From the category archives:

SPIRIT

by spy_vondega on March 1, 2010 · 4 comments

in EVENTS, SPIRIT

Off-gridders White & Teter - Yurt and VW sales will boom

American Olympic snowboarder Hannah Teter has returned to Vermont — to live in her yurt. “Mom has a huge garden and fruit trees,” she told People magazine “and I love it there.

“I helped my parents get solar power this past year, and I’ll be running on solar and hopefully wind power with my yurt so I can be completely off the grid.”

Meanwhile, Olympic gold medalist skateboarder Shaun White says he is anxious to return to his 1969 Volkswagen Van.

Hannah Teter, however, is the off-grid flavor of the month.

»Keep reading 'Off-grid Olympians'

Up in the Air

January 16, 2010
Up in the Air George Clooney's starring role in "Up in the Air" is a movie about a special class of off-gridder - the business traveller - living in a peculiarly amoral world, of airports, corporate hotel rates and frequent flier cards. George Clooney plays a smooth-suited consultant whose job is firing people at a time when downsizing is the fastest growing industry in the US.  "We take people at their most fragile and we set them adrift,” says Clooney's character. Directed by Jason Reitman, the hero of Up in the Air inhabits an entirely new state: Airworld, where the hometown paper is USA Today, the laptop-plus-executive-lounge is the office, a mobile phone is the only permanent friend, the indigenous cuisine wilts under heat lamps, and the citizenry speaks a Byzantine dialect of upgrades, expense accounts, and market share.

»Keep reading 'Up in the Air'

Medical self-reliance

January 11, 2010
Medical self-reliance by Susan France Bonner, Author of Opening a Registered Nurse’s Eyes: A Life Altering Journey Across North America. The health care debate in the United States of America has reached critical mass. Over 16 years as a Registered Nurse with a Bachelors Degree, I have seen first hand the problems as well as the possible solutions. The problem for affordable health care  is “government involvement” and the solution is called “personal responsibility”. Let me give ya’all some background on the United States health care system.

»Keep reading 'Medical self-reliance'

Humanure – sawdust toilets

December 13, 2009
Humanure – sawdust toilets Sit, flush and forget, that's what most of us do, multiple times a day. Composting toilets are the answer. We use perfectly good, drinkable water to flush our waste --  what a waste it truly is! After we flush, we don't think about all the water that is used/wasted to process the sewage that is created, chemicals are pumped into our water system, the water we DRINK, so that we can do it all over again. I'm starting to sound pretty green aren't I?

»Keep reading 'Humanure – sawdust toilets'

Grid pollution kills 24,000 Americans a year”

November 27, 2009
Grid pollution kills 24,000 Americans a year” The coal-fuelled grid is the US’ biggest polluter pumping out three times as much CO2 as all the nation’s cars put together, says a new report. The study by environmental lobby group Environment America details the full extent of environmental damage caused by power plants in the US. It lists the country’s dirtiest 100 power plants and identifies Texas as the dirtiest state by far. Released this week, the report examines carbon dioxide emissions from power plants across the country using 2007 data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

»Keep reading 'Grid pollution kills 24,000 Americans a year”'

My Off-grid plan

October 30, 2009
My Off-grid planTreetop Jen has returned home to the UK, and now she is wondering how to reshape her life. Aim: to live off-grid in the back of  a minibus, simply parked in a  'normal' town, with a job in the charity sector, still part of  'normal' society. WHY? Hmmm...where to begin? Well - like most people, I have spent some of my time in life pondering on the future; imagining how my life may turn out & how I might feel in each of the imagined outcomes. I also spent (& still spend) time observing my others' lives around me as they currently are. These two activities left me less & less inclined to live in an 'ordinary' house with a mortgage & equally less willing to rent accommodation;

»Keep reading 'My Off-grid plan'

Sustainable Medicine, Cuba and Peak Oil

October 20, 2009
Sustainable Medicine, Cuba and Peak Oil Didi: Eco-doc Didi Pershouse is founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine in Thetford Center, Vermont. I have been in the world of alternative health care for almost twenty years now, five years in school and fifteen more in practice in the small town where I live. I started off in my twenties as a writer and editor in New York City. I was working in a department called Creative Services at New York Magazine: my job was half way between editorial and advertising, so I saw both sides of the system there. Sitting at an ancient computer monitor with smokers all around me in an office where the windows didn’t open, I developed headaches and back pain and all the usual office-job illnesses, so I ended up going to a variety of alternatives—chiropractors, homeopaths, acupuncturists, and yoga classes—to try to get better. Eventually I started studying alternative therapies and got certified as a yoga teacher and shiatsu practitioner, and then I quit my job

»Keep reading 'Sustainable Medicine, Cuba and Peak Oil'

Greed cheerleaders sleaze splurge

October 4, 2009
Greed cheerleaders sleaze splurge

I’d like to think that we have entered the post-consumer era – a time when gross flaunting of wealth seems passé and we are more concerned with community and integrity than an 80s style dash for cash.

But when Simon Cowell of American Idol, and British artist Tracey  Emin, agree on something, you had better listen. Both of  them got famous by knowing which way the wind was blowing, and both these media luvvies have just proudly come out as greedy, loudmouth  show-offs,  infatuated with their own wealth.

»Keep reading 'Greed cheerleaders sleaze splurge'

LaMar’s Simple Solar Homesteading videos

October 1, 2009
LaMar’s Simple Solar Homesteading videos

Some time back, I did a review of LaMar's Simple Solar Homestead, a great (and inexpensive) ebook created by LaMar, the great thing about LaMar, is he is actually LIVING this lifestyle, not just spouting theory.

»Keep reading 'LaMar’s Simple Solar Homesteading videos'

← Previous Entries