Category — COMMUNITY

We are fund-raising to make a documentary about the ways you can go off the grid and the people who are doing it. The aim is a how-to, told through the eyes of people who are doing it.

You can see a video about our plans here, at Vimeo.  Or read all about our film at Indiegogo, where you can also donate in return for perks such as a copy of the eventual movie, and my book Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America

Please give generously and see our documentary series become a reality.

The biggest donations get a days consultation with me about their own off-grid plans, and a guided tour of off-grid homes near them.

http://www.indiegogo.com/off-grid

The Pembrokeshire community Lammas – hailed as Britain’s first low-impact, low emissions settlement — is celebrating its second birthday.

With its wood-and-wool structures, it could be a village from the 18^th Century or the latest Hobbit movie. But the residents of pioneering West Wales eco-community Lammas believe it may just provide a glimpse of the Wales of the future…

It took Lammas pioneer Paul Wimbush four years and a planning appeal to win permission for the village, which is now home to former teachers, engineers, shop owners and even a political researcher. (more…)

Canada’s No 1 recording artist, topping the charts for the second successive week, lives off the grid with his family.

Chad VanGallen‘s solar-powered home in Alberta has a recording studio, and his wife works in the house as well. For years, he made music in his cramped Calgary basement and cultivated a hermit-like persona in the process. When he needed a break he jumped in his RV, a converted bus,  But his studio — and music, for that matter, went above ground in 2009 after 10 years of literally underground sounds (more…)

 

Blackpool contrast

The New Gypsies by Iain McKell is a stunning collection of photos taken over a decade, of NewAge Gypsies and other off-grid travellers.
The horse-drawn people are a loose-knit group of 800-1000 British, working class families living permanently in wagons spread across the country.  Their numbers swell to a further 3,000 or so part-timers who all converge on various festivals during the summer. They have no ID, because you do not need registration documents to drive a horse and cart. That is why they choose this way over buses and vans.  You can buy the UK Edition of The New Gypsies here. (more…)

A reader of this site sent this appeal to consider his State as the perfect place to go off-grid. It is reprinted here, without additional comment, but we like hearing from folks recommending their own area to off-gridders

I live in West Virginia, and I want to give you the reasons to consider any part of this state if you are looking for a safe, secure place to live off the grid.

First, the people who inhabit this state are already equipped with the basic skills needed to survive almost anything. Most men here are hunters (and some of the women, too), and gardening for survival (not just for a few prize tomatoes to garnish a salad) is still a known albeit not widely practiced skill here. (more…)

…but he isn’t.  He actually lives in an extremely on the grid ranch in McLennan County. But the crazed quote machine has now declared himself the “Czar of Off-Grid.”

He loves to go hunting (nothing wrong with that) and apparently he is quite a sweet guy when you get to know him. Nugent has trained one-on-one, through the years, with assorted troops, law-enforcement personnel, Navy Seals, U.S. Marshals and more. His eye for the controversial statement appeals to us. Like this one to Fox: (more…)

Since Michael Bunker’s book Surviving Off Off-Grid was released at the beginning of March, it has sold 1500 copies on Amazon alone, thousands more copies around the world, and emails are coming in from every direction.
He thinks the refugees from “ mainstream religious systems” are adopting his ideas out of “a disgust with the way mainstream religion is going…..a recognition that religion has been co-opted by the same things that have co-opted politics: Big Business, money, self-interest, comfort, I guess a lack of love.”
A new kind of community is beginning to form around the publication, a loose coalition of self-sufficient people from both the religious and non-religious wings. “That’s probably been the most surprising thing,” Michael told me when we spoke ” — the people who would otherwise not be willing to listen to somebody who couches everything in religious terms. (more…)

2011 MAR 21 – (VerticalNews.com) — For the fourth year, ConocoPhillips and Penn State University kick off the ConocoPhillips Energy Prize. Their goal is to see who can develop the most original and actionable solutions that can help improve the way the United States develops and uses energy.

The competition, which began in 2008, awards up to $300,000 and recognizes innovative ideas and solutions in three areas: developing new energy sources, improving energy efficiency, and combating climate change. (more…)