Journalist and documentary film maker Nick Rosen has toured Europe and N. America to find off-grid living. His site off-grid.com is a centre for those moving toward a fossil-fuel free life. Why do they do it? We talk motivation and tech in the interview from Radio Ecoshock 110608 29 min.
Most of us won't be leaving the city any time soon. Let's see what energy solutions we can use right now. We go to the UK, for our second interview with Nick Rosen, the author of "How To Live Off Grid" now updated with a new American version, titled "Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America".
Nick Rosen is a documentary film maker, with serious productions for British television. He's been published in the Guardian newspaper, The Times, and many magazines.
Again, Nick is at the centre of a whole movement of people. He's traveled extensively to visit and document off-grid homes in Europe and the United States. Rosen promises he is working on a new film documentary on off-grid life. I'd really like to see that.
We get two examples: the nurse going broke in the Northern U.S., getting part-time shifts, cuts loose to a mobile home on land in Texas, off-grid. Doing well.
There are also a slew of homes in the U.S. Southwest using a combination of adobe-like mud around discarded tires. It lasts a long time, stays warmer in the winter, and cooler in the summer.
There is even a tire and rammed earth "cathedral" at Slab City, California - a free camp site near the Salton Sea.
Nick has a growing list of reasons why people go off-grid.
* Some do it for the money. They can't afford the power bills, or screwed up their payments with the local power monopoly. Others just want to save money, now that electricity and heating oil is going through the roof, and only aimed higher.
* Many don't trust central authority of centralized energy. There was a burst of off-grid, or at least alternative energy back-up, after the three day power outage in the U.S. Northeast several years ago.
In the Canadian province of Quebec, some lost power for several weeks. And we all know what just happened in Japan to the nuclear plants, and the rolling blackouts there. Lefties, libertarians, deep Bible end-of-days believers - plus a whole bunch of families who doubt the future is going to be stable, are going off-grid. That includes some town folks, in addition to those going for a rural retreat.
* Some places have no electricity. That makes them affordable to buy, as long as your can provide your own.
* People concerned with Peak Oil think fossil energy will become prohibitivley expensive, rationed, or not available at all for periods of time. No worries if you can make your own.
* Climate change, natural disasters (like a solar flare), terrorism or civil unrest could knock out centralized power sytems.
* Oh yeah! If we keep on using fossil fuels we wreck the world for future generations and may join the other species in extinction. I realize that's low on everybody's list of motivations, but it seems important, doesn't it? Shouldn't we at least try, set an example, to be part of the wave of renewable energy?
Find Nick's latest book by clicking on the upper right hand corner of this web site:
http://www.off-grid.com
Radio Ecoshock http://www.ecoshock.org
Nick Rosen is a documentary film maker, with serious productions for British television. He's been published in the Guardian newspaper, The Times, and many magazines.
Again, Nick is at the centre of a whole movement of people. He's traveled extensively to visit and document off-grid homes in Europe and the United States. Rosen promises he is working on a new film documentary on off-grid life. I'd really like to see that.
We get two examples: the nurse going broke in the Northern U.S., getting part-time shifts, cuts loose to a mobile home on land in Texas, off-grid. Doing well.
There are also a slew of homes in the U.S. Southwest using a combination of adobe-like mud around discarded tires. It lasts a long time, stays warmer in the winter, and cooler in the summer.
There is even a tire and rammed earth "cathedral" at Slab City, California - a free camp site near the Salton Sea.
Nick has a growing list of reasons why people go off-grid.
* Some do it for the money. They can't afford the power bills, or screwed up their payments with the local power monopoly. Others just want to save money, now that electricity and heating oil is going through the roof, and only aimed higher.
* Many don't trust central authority of centralized energy. There was a burst of off-grid, or at least alternative energy back-up, after the three day power outage in the U.S. Northeast several years ago.
In the Canadian province of Quebec, some lost power for several weeks. And we all know what just happened in Japan to the nuclear plants, and the rolling blackouts there. Lefties, libertarians, deep Bible end-of-days believers - plus a whole bunch of families who doubt the future is going to be stable, are going off-grid. That includes some town folks, in addition to those going for a rural retreat.
* Some places have no electricity. That makes them affordable to buy, as long as your can provide your own.
* People concerned with Peak Oil think fossil energy will become prohibitivley expensive, rationed, or not available at all for periods of time. No worries if you can make your own.
* Climate change, natural disasters (like a solar flare), terrorism or civil unrest could knock out centralized power sytems.
* Oh yeah! If we keep on using fossil fuels we wreck the world for future generations and may join the other species in extinction. I realize that's low on everybody's list of motivations, but it seems important, doesn't it? Shouldn't we at least try, set an example, to be part of the wave of renewable energy?
Find Nick's latest book by clicking on the upper right hand corner of this web site:
http://www.off-grid.com Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org
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