Apple again, having "Godzilla" stomp most of it with incompetent resistance from a number of pinheaded Yankees. (The only characters who seemed to know what they were doing were a team of French commandos -- French, mind you! led by Jean Reno.)

»Keep reading '2012 and the age of stupid'

Palin speaks her brains

November 11, 2009
Palin speaks her brains

Sarah Palin has put some of her stupidest ever thoughts on the record in an interview with foul-mouthed  has-been Rush Limbaugh. See the transcript below.

Idiot Limbaugh was moved to say of Palin; “The intellectuals don't understand her, don't like her. She doesn't analyze herself. She doesn't analyze her thoughts; she just has them and expresses them.” He described her new book  ‘Going Rogue’ as “One of the most substantive policy books I've read.”  He cannot be serious!

»Keep reading 'Palin speaks her brains'

Top govt advisor attacks Big Power

October 30, 2009
Top govt advisor attacks Big Power

The UK is in the grips of a power cartel, says an insider from the governing UK Labour Party.

That cartel actively hinders the fight against global warming by lobbying for its own narrow commercial interests at the cost of local democracy and the future health of the planet.   It’s an argument that off-gridders and anti-capitalist campaigners will be familiar with. It’s not really what you expect to hear from an advisor to Her Majesty’s Government. Yet it is precisely the belief of Alan Simpson, who occupies a place close to the heart of political power in Britain as  energy advisor to the Secretary of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband and Member of Parliament for Nottingham South.

»Keep reading 'Top govt advisor attacks Big Power'

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