People

jeremy corbyn
Events

Power to the people says Jeremy Corbyn

jeremy corbynUK Labor Leader comes out for Distributed Power

Says Britain must empower citizen suppliers and direct private investment into green technology

“This week world leaders have begun the final phase in their attempt to reach a deal to keep global warming below 2C. Such a deal would be an important step in the fight against climate change, even if it seems likely that the targets and mechanisms will not go far enough. But we need to look beyond Paris and ask ourselves more fundamental questions that the problem of global warming raises.

I believe that climate change is a problem of imagination — of the limits to our imagination. It cannot be solved unless we open up our imaginations, unless we begin to think, talk and act as if we cared about the future.

This means we must use our imaginations to ask: what would our world look like if we allow global temperatures to rise by 2-3C? It would be a world with a hostile climate: more of the storms, flooding and droughts we have begun to see over the last few decades. Events such as the flooding in Cumbria this week will become more frequent — these are entirely consistent with scientists’ predictions.

Moreover, if we do not turn back this government’s austerity drive, our weakened public services will not be able to cope with the consequences of such events. Despite Cameron’s pledge that “money is no object” in dealing with flooding, savage cuts to public services and flood defences have left people vulnerable. Yet again, this government has failed to deliver on its promises.

A world 2-3C warmer would also be a world of war, in which millions will be displaced and forced to migrate in search of peace and security.

We must imagine this world not because it is a remote possibility, but because unless world leaders are more ambitious in their aims — both in Paris and beyond — this will be the world that humanity has created for itself. The IMF has warned us: “Human fortunes will evaporate like water under a relentless sun if climate change is not checked soon.”

However perilously close we may be to this world, we must also imagine the world we want to create. That world is a more equal world, a more just world, and a world in which where you live is based on the quality of the air you breathe. It is a world in which businesses are producing products and services we cannot yet imagine, but with lower energy and operating costs.

We want a world where governments shape rules that promote public goods — where they protect the ultimate public good of a stable climate in which humanity can survive and prosper.

To do that, we need a state that invests. We need an entrepreneurial, nimble state that neither wages war with markets …

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Off-Grid 101

Interview: Remote, exurban homesteaders in Alaska

Mark Zeiger has been living with his family in an off-grid homestead in Alaska for over a decade . This is episode 2 of our interview. In this film: What are his reasons for leaving the grid? What’s it like to live in an off-grid community?

Mark is one of those who is not looking for publicity – he just wants to help others appreciate the opportunities to live off the grid.…

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Eviction Notice For An Amish Family
Community

Eviction Notice for Amish Family Living Without Electricity

Eviction Notice For An Amish Family An Amish family in Wisconsin woke up one morning last week with an eviction notice on their front door. It was for refusing to fit a smoke detector in their off-grid home.

The court order for Amos and Vera Borntreger, along with their four young children, is for violating Eau Claire County building codes in their off-grid home….because it lacked, among other things, smoke detectors as mandated by the Uniform Dwelling Code.

A judge issued an order evicting the family of six from their home in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin. The Borntregers are Old Order Amish who believe that some modern technologies, including electronics, should be avoided, and the way they live is dictated by their beliefs they say.

County building inspectors tried to force them and 400 other Amish residents to install battery-operated smoke detectors in their homes disregarding the moral and religious issues that this was causing.

Some, to prevent this same thing happening to them, would install the required smoke detectors for inspection and then have them removed afterwards, but some families are strongly against this practice, as lying would also be a moral dilemma for them.

Thankfully, the Borntregers were able to stay in their home by following a waiver process approved by the Wisconsin state legislature that applies to all residents. Under the new law, residents can appeal to the state Department of Safety Professional Standards for a waiver if the rules conflict with sincerely held religious beliefs.…

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People

Earthship project on CNN

Earthship

The divisive figure of Mike Reynolds of Earthship Biotecture, has been in the press again, this time on CNN. His company built 15 off-grid cliff-top homes in Taos, New Mexico. Going by CNN’s coverage you would have thought he built them all by himself – and perhaps he did.

“An Earthship is the name we have given a building or vessel that we use to live on this planet that is absolutely independent of all public and municipal utilities” says Reynolds. The homes are made from natural and other recycled materials that would otherwise go to waste. The main ingredient is old tyres from cars, which are rammed full of earth or (more costly) filled with concrete –  to create solar homes. Earthships in Taos range in price, from a relatively reasonable $250,000 to a staggering $1.5 million.

Reynolds used the publicity to talk about how government infrastructure could benefit from less of a bureaucratic approach when it comes to planning permission and urban development: “If some government or corporation was getting ready to do a city for ten thousand people, they’d spend ten years putting in infrastructure to support that city’s power and sewage….we don’t need that: if I had a thousand acres somewhere, and funding, I could start building a city tomorrow.”

Earthship Biotecture have plans to build an Earthship city, which would be far more sustainable than a modern city. An Earthship community reuses sewage for food production and landscaping and relies on solar power. One problem facing Reynolds and Earthship Biotecture is criticism from experts who say that Earthships are too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.…

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off-grid in North Devon - animals make the money while you sleep
People

Off-Grid living on British TV

Channel 5, the smallest UK channel, is featuring a British off-grid family next month as part of a series which usually visits pioneers around the world.

The show will feature Simon Dawson and his wife Debbie at their smallholding in Barbrook, near Lynton, Devon for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.

Speaking about the experience, former journalist Simon said:: “It was rather surreal. There were times that we were lying in bed and texting people saying ‘guess who we have sleeping on our sofa’.

Throughout the seven-day adventure,  the Dawsons were followed by a nine-strong camera crew, who followed their every move .

Although before filming began Simon said he was not daunted by the prospect on being constantly on camera, he said it took “a bit of getting used to”.

“I didn’t realise it would be all day, every day,” he said.

“Even when we were driving we were still being filmed.

“But after about day three you get used to it.

“It’s really weird how they just became a part of life.

“It was even weirder when they went and I kept wondering ‘where is everyone?’.”

Viewers will also meet the menagerie of animals living in and around their house – small chicks in the kitchen, a beautiful Great Dane on the sofas, pigs, chickens, horses and geese on the land. The 12 beautiful black Berkshire piglets born last year will have grown up by now but will still provide plenty of comic moments.

Have a read about Simon’s antics on his own blog and look out for his next article about dairy farming for the first time in Devon Life soon.

https://theselfsufficientwriter.blogspot.com/

As part of Ben Fogle’s series of New Lives, the episode will air on December 3 at 9pm.

 …

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Community

Stuck in for 3 days

Earlier this week, I only worked Monday and Tuesday, I had an unexpected “vacation” after that. On my way home Tuesday, I passed through a storm, a heavy storm with lots of lightning, hail and rain. I was able to get ahead of the storm and got home safely. About an hour later, the skies opened up, it poured in buckets, the hail, some as big as golf balls bashed everything in sight. I went out on the covered porch and moved the solar panels, I tilted them away from the prevailing wind, it’s not 100% guarantee of protection, but it’s better than nothing. The other bank of solar panels that are fixed in place, we have placed heavy concrete wire over the top and weaved 2 layers of bird netting through the concrete wire. It does create the tiniest bit of shade over the panels, but it has also protected them from damage from hail on more than one occasion.

The creek at the bottom of the property was flowing at flood stage, the water was coming over my neighbor’s bridge by a good foot and a half. We had wave after wave of heavy rain fronts passing through at half hour intervals. We had already had 4 days of good rain so the ground was saturated and the water had no where to soak in.

The rain eventually stopped during the night, we mopped up as best we could and went to bed. The following morning was really eye opening, it was clear that we weren’t going anywhere, and neither was anyone else out here. The roads were devastated, gone in some areas. We have over 70 miles of unpaved roads in mountainous terrain in the neighborhood, we have many many low water crossings. The creek, which is dry much of the year, meanders across the road as you go out. Most of the time when it rains, you might have to drive through a few inches of water, this time, the roads were washed out, large basketball sized rocks (some larger) were left in the way, there were places where you couldn’t see what was below the water, whether it was more rocks or a hole that might bury your vehicle.

We were stuck in for 3 days, some of our neighbor’s farther down the road from us were stuck in 4 days. Other neighbors were stuck out, they had gone out and couldn’t get back in. Fortunately my little community pulls together in a crisis and 30+ volunteers came out to work on the roads, some with heavy equipment, others with hand tools. My road was hit the worst so they worked our road first.

Fortunately most of the folk living out here are aware of the possibility of being stuck in (or out) for days or even weeks at a time, it doesn’t happen often, …

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Escape to Crete - container living
Community

Sold up and gone to Crete

Artist and carpenter Julienne Dolphin Wilding has recently sold her flat in Kings Cross and bought land in Crete. She shipped out all her possessions in a 20 foot container – including all her tools,  her bed, a small caravan she had lovingly restored and her favourite pieces of furniture.

Once she had emptied out the contents of her container onto her new [property, she set about converting the container into her primary residence.  With the caravan as a guest bedroom
“I would love to have done all this in the UK,”said Dolphin-Wilding, “but it wasn’t possible — even if the weather was warmer, the main obstacle is the planning regulations. you just canot buy affordable agricultural land and then move on and live in it.  You have to get change of use permission, and locals will oppose that.
“But I am very happy here and my next project is building some off-grid holiday homes which will give me a regular income.”
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How the Do It Yourself World came to be

Several years back, I found a YouTube channel featuring Troy and his Do It Yourself World, he posted videos about going off-grid on the smallest of budgets, I suspect his budget was even smaller than ours was, and that was pretty small.

Troy seemed to struggle quite a bit, he lived in a small, run down camper, things went wrong more often than they went right, winter was particularly hard on him. But he persevered, he kept trying, he didn’t give up, I think perhaps he didn’t really have anywhere else to go so he had to make it work, it’s amazing how motivating that situation can be.

He has come a long way since that time, he recently created a video explaining his history and how he got where he is now, it’s quite the interesting tale, I’m not sure most folk would have lasted as well as he has. One thing I do know for sure, he is extremely thankful and grateful for his followers on YouTube and on his website.

Watch and enjoy

https://youtu.be/SL2Fl7Sw8Io

Troy’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/techman2015
Troy’s websites https://www.thedoityourselfworld.com/ and https://www.theoffgridproject.com/




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Elaine seated in her permaculture garden
People

Australian off-grid hero

Go back a few years and the media loved to laugh at people who went off the grid.

Increasingly journalists wish they could be doing it themselves.

Take this story by Aussie David Kirkpatrick from a small local paper in elite haven of Byron Bay.

“I’VE always harboured a desire to live more sustainably, but usually fail miserably in my attempts.

I’m talking solar power, solar hot water, chooks, vegie garden, water tanks, composting etc.

You name it and I’d like to do it. At least in my head I’d like to do it.

I like the sound of the term “living off the grid” and yet I am the first to switch on the lights, the TV and the heater when it gets cold in winter.

Which is why I am interested in people who don’t spend all their time talking about living sustainably, but actually go out and do it.

I’m talking about people like Elaine Wood.

Elaine lives in her 8000 sq m “sustainable sanctuary” and she has all the things I want!!

Like solar panels on her roof meeting her home’s electricity needs,a veggie garden to die for, grey-water recycling and the list goes on.

I also like Elaine’s attitude that she simply eats whatever is growing in the garden and pickles and preserves to have produce at other times of the years.

“You have to create recipes out of what you are producing. I have pumpkin soup for breakfast,” she says.

Her life is a fascinating alternative to being an out-and-out consumer.

Making the most of what we do have rather than wishing for something we don’t, is what we should all be doing.

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New C4 show fakes disappearance
Events

UK Channel 4 new off-grid show — secrets revealed

The Cyber Security firm behind a new Channel 4 show has revealed some of the secrets behind the series in which volunteers try to avoid being found by the show’s trackers.

Cyber security experts from India’s NCC Group in Mumbai who are taking part in the new Channel 4 series say it explores the twin themes of privacy and online security.

The programme, called Hunted, claims to “explore the reach of the state’s surveillance powers by challenging ordinary people to see if they can outwit and outrun a team of expert professional hunters.”

But actually the programme has nothing to do with State Surveillance and is all about how private citizens can track each other. And even the title – Hunted – was taken from a BBC TV drama a year earlier.

NCC Group s team of cyber security experts were tasked with tracking the fugitives using specialist technology and techniques.

But they revealed that the “runners” were chosen because they had already left ample clues about themselves all over social media – thereby invalidating the entire premise of the show.

Paul Vlissidis, technical director at NCC Group, headed up the group s cyber security team that worked on the show.

He said it was fascinating to see the lengths that the fugitives went to when trying to go off-grid.

Vlissidis added: People don t realise how much of their personal information is out there for the whole world to see. Disappearing is not as easy as you would think, especially when most people tend to reveal some of their innermost secrets on social media for the whole world to see.

The first episode of the series will be broadcast on Channel 4 at 9pm on 10 September.

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Underground housing guru

How many of you remember Mike Oehler and his “$50 & Up Underground House Book“? I have a copy of this book and if I didn’t already live in a Sky Castle, I would want to live like this, since we have a mountain side we live on, it would be perfect!

I found this recent video, I am excited to find he is still alive and kicking and his mind is still sharp.


https://youtu.be/8B6xR3T37gI

I was quite excited to see how he is living now, underground, and it’s clear his design is still relevant and stands the test of time.




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