Category — PEOPLE

Jewel Kilcher - prefers Bravo to Discovery

Raised off the grid in Alaska, singer Jewel Kilcher,  known professionally as Jewel, has sold tens of millions of records.  The multi-platinum-selling singer and songwriter also co-hosts a successful TV series.  But she is having nothing to do with her family’s latest venture – a low-budget reality show following their off-grid lives.

Her father and siblings are cashing in on her fame by allowing cameras from Discovery TV to follow them as they prepare for winter off the grid in Alaska. Jewel has not confirmed she is feeling betrayed by their decision to go for the series without her.  She says the roots of the family are more adventuring than ecological:  “”As a kid, we traveled by bush planes to Alaskan native villages. It would drop us off in the night, and dog sleds would pick us up in the village. I was probably about 6 or 7 years old.”

The simply titled, “Alaska: The Last Frontier,” is just the latest in the ever-expanding list of reality TV shows set in Alaska. (more…)

US Shock Jock Glenn Beck’s Internet-only network is launching a series aimed at showing people how to move off-grid
GBTV, which the conservative firebrand launched as he was exiting Fox News this past spring, is prepping Independence U.S.A.

The series follows the Belcastro family as they try to live “off the grid” in a post-apocalyptic America. That’s near identical to the History Channel’s Apocalypse, PA, in which the same heavily-mustachioed lead character Frank Belcastro introduced himself by declaring: “My name is Frank and I’m not crazy. (more…)

I'll even include a free signed copy of the first edition

Nick Rosen, author of HOW TO LIVE OFF GRID, is selling the Camper van featured on the front cover of the book.

Its a Renault Master Long Wheel Base – diesel with power steering. The price, £2500

In Chapter 2 of the book he tells how he chose the vehicle: (more…)

Cruel Nat Geo series even makes fun of children

This TV show first aired in the US last summer and arrives in the UK this wednesday on an obscure cable channel.  It is the latest in a long line of attempts by the mainstream media to poke fun at anyone who chooses to live off-grid because of the fear that the system may be on the verge of collapse.

Watching Doomsday Preppers, one soon realizes that the use of the term “doomsday preppers” is somewhat misleading. None of these families indicate they believe the end of the word is at hand. Instead, they plan and prepare for anticipated large-scale, near-term disasters, natural (CME) and man-made (EMP strike, financial crash). This use of “doomsday” is like the situation with Apocalypse PA, in which having “apocalypse” in the title was merely a marketing ploy. (more…)

Multi-millionaire TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has said that anyone living off the grid is likely to have a better life than his own.

In a recent newspaper column he describes his move to an unfurnished flat in Central London and says that someone living in a barn and feeding off “what you could find in a hedge” would be better off than him.

In his column, Top Gear presenter Clarkson, 50, reveals  he has been thinking of doing without the modern conveniences of living.  “In recent times, I have become so fed up with everything I own that I started to think seriously about what life would be like without any of it,” he said. (more…)

Clooney preps for next big off-grid movie

George Clooney’s next Directing gig may be a based-on-a-true-story about a former Treasury Department official Neel Kashkari , who leaves Wall Street to live off the grid in Northern California.  He moves into a cabin in Nevada County with his wife, living an outdoor life, and says things like “All this is bigger than $700 billion.”

Mark Cuban’s 2929 Entertainment optioned the rights to the news article “The $700 Billion Man” in the Washington Post by Laura Blumenfeld about Kashkari, who went from the stress of literally running TARP Washington to a cabin in Nevada County’s Grass Valley. (more…)

The prestigious TED lectures invited Mark Boyle, The Moneyless Man, to their Oporto summit last week. His lifestyle practices the teachings of the Gift Economy – the idea that if each of us gave unconditionally – without expecting anything back in return, then the world could function just as it does at the moment, but without banks, mortgages or exploitation. (more…)

Singer Jackson Browne doesn’t just talk the talk. Not only does he have a ranch in rural California that is off the grid in terms of its energy use and environmental impact, he also operates with a plasticfree backstage while on tour, and travels in buses that run on bio-diesel.

Even his stage lighting is outfitted with energy-reduced bulbs. “I wanted to try it myself and see how hard it is,” he said. “It turned out to be not hard at all.”

His next song, If I Could Be Anywhere, has yet to be released, is about the environmental impact of plastic. (more…)

The LA Times and The Washington Post both carried prominent reviews of my “Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America”, but The New York Times merely lifted several stories from an advance copy of the book without attribution (for example this one). I wonder if the (rather stuffy) publishers were upset at the way their paper was characterized in the book?
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