The Falklands (or the Malvinas Islands) is the world’s most hotly-disputed off-grid territory. Now, just as the UN Secretary-General exhorts Britain and Argentina to step down from the sabre rattling, a new player has appeared, in the form of Trade Union activist and bon viveur, Alicia Castro. The 62-year-old former Stewardess on Aerolineas Argentinas has been moved from the post of Ambassador in Caracas, where she became extraordinarily close to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (pictured to left of Castro), to take up her new role as Ambassador at the Court of St James.

Embassy staff are agog, knowing that she is a fierce supporter of Malvinas repatriation, and will almost certainly send some of the existing retinue back to Buenos Aires, where she is a key confidante of Christina Kirchner.

“We take with great satisfaction the decision to name an Argentine ambassador to London,” stated a spokesperson for the British Foreign Office a day after the nomination of Castro to the position.

“We hope that this provides us with the opportunity to strengthen the cooperation between our two countries, including bettering bilateral relations, working together on world challenges such as combating climate change and strengthening collaboration in science and innovation,” the spokesperson added, without mentioning the differences between the two countries over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands sovereignty dispute.

The designation of Alicia Castro in the role that had been vacant for nearly four years comes at a time of escalated tension between Argentina and the UK over the sovereignty of the Malvinas islands, nearing the 30th anniversary of the Malvinas war in April.

The Argentine foreign ministry sent out a communiqué on Thursday stating “on this occasion the Argentine government would like to reiterate, again, their request for dialogue with the British government to comply with the resolutions made by the United Nations over the matter of the Malvinas Islands.”

Castro takes Federico Mirrés place, the previous and last Argentine ambassador to the UK, who left office in August 2008 at the end of his mandate.

The Argentine government decided to leave the position empty in protest to Britain’s refusal to engage in dialogue over the bilateral conflict.

Last December 21st, during an end-of-the-year toast, Fernández de Kirchner had said that Argentina “would be appointing and ambassador to the UK very soon.”

Castro’s designation to London is a sign by the Government, which chose someone from the union sector instead of a career diplomat.

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. Discovery were desperate for  a new show to capitalise on the unexpected success of Gold Rush (2010). Now they have two. “Man, Woman, Wild”, thew only show to tell you how to make acorns for breakfast,  returns from hiatus in a new time slot as Mykel Hawke, a wilderness expert and former Green Beret, and his wife, Ruth England, a city girl and television journalist, find themselves stranded on a glacier in Alaska. In “The Last Frontier” the Kilcher family takes center stage, though without the family’s most famous member.

Announced in March with the working title, “Mountain Men of Alaska,” the Discovery series focuses on patriarch Atz Kilcher, Jewel’s father. He and the rest of the clan live on a 600-acre homestead outside of Homer that was settled 80 years ago by Jewel’s grandfather, Yule Kilcher. That land is home to three generations, and the show’s first episode follows the Kilchers as they prepare for winter, highlighting their off-the-grid lifestyle.

As an adult Jewel has put down roots in Texas with husband Ty Murray. She debuted in 1995 with her album “Pieces of You,” which sold more than 15 million copies, thanks to her hits “Who Will Save Your Soul,” “You Were Meant for Me” and “Foolish Games.” Fittingly, she is the host of the Bravo TV singer-songwriter competition “Platinum Hit,” where she also serves as one of the judges.

“When Ty and I decided we wanted to start a family, I knew I needed to concentrate on work that didn’t require as much travel,” said the 37-year-old entertainer.

“My husband rodeoed his whole life and traveled quite a bit, so sometimes he’d rather sit at home than take another trip.”

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. I know the world’s not ending anytime soon. But just in case, I want to be ready.”

Belcastro and his family will do such things as build a car that runs on wood in the event that gasoline supplies are interrupted; become an expert hunter in case grocery stores are no longer in existence; and make his own alcohol for barter on the off chance the dollar collapses.
“Independence U.S.A. is the perfect way for GBTV to enter the reality genre and promises to be an entertaining and informative look at how one family tries to grapple with their concerns for America,” says GBTV programming president Joel Cheatwood of the series, which will be jointly produced by GBTV and The WorkShop.
Adds Belcastro: “This show, for me, is a fun and sometimes funny way to get people to open their eyes and see what’s going on. Americans are so reliant on the infrastructure around them but when you can create something with your own hands and everybody works as a team, everybody does a part, you can focus on the positive of this.”
The reality entry will join a slate of original programming that includes Liberty Tree House, Mercury Theater and the comedy news show The B.S. of A, along with Beck’s two-hour show, which is broadcast live weekdays from 5 to 7 PM.

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:I was ignoring anything Volkswagen. For some reason the VW Camper still carries an enormous cachet. The best-designed VWs have been collectors items for years, and by the time Jamie Oliver travelled to Italy in one (beautifully done up with a Cath Kidstone interior) for a TV series, prices were topping £10,000 for a twenty-year-old vehicle. The people I know who have them tell me they break down often (as indeed happened during Jamie’s trip to Italy), they guzzle petrol, they are noisy and uncomfortable, and you cannot stand up in them. All in all they are a puzzling purchase, except for the fact that they look nice and retro.

The first likely candidate for me was an elderly Talbot. At £3,500, the price was right for a purpose-built camper with a double bed in a little protrusion that overhung the driver’s cab. Simon, the seller, lived in deepest north London and was moving back to Newcastle. Being shown around the van by its owner proved unexpectedly to be an unnerving experience, rather like being shown around someone’s home only more . . . intimate. The normal things you say to people when negotiating for a second-hand car sounded in the practice room of my mind like personal insults as I struggled for the right words. At last, I could see the point of estate agents. How do you tell someone that you find their (motor)home a mite depressing, that the oven is miserable, or that you can smell the musty odour of the curtains? When Simon showed me the heating system I was sure I could smell something else gas. It may be OK to buy second-hand electrical goods, but a leaky gas cooker? I don’t think so.
Simon wasn’t going to let me go without a struggle. I weakly agreed to a test drive  my first in a camper van. Simon slid into the driver’s seat to show me how it all worked; I would take over on the return journey. We shot out of the drive and onto a windy back road as he proudly demonstrated the vehicle’s turn of speed. It was noisy and not ideal for long hours travelling across country. When it was time for me to assume the controls, I discovered another vital requirement power steering. This 1987 baby didn’t have it. Turning, parking, even rounding a corner needed concentrated effort, and since I was visiting obscure places on my trip, I realised that power steering would be as important as standing room. I thanked Simon and sank gratefully back onto my Honda 90.
I knew what my wife wanted, a large designer van, well proportioned, snug, solid, reliable and above all safe. With a child along on the trip, safety had to be the primary consideration. But a van that fulfilled those criteria would not come cheap 10,000 at least, judging by the ads I had seen. Viewing Simon’s Talbot was a useful trial run, though. It made me realise that the off-gridders I visited would judge me by the van I drove. Appearance is all, as Oscar Wilde said; what else is there to judge by? I reckoned the only people I would put at their ease with the Talbot would be other Talbot owners.
There was a whole class of campers built out of converted vans, and I figured one of these would be the best bet. Overall, they were at the low end of the price range, which was a big plus. I returned to my hunt for the mythical London street market where dazed Antipodeans sold their mobile homes for the price of a final multi-stop trip round the world. It didn’t exist. Months later a camper enthusiast explained that it had come to an end a few years before when the markets were overrun with sharks who shipped unsellable vehicles from around the country to palm off on the Aussies. A piece of carpet over a rusty hole in the floor; brakes that had no more than a few miles of life in them; that sort of thing. The police had decided to close the operation down. In earlier times the van sellers would have moved to another street, but simultaneously the Internet was becoming the market of choice for the Aussies, and just about everyone else. Why restrict yourself to a Sunday morning in the rain when you can do the whole thing from the comfort of your own keyboard before even arriving in the UK?
Back on eBay, an ad for a Ford Transit caught my eye. It was unequivocal about the quality of the engine, and since that was the subject in which I was least qualified, it gave me some peace of mind. Here’s what you getran the ad:
N Reg Ford Transit 100 SWB Hi-Top Camper 2.5 Diesel 2 Berth (+ 1 small child at a push); MOT; Power Steering; CD Player (Speakers front and rear); TV (240V); DVD Player (240V Brand new, still under guarantee); Gas Cooker (4 Burner Hob & Grill); Paloma Gas Water Heater; Shower; Portable gas heater; Sink; Fresh water tank (40l Aquaroll) with pump; Portapotty Toilet; 3 Way Fridge (240V, 12V, Gas, a bit temperamental, could probably do with a new one to be honest); Front swivel seats; Leisure Battery; 2 x 12V to 240V Inverters; 25 Metre Mains Hook-up Cable; 12V and 240V lighting; Mul-T Lock; New brake pads and timing belt.

A small child, it said. I had one of those.

The van had not yet reached its £2,000 reserve in the auction, and with a few hours to go I sent an email offering £2,500. The sellers were from Nottingham and they did not react at first, hoping for a better bid online, but naively I overlooked this. Another bell tolled when, after they had accepted my bid and I had sent my deposit of 250, there was a long silence. As I had bought outside the auction I had lost the right to comment publicly on the seller’s performance, and thus any hold I might have had over them.
Before I could collect, I had to take out insurance. This proved to be a minefield of its own. Most mainstream insurance companies do not cover motorhomes unless they are professionally converted by a limited number of recognised businesses. After considerable research I found a broker that would take on the job, and they found an insurer that did not demur at my grimy east London postcode. For about 450 I was insured for a year, as long as I did not cover more than 5,000 miles.
The van vendors eventually got in touch and we arranged to meet at a convenient station, Wellingborough, chosen because it was about halfway on a direct line between Nottingham and London. Two hours after our meeting time I was still waiting at Wellingborough station. At that point I should have just taken the final train back to London and forgotten my 250, but I had already bought the insurance, and anyway, after two weeks of looking, this was my van of choice.
Martin from Nottingham arrived in the van just after the final train to London had departed. If I decided not to buy it, I reflected as he pulled up, he would be unlikely to offer me a lift home. He was trailed by his wife in an expensive-looking Subaru estate. They made a strange pair: Martin a gaunt, roll-up-smoking hippy, his wife the cheerful, chubby apologist. Martin was ready to spend all night going over the details of the van, but the bed was all I looked at carefully, and at about five feet eight inches long it was fine for Martin but too small for either me or Fiona to stretch out fully. It could be lengthened by spinning round the two front seats to add extra foot room, but that wasn’t much comfort. But it was now nearly 11 p.m., and after a cursory examination of the main points I was ready to make the purchase. Martin had already knocked 150 off because he had forgotten to bring along the Portapotty. He had also installed a new exhaust, as the receipt he pulled out of his top pocket proved, because the old one had fallen off that morning. The inside of the van was dirty and badly made, but that didn’t worry me as he knocked off a further 100.
I drove back to London relieved rather than delighted with my purchase. There were only two seats in front and therefore nowhere to put Caitlin. Never mind. My Internet research had turned up a removable Ford Galaxy chair with a built-in baby seat which would allow Caitlin to sit comfortably and safely in the back. At night the seat could be stowed outside, and the bed could be made. We would be a bit cramped when there were three of us, but when I was travelling alone and space was not an issue the low fuel consumption would come into its own. A yellow light with a picture of an oil lamp was blinking, but I did not pay any attention to that.
The following morning I took the Ford to a local mechanic who confirmed that the engine was in good condition, and had miraculously survived a long journey with almost no oil. He poured in twenty litres, and as far as I was concerned it was now time to head out on the road and live the off-grid life.
Then I showed the van to Fiona. She could not have been more disappointed. It was, as she immediately pointed out, too small. Small was beautiful, manoeuvrable, economical, I argued. The sort of people I was planning to visit might not be too impressed if we turned up in a glossy love-wagon. And some of the narrow dirt tracks I was anticipating would be impassable to larger vehicles. The killer criticisms I could not overcome were that the van had no space for the baby seat, and it had been converted by someone who was both visually illiterate and incompetent at DIY. The shower area, with its doorway made of surplus architrave from a building job on a gated community somewhere in the north-west, was perhaps the most pointless feature since there was nowhere for the water to run off. I dared not test the fridge and the cooker as I would have been too depressed had they failed to work. The ugly wall tiles, the pointless shower area and the dirty old fridge would have to go; Fiona also insisted on the replacement of the ceramic floor tiles (in a camper van?), which were cracked and therefore dangerous for Caitlin. Never mind the time it would take to do the work, I thought, the cost could well be on the way to another thousand pounds. And whatever improvements we made would never be enough. When arriving to stay with friends, or at a small, select literary festival we were planning to attend over the summer, I could sense Fiona’s rising fear that she would be judged by my bad taste.
Months later I was vindicated when a lifelong van dweller called Adrian, who had spent twenty years studying the question, including measuring vans in the street, concluded that the Ford Transit and its short wheelbase is the best vehicle for long-distance off-gridding. But after just a few days of domestic negotiation it became clear I had made a serious error and had better put the van back on the market immediately. I returned the Ford Galaxy seat to the breaker’s yard where I had bought it a few days earlier for a ton, and accepted 75 back. Then I wearily turned on the computer, posted pictures of the Transit on Gumtree making sure that I stressed the deficiencies to deter all but the most seriously interested and went back to eBay’s camper-van section, a website I had thought I would not need to look at again for at least a year.
This time we got lucky. Within a few minutes we had found a van we both liked a Renault Master converted hospital bus that had just been refitted by James, a carpenter whose hobby was . . . refitting camper vans. It looked great, and it had three seats in front, so Caitlin would be up there with us in the cab. The bidding had ended at 3,500, but that was not enough to secure the van because James had set the reserve at 4,000. I had to have it. I just could not stand another weekend in London, nor the thought of another week looking at tiny photos of camper vans taken from careful angles. A quick phone call to James and an offer of his full asking price was enough to seal the deal. Because I was still within the fourteen-day cooling-off period, the insurance I’d bought for the Ford Transit was transferred to the new vehicle at no extra cost, so it remained only to make the trip to Clacton-on-Sea and hand over the cash. Again I was buying outside the auction system with little or no recourse if things went wrong.
A few days later, with the scent of sea air and fish and chips in my nostrils, I was shown around my new motorhome. This time there was no doubt in my mind. It was the Ikea of campers, with tasteful cork-tile flooring, cream curtains sewn by James’s mum, and hessian-style cushion coverings. It was noisy, but I had now seen enough vans to know that in the trade-off between price and desirability, I had done well for the money. Most importantly, Fiona would love it. The sink and cooker were stainless steel and brand new, and the fridge was free of others smears and stains. It was twice as long as the Transit so long that I scraped its gleaming white panel against the side of a Ford Escort as I turned a corner the very next day. It also consumed double the fuel of the Transit, but at least it was diesel, so I could try to run it on vegetable oil. Numerous websites assured me this was possible. It had an oil-powered heater that would keep us warm as toast and two big ventilation panels in the roof. The stereo had four speakers wired in under the roof insulation. The small water tank meant we would be carrying little excess weight and the water would not go stale and brackish in the summer heat. Sure enough, Fiona approved, and she soon got to work, adding silver foil camping blankets as backing to the curtains, to insulate us against the cold night air, and see-through black blinds against the daytime sun. She also began a search on eBay for a camper-van awning. There was no shower or loo, so we would depend on pubs, garages and the countryside for our toiletary needs, and rivers, the sea, municipal showers or the people we visited for a proper wash every few days.
The engine was good and the van was running perfectly, but I still took it round to my local garage for a service. Mistake. Inner-city garages don’t really get diesel camper vans, as they freely admitted after I had paid the bill. And although they charged me a fortune, it was several days before I was back on the road. From then on I always took it to little roadside garages well away from towns, and had faults dealt with when I could fit them in.

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.If you’re a prepper, you’ll find the show interesting to learn about the motivations, the strategies, and the preps of other like-minded individuals. If you’re thinking about getting started in prepping, this is a primer as to what it’s all about. Just remember to take that “doomsday” and “end of the world” stuff with a grain of salt. Unless you really believe in it, of course.

From the Nat Geo Channel website:

Unique in their beliefs, motivations and strategies, explore the lives of four families preparing for the end of the world as we know it. From bunkers to fortified off-the-grid locations, these doomsday preppers will go to whatever lengths they can to make sure they are prepared for any of life’s uncertainties. And with our expert’s assessment, they will find out their chances of survival if their worst fears became a reality.

The four families assessed included:

• The McClung family- Dennis and Danielle McClung and their two kids live in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. They are billed as “a typical middle class family” by National Geographic. The McClungs fear a coronal mass ejection (CME) is coming in 2012. According to the show, coronal mass ejections are “powerful eruptions on the sun that break free of the solar atmosphere. If these masses of plasma reach the earth, it could destroy our electrical grid, which touches every facet of modern life.”

• The Bedford family- Lisa Bedford, her spouse, and two children also live in a Phoenix suburb. They fear a collapse of the U.S. economy will bring on hyperinflation.

• The Kobler and Hunt families- David Kobler and Scott Hunt live with their families in rural South Carolina. Along with other families, they’ve formed a prepper community in anticipation of a global economic collapse.

• The Larson family- Peter Larson lives with his wife, children, and grandchildren in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. Fearing a nuclear strike (it looks as if Peter is describing an electromagnetic pulse attack in the show), the Larsons have constructed a Rocky Mountain retreat for twelve. For those of you who don’t know what an EMP attack is, it’s when a nuclear device is detonated in the atmosphere, where it’s theorized the resulting electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast will “fry” microchips at the heart of electronic devices, rendering them useless.

Don’t worry if you don’t get the National Geographic Channel on your TV, as the entire show (a little less than 45 minutes) has been uploaded on YouTube here.

On TV: Doomsday Preppers

Prepper(s) (noun): An individual or group that prepares or makes preparations in advance of or prior to any change in normal circumstances or lifestyle without significant reliance on other persons (i.e., being self-reliant) or without substantial assistance from outside resources (govt., etc.) in order to minimize the effects of that change on their current lifestyle.

-Definition of prepper at the Stealth Survival blog

“Wood Powered Car”
National Geographic Channel Video

The media love to imply preppers are nuts.  But I don’t get it.  After all, we protect ourselves in the event of an accident or other nasty situation by purchasing insurance. Auto, health, dental, renter’s, home, the list goes on. Prepping is yet another form of insurance, where time and money is spent acquiring knowledge and “preps” in hopes of maintaining one’s current lifestyle should some major destabilizing event ever materialize. Now, not only is this activity completely rational (what kind of insurance do you have?), but totally admirable in that their foresight and efforts might free up scarce resources for others who are in need of assistance- and who, for one reason or another, did not undertake the same preparations- in the event of an emergency. As such, which competent government and public safety agencies wouldn’t want more of these so-called “nuts” in their communities? After all, that may mean less households to worry about in a major crisis.

Now, one might get discouraged of how far along the families in Doomsday Preppers are with their preparations. However, keep in mind these aren’t exactly your typical preppers. While National Geographic identified Dennis McClung as a web designer, they didn’t mention he also runs 2012Supplies.com. From that site:

2012Supplies.com, online since March 2007, offers survival and sustainable living information and supplies for, what many believe to be, the possible end of the world as we know it in the year 2012. 2012Supplies.com is owned and operated by the married couple Dennis and Danielle McClung.

And Lisa Bedford? Well, she’s The Survival Mom. From the National Geographic Channel web page for the show:

She has not only been preparing for the end of the world but also guides other mothers on prepping with her popular blog The Survival Mom, which she established in 2009. She now has over 60,000 readers a month at thesurivalmom.com.

And David Kobler and Scott Hunt not only have their own YouTube channels,southernprepper1 and engineer775 respectively, but are also prepping consultants, heading up Practical Preppers LLC, “Providing tactical and technical solutions for all your prepping needs.”

Like Judge Reinhold said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, “Learn it. Know it. Live it.”

Now, most preppers may never acquire the same degree of knowledge or levels of preparedness the families featured on Doomsday Preppers have, but that doesn’t mean the same accomplishments aren’t worth aspiring to and working towards.

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.“So, when I moved recently into an unfurnished flat I spent the first evening sitting on the floor, wondering what is essential and what, really, is not.” He admitted that he had never used a washing machine but said he would definitely need a coffee machine, a television and a PlayStation games console because “I can’t really live unless I spend at least an hour a day shooting Nazi zombies in the face.”

He added: “And I’d need some pornography as well so that would mean I’d need an internet. Which would mean some Wi–Fi.”

After complaining about the electronic equipment he bought not working properly, he signed off: “If you do lose your job and you end up living in a barn, with just a fire to keep you warm and nothing to eat but what you can find in a hedge, be happy. Because you’ll be having a much better life than me.”

Clarkson’s marriage is said to be ‘strained’ the newspaper column Saturday provoked speculation that he had moved out of the family home.

His comments were made only weeks after news came out of an alleged infidelity with Phillipa Sage, who worked with him on the Top Gear Live tour.

A friend told the Daily Mail that the claims about an affair were still putting massive pressure on his marriage to wife Frances. They said: ‘I wouldn’t assume it’s great. He stays in his flat an awful lot, especially when he is editing… It is pretty strained.’ But they added: ‘He is always at home Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and some of the early part of the week.’

Speaking outside the family home yesterday, Clarkson said he and his wife were preparing for a party to celebrate their 18th wedding anniversary.

He added: ‘I live here. When Top Gear is in production … I tend to spend time in London. That’s the story.’

The Top Gear presenter used his column to bemoaned his difficulties as an undomesticated male, with no mention of his loyal wife, Francie, 49, who also happens to be her husband’s manager and mentor.

Clarkson and his wife are said to have mutually agreed on the arrangement that sees him spend parts of the week at the Bayswater flat, and weekends with Francie and their three children – two daughters aged 16 and 12, and a son aged 15 – in the Cotswolds.

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.

As interim assistant secretary for financial stability, Kashkari had to defend multibillion-dollar cash injections in hearings on Capitol Hill. Constituents were losing their jobs and homes; Kashkari became the object of free-floating recession rage. He sat for five oversight hearings, whose headlines ran from “Lawmakers Slam Kashkari!” to “Congressman Calls Kashkari ‘A Chump.’ ” In one House session, Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) opened with a round of criticism, and then a Republican finished him off, suggesting that Kashkari resign.

“I wasn’t prepared for their hostility,” Kashkari told the Post.  By then he had disbursed more than $400 billion, invested in 540 banks, implemented a $50 billion foreclosure prevention plan. He made People magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive” issue.

Clooney would be a great choice to explore a man living off the grid after a significantly stressful time. One imagines this could be a lot like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. Clooney has tackled a wide variety of projects from behind the camera and being able to do something like this would be challenging for him.

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.

How Mark would have flown to Oporto in the moneyless society is not explained. I guess he would not have needed to go.

“We could have a moneyless society TODAY. All it takes is for everyone to abandon money and give their services and products for free to each other.

“And without money we wouldn’t need: Banks, Insurance companies, Sales clerks, Tax people….60% of all ‘jobs’ would be gone, and we could finally concentrate on making this planet The Best Planet For Everyone.”

Google The Venus Project. :)

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. Browne has campaigned for years about the impact plastic water bottles have on our ecosystem, primarily with the regard to the ocean. “Why is it that something that is made to be used once is designed to last forever?” he asked. “It’s a supposed convenience, but it’s not convenient at all to be vulnerable to disease.”

Writing the song was no easy feat, Browne said.

“It’s hard to talk about things that require a lot of actual info, and do that in a song, but it is something I’m trying to do. It’s not as if it easy to sing about plastic. But I’m curious.”

Jackson Browne spent much of his childhood in a home built by his grandfather, Clyde Browne, a printmaker and musician who had the 1915 stone house outfitted with a pipe organ.

The Spanish-styled structure, whose patio is featured on the cover of Browne’s second album, 1973′s For Everyman, proved to be a key development in the life of a man many consider to be one of the finest American songwriters of his generation.

Browne is big on the next generation, especially in terms of preservation. The author of the hits Running on Empty, Somebody’s Baby and Doctor My Eyes is a familiar face at benefit concerts worldwide, a humanitarian and environmentalist who for decades has decried harmful policies and practices – often at the risk of his own career.

A quarter-century after the release of his most overtly political album, Lives in the Balance, Browne remains defiant in his approach. “That kind of thought comes up when you see something like the nuclear situation in Japan,” he said.

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?

Despite its recent conversion, the newspaper had not historically shown any empathy for the subject. In an 1854 review, as I mention on page 110, The New York Times, dismissed Walden by Thoreau as the product of “cold and selfish isolation.” Walden went on to become one of the great classics of American literature.
In 1923, they ran with an exclusive story about the building of the new national electricity grid. “One vast power system for whole country projected,” declared the New York Times on July 17, 1923 in a breathless preamble to a front page report written by none other than the Chairman of Westinghouse, Brigadier General Guy Tripp. “The only reason for the existence of such a system,” wrote Tripp, “is that it will increase the welfare of the people served by it.”
Fancy that, an impartial report on the electricity grid by the Chairman of Westinghouse! Anyone who bemoans what the Times has become should recall – its always been like that.
In the late 1920s, a Federal Trade Commission enquiry revealed the exact level of manipulation, and the large propaganda budget devoted to persuading households to go on the grid.

And so to the excerpt, in which a New York Times journalist, I can reveal, shows that he had not quite learned how to clean up after himself. He was visiting the brilliant Carolyn Chute, author of The Beans of Maine amongst others. His story was recounted during my visit there a few months later:

“I had brought food and wine, and Carolyn had prepared soup, so we were able to go on talking and drinking, interspersed with a few smoke breaks, until after dark. I was treated to a range of Carolyn’s opinions, from the lack of vision among right wing militia men to the predictability of left wing activists. “The CIA is always infiltrating things, so why don’t the good guys infiltrate things, use what they use against us. And I say this to people and they just go, ‘oh no, we’ll just do our little lectures and have healthy snacks and sit in little circles.’ That’s the professional middle classes. The working class guys, they form a militia and then just sit around in the kitchen and complain. They weren’t into doing anything, right?” She looked to Michael for confirmation. “Just sit there with their guns and say ‘nobody better bother us,’ right?”
Her first book came out in 1984, and that gave them just enough money to buy the land and build the main house, so they started with no power. Water is from a shallow well.
They had moved from an apartment in town. “There’d be fighting in the next room, banging around. Ooh, yuck. It would get me so upset…Or if you wanted to have a good fight you couldn’t.” She laughed her good natured belly laugh.
I run the gauntlet of blackfly in order to use the outhouse. By the time I return, Carolyn has remembered a visit from a “big city journalist” who left the outhouse “filthy…yuck.” And that reminds her of the New York Times article, and she insisted on taking me through it, line by line, pointing out a dozen alleged inaccuracies, perhaps as some kind of warning to me.
Before I go to sleep, Michael brings me in a big pitcher of water from the well. The next day, as I wake at first light to make some notes, I wish I was not leaving so soon. The blackfly take the edge off the summer here, but there are not two sweeter souls on this Earth than Michael and Carolyn, and it will be hard to tear myself away.
The main house, when I visit it for breakfast, is even more crowded and chaotic than the cabin. There is more artwork, and funny little decorations, like a cardboard TV with the words “Damn Lies” written on the screen, all crammed closely together. Pride of place is given to a huge photocopier, one of the reasons Carolyn had electricity brought in more than a decade earlier. She uses it to correct drafts of her novels, and also to turn out copies of the anarchist cartoon tracts she and Michael produce. She writes the words, he does the drawings, and they sell for a quarter each. ”

Author’s Note: come to think of it maybe it was Carolyn Chute’s reference, above, to journalistic inaccuracies that upset the NY Times rather than the unfortunate inability of their man to clean up after himself.

Sinha: the reds are greener

“Interest in sustainability is growing in leaps and bounds in China, as people experience deteriorating air and water quality. Young or old, high or low income, between 84% and 88% of Chinese urban consumers said they try to avoid companies that harm the environment and prefer green products. And 54% of consumers say they recycle – a phenomenon driven as much by a traditional penchant for thriftiness as by environmental concerns,” said Kunal Sinha Executive director, of sustainability agency OgilvyEarth, China.

What’s more Chinese consumers claim that they will be even greener in the near future. According to another survey by Penn, Schoen & Berland reported in The Economist, the majority of Chinese consumers say that environmental concerns influence their purchasing intent. 69% expect to spend more money on green products in the coming year. This contrasts markedly with the US, where only 38% of consumers expect to increase their spending on green products in 2009, and the UK where just 33% will spend more.Yet another study by GfK Custom Research concluded that Chinese consumers are some of the most environmentally aware in the world. 67% consider environmental problems to be very serious in China, 42% list pollution as one of their main concerns.

And when it comes to translating concerns into purchasing decisions, Chinese consumers lead the way. 65% of Chinese car owners say it’s important for their vehicle to be environmentally friendly versus just 40% of the global population.

Meanwhile according to research by Ogilvy Earth more people in China are dark green than consumers in the US. It found that 48% of Chinese consumers describe themselves as dark green compared to 16% in the US. Only 2 per cent described themselves as ‘not/anti green’ compared to 18% in the US.

This heightened environmental consciousness is not restricted to China. It also appears in other major developing economies. For example, consumers in Brazil and India reported being more inclined to favour companies they consider green than their counterparts in France, Germany, the US and the UK. Consumers in China, India, and Brazil also showed a willingness to spend more where necessary on green products, with over 70% of consumers in these markets planning to increase their green spend in the next year. Their counterparts in Europe and North America, however, are less inclined to pay more.

“Corporate responsibility has often been depicted as a luxury: something that can be afforded in the affluent societies of North America and Western Europe, but less relevant in faster-growing markets facing more pressing economic issues. This analysis is now out of date,” said Sinha.

He said that these results are interesting from a political perspective, since much of the global climate change discussion is focused on what these new economic powerhouses are willing to do to control their emissions. From a business perspective it shows that the market for green branding and green products may be even bigger than generally thought.

]]> http://www.off-grid.net/2010/12/15/chinese-greener-than-americans/feed/ 4 http://www.off-grid.net/2010/12/08/daryl-hannah-slams-steven-chu/ http://www.off-grid.net/2010/12/08/daryl-hannah-slams-steven-chu/#comments Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:38:15 +0000 Nick Rosen http://www.off-grid.net/?p=6303

Mouthy - Hannah raps the climateers

Film star Daryl Hannah is at the climate change summit in Mexico. So far she has criticised the conference center where the air conditioning was on high, despite it was 70 degrees outside – “a perfect temperature.”

See the full interview here: http://live.tcktcktck.org/2010/12/video-oneclimate-interviews-daryl-hannah-and-mary-robinson/

Here is the first, chosen from near the middle of the book. More will follow at regular intervals.

MY NEGOTIATION TO MEET EUSTACE CONWAY, THE LAST AMERICAN MAN

To meet Eustace I first had to go through Desiree, a curvaceous, dark-haired Coloradan with pouty lips and smoldering eyes. She had spent a few years “traveling and camping” before arriving to live at Turtle Island Preserve. “That was when I learned the delights of a cold shower,” she told me. I was very curious about their arrangement. Was she Eustace’s personal assistant and gatekeeper, or his girlfriend as well? And if she had a sexual relationship with the Last American Man, was she his only girlfriend or just his main girlfriend, merely one of many? These were questions to be left until I got to know her better.
We were sitting facing each other in the café of the Earth Fare grocery store in Boone, the big town closest to Turtle Island Preserve. It is easily the best grocery store I’ve found in all my time in the United States, a smaller version of Whole Foods, run by kinder people. The food is exemplary, and the prices are reasonable, especially on the bargain shelf, which is restocked hourly. The prices in the café are the same as in the store, and it has free Wi-Fi and excellent bathrooms. No wonder the entire off-the-grid population around Boone uses the place as a clubroom.
I had been e-mailing away on my laptop until Desiree turned up and slid onto the bench opposite me. I explained my mission, and she said that Eustace was very busy at the moment; I could ask her any questions I might have. My first was whether he really does believe that we are witnessing the death of masculinity in modern America. She quoted from one of his favorite books, The Sibling Society, which she admitted is “a bit dry.” Eustace agrees with its basic analysis that “instead of an ambition to grow up and mature and reach the status of an elder, we are much more directed, these days, into being youthful and immature and unaccountable, careless and selfish.” He also agreed with Dr. Seuss, that “America is a society of obsolete children.”
To me this seemed to be more about a decline in wisdom rather than masculinity, but I began to see what Desiree was getting at. “Eustace sees full-blown masculinity rarely coming to fruition,” she went on. “It’s becoming harder to find role models, elders, hunters, really masculine men.” So are men becoming wimps? “It’s not that they are all wimps,” she said, now relishing her role as the voice of Eustace. “It’s that they stay boys.” She ended with a defiant stare, almost a challenge to me to prove that I am not one of these lady-boy kidults infesting America. I tried to look solemn and wise, and took my own voice down an octave or two. “Do the multitudes who come to Turtle Island to learn building, bushcraft, and land-husbandry skills include any real men?” I asked with a growl.
The answer was that it is all too rare, especially among the self-selecting group that visits the preserve. Presumably it’s an awareness of their shortcomings that leads them to seek help from Eustace. Apparently “as soon as the boys get a splinter, everything stops while they get a Band-Aid. Nine times out of ten,” Desiree said, “Eustace will choose the strongest females in the group to work closely with him.” I bet he does, I thought to myself. This seemed to be the appropriate moment to raise the issue of Eustace’s continuing attractiveness to the opposite sex. Desiree reported that there is “still a steady interest from women, who phone to ask, ‘Does he have a girlfriend? Is he married?’ I just pass the messages on to him,” she said casually, in a way that left me unable to tell whether she couldn’t give a damn or whether she filters the messages first, perhaps subtly changing the phone numbers or discarding the ones that seem too enticing.
“And is he still attractive to women?” I asked, throwing caution to the wind. “The body is just the image that reflects the attitude,” Desiree replied elliptically. “He doesn’t like sugar or get excessive on snacks.” As I pondered that one, I was delighted to hear Desiree invite me for breakfast the following morning. I thought that any further questions about his sexuality had better wait until I had at least met the Last American Man himself.

Gyanesh Pandey, 33, CEO and Co-founder, Husk Power System